Days 10 and 11: Travel and More Travel

Since Breb obviously doesn't have an airport, much of our last day in Romania was spent driving to Cluj, the capital of Transylvania and the second largest city in the country.

Though Breb was magical and one of the most memorable travel experiences I've ever had, we were both ready to leave--our tiny little house was charming the first day, tolerable the second day, and downright irritating by the third day, primarily because of the bathroom situation. The bathroom was located up in the eaves--which meant you couldn't stand up straight in any area except right by the door and you hit your head when you 1) peed, 2) showered, or 3) brushed your teeth. In fact, it was so small that you had to step out of the shower and into the bedroom to even dry off.

I am well aware of how whiny that sounds, but since I'm not one to enjoy roughing it and often pick vacation spots based on the quality of the hotel (criteria: did it used to be a palace? does it have a butler?), that kind of hotel experience just isn't for me. It also didn't help that the twin beds were  under the eaves too, and every time Taylor rolled over he would bash into the wall and wake me up. And he rolls over a LOT.

The drive to Cluj was about four hours long, on very badly paved roads that wound through mountains, valleys, and farmlands. It was beautiful but very remote, and also showed very much that Romania is still a developing country; even out in the middle of nowhere there are just piles of trash mounded up and stray dogs everywhere.

I also desperately needed to pee about halfway through, and my choices were either the woods with the bear signs or finding a restaurant--and we did find a bar, which turned out to be a horrific experience of its own involving a urinal spouting water and a puddle several inches deep.

Can you tell this wasn't the best day of the vacation? Well, we got even grumpier--outside of Cluj is Kornis Castle, a 16th century castle known for its unicorn statues. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the most ruined ruin I've ever seen, with garbage just piled around it. It also didn't look structurally sound enough to walk into and the unicorn statues had been removed after someone tried to steal them, so we went on to Cluj instead. And the highway in Cluj is especially terrifying...each side is one and a half lanes, with cars jockeying around each other to get in position to pass each other. As Taylor said, it's a country where it's more important to pay attention to oncoming traffic than it is to your own lane! Part of the driving etiquette seems to be slowing down to let someone in front of you before they get creamed by oncoming traffic.

 

Kornis Castle

 

Despite the long travel day, the bathroom of my nightmares, and the filthy castle, Cluj turned out to be a pleasant surprise and I wish we had stayed two nights--it's a university town, so it was lively and filled with culture, and the meal we ate was good (I had a tomato and mozzarella soup and cheese ravioli, made with different regional cheeses).

 

(Matthias Corvinus monument...he was king of Hungary and Croatia in the 1400s and was born in Cluj)

 

We also stayed at the Doubletree, and my joy at a queen-sized bed and huge shower cannot be overstated.We didn't sleep there for long though, since our flight the next morning out of Romania was at 6 am and brought me my first airplane experience where the pilot said "please use a braced position as we land." Tarom Airline, think twice.

From the Madrid airport, we picked up our car and went to the Westin Palace, which was AMAZING. As a professed Starwood devotee (see criteria for what makes a good hotel above), I was in heaven--a huge comfortable room, a historic beautiful hotel with good restaurants--why did I even go to Romania??? The hotel was built in 1912 and has seen guests like Picasso, Marie Curie, and Hemingway; in World War II it served as a hospital, with the operating room under the stained glass dome.

We did have a little trouble getting to the hotel, since there was a large group of Spaniards having a dance party in front of it and the road was blocked off...I ended up parked at a taxi stand, getting yelled at by cabbies, while Taylor went and found a valet who would run over to the cab stand and drive our car to the garage.

Since I've been to Madrid before, we took it easy--walked around El Parque de Buen Retiro and to the Plaza del Sol, and then called it a day. I didn't love Madrid when I went a decade ago, so I was surprised to find I wanted to give it another chance--but when I came before I stayed further outside of the city center and didn't have much of a budget, so I guess it makes sense I enjoyed it more this time. I would definitely go back there and take advantage of all the shopping, markets, and restaurants.

(From top to bottom...El Parque de Buen Retiro, the Prado Exhibition Hall, which is not the actual Prado, the Royal Palace, and a statue of a bear and a strawberry tree, located in the Puerta del Sol and a symbol of Madrid)

 
For lunch we did traditional Spanish food--cheese and a tosta with ham and tomato, while Taylor had pig cheek; and for dinner we had sushi in the hotel and then finished with a strawberry soup, which was so delicious--a sweet strawberry base with cut tropical fruit and a dollop of ice cream. It was the BEST. I also had a violet and blueberry cocktail, and a chocolate cream cocktail--also the best.

I've been thinking about Romania since we left, and I can't decide how I feel--it was a place of such highs and lows, some brought about only because I'm a traveler who does not like discomfort. Would I recommend it to others? I'm not sure, but I think it would depend on the person...if someone has traveled extensively and is also comfortable with driving in a foreign country, I would say it was worth visiting, especially Breb. But there are other, similar cities in Eastern Europe where you can easily access castles and culture without almost dying daily on the roads and where the food is excellent, so Romania definitely wouldn't be my first choice if someone was asking me where to go. A lot of the blogs I read about the different towns were so glowing and effusive, and I feel like they left out the seedier edges of the experience--the trash, the stray dogs, the coldness of the people, etc.

However, now I'm in Spain, so the blog gets more upbeat from here!

(Bugs in Madrid...a giant black widow as an advertisement for the Addams Family musical, and then some ants-in-ties street art, which I take as a commentary on the monotony and meaninglessness of corporate life...but maybe I am too cynical.)