Day 4: Brave Adventurers

Because rest is for the weak, we were out of the hotel by 7:30 to drive out to the mountains and see Lake St. Ann, a crater lake deep in the forest. Since our hotel wasn't serving breakfast yet and nothing is open on Sunday (most of Romania is Greek Orthodox), we stopped at McDonald's. Why would you eat at McDonald's in foreign countries, you ask? Well, because McDonald's is delicious and also because they all have regional variations. In the case of Romania, chicken wings and fried cream cheese and raisin bites.

    

 

 

Then it was onward to the lake, a short distance but again a long drive, winding through small towns where most of the houses had small barns in the back and some of the houses had ornate, hand-carved wooden gates with their family names on the arches (the more ornate the arch, the more wealth the family has). You can also officially add Romania to the list of countries where the Lucases have a speeding ticket, though the cop who stopped us said, "You should pay at the city center, but if you do not we will not send it to America and nothing will happen to you." He was exceptionally friendly and did not want a bribe, contrary to everything I had read about driving in Romania.

 

Then the road narrowed down, sometimes paved and sometimes cobblestones and at one point just dirt, before we reached St. Ann's, which is the only volcanic lake in Romania and which is known for its roaming bears. While we did not see a bear, we did see lots of bear poop, which is why I decided we should not hike all the way around the lake. It was beautiful, still, and serene and we had it almost entirely to ourselves.

 

 Bear zone!!!

 

 

The lake also has a small chapel, history in the picture if you're interested. 

 

 

After leaving the lake and the long twisty drive back to the main road, we noticed crowds of people walking toward an open field full of tents--a Romanian flea market or trade days (we think). We parked alongside cars and "parked" horses and explored--we saw piles of old shoes, bags of cheese puffs half as tall as I am (these were very popular), old video games, horse tack, and fur hats. We also saw the biggest rabbit ever, sheep being sold from the back of a van, cages crammed with pigeons, and piglets. 

 

It was packed and we were getting a lot of stares, so we headed back out to the car to Prejmer, a small town with a fortified church that is a Unesco World Heritage site. The fortress was built in the early 1200s by the Saxons to protect the villagers in case of invasion--each of the families were assigned one of 272 rooms to wait out an invasion, behind walls 10 to 15 feet thick. The fortress's store rooms also held food, water, and supplies to wait out any attack. In 500 years it was only captured one time! 

 

Romania also doesn't appear super concerned with litigation or personal safety, so you could walk up the steps into the various rooms and even under the eaves inside, seeing the small dwellings where people would have stayed and the various defense points in the stone walls. 

 

This photo is inside the church itself--the ceiling and organ.

 

From Prejmer, it was a short drive to Harman, a city with another fortified church. This one was much smaller and again we had it almost to ourselves (a theme of today). 

 

Harman fortress was built in the 1200s as well, and the nice German woman at the ticket window told us to feel free to climb up to the bell tower to see the view. This turned out to be a terrible idea, as the wooden "stairs" are actually an almost-vertical ladder and it was a personal struggle to get myself to go back down from the top. (Did you know you can go down a ladder on your butt? You can!)

          

 The pictures above include the view from the belltower and inside the chapel--you can see the various handmade cushions to provide a little comfort for those listening to the sermon.

 

After Harmon, we drove back to Brasov, happy to have had no near-death driving experiences today. Since it was too late for lunch, we just had a snack at a French fry restaurant called Cartofisserie, which peels and fries the potatoes right in front of you and then provides you with a bevy of delicious delicious sauces.

 

 

For dinner, we went back to Belvedere, which again was amazing--I had a crispy tomato and mozzarella starter and stole Taylor's strawberry sorbet from his candied foie gras, and then I had a double cream soup (spinach and sugarfruit). For the main course I had potato pancakes with mushroom gratin and smoked duck, and then the restaurant gifted us a dessert--a molten chocolate cake with fruit, chocolate shavings, and melon sorbet. 



 

Tomorrow we're headed to Sighisoara, birthplace of Vlad Tepes, and from there we'll explore some more small towns and start getting out into the more rural parts of the country.