Don MillerOnce I found it, Brasov’s old town is really nice. I generally get tired of the European old-towns and Brasov is probably no different, It is pretty much just a long pedestrian walkway with some side alleys but it was big enough and enough variety to hold my interest for the couple of nights I found myself in town.
My main reason for being there was to visit the Vlad the Impaler’s Castle. Supposedly the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was a city bus ride away. Or a bunch of bus rides away if you are stupid.
Europe is pretty efficient for public transportation. the buses and trains and metro are all nicely linked together so it is pretty easy to get from here to there. I hopped on the tram that stopped right out of the old town section and rode it to the train station that’s also a bus stop. This was a bus hub serving the whole city so there were a bunch of benches serving different areas of the city. Only one of which I wanted to go to. There was no info booth to ask for help so I was winging it.
So just ask for directions you say. This is Transylvania, English isn’t a priority. Even if it was, I can’t tell you how many times I have asked a local for directions to an at least somewhat popular place only to get a response like I asked for the cliff notes version of Quantum Physics. Or worse, an offer for an unregistered personal tour guide for the day, for a fee of course. Instead, I just battle it out.
Today was no different and here I was, staring at a weathered and ripped transit map. What was still intact, was in Romanian. I had the city map downloaded to my phone. Busses came and went but I couldn’t tell which one was the right one. My secret trick is to look for other touristy looking people and with hope they actually planned their trip and do what they do. No tourist looking riders to be seen today though
As it turns out, that’s was for good reason. I found a wifi signal at the train station and learned that I was at the wrong bus stop, I needed the Autogara 2 bus station. I found a not so destroyed bus map and found the hub up the road a bit. Since it was a hub, most of the busses stopped there and I caught the next one going in the general direction. I got off the bus where Maps.Me said the empty parking lot was a bustling intercity bus station. There were some derelict looking buses in a corner and an empty sitting room. No maps, signs or wifi to be had so I hung out there for a few minutes before catching a bus back to the first station thinking I misread something. I grabbed a coffee at the train station and used the WiFi again to be reassured that the empty bus station is the right one. So I caught another bus back to Autogara 2 just in time catch a few obviously smarter touristy looking people milling about so I milled about too. Sure enough a nice flashy bus rolls up and I hop on and finally I am off on a very boring non-descript 45 minute ride.
I got off the bus when the other tourists did as they were smarter than me by all accounts. The town of Bran is mostly a tourist market at the base of the aptly named Bran Castle. I paid the entrance fee and zoomed ahead of my unpaid guides because the were old and the walkway was narrow and still icy from the overnight freezing temps. I didn’t want to get hung up behind them as they worked there way up the hill to the entrance.
It was a nice castle. They don’t really mention it in the information provided but it turns out the Dracula relationship strains credibility. Sure, Ol’ Vlad was really not a good guy but at least he had a nice house and a good sense for the tourism market. I am no expert but I would bet that once you see one, you hit your quota. Soto keep the castle weary tourist dollars coming, management wisely went with the theme and added a torture museum to spice castle experience up a bit. Short of a reproduction of the food vending machine at the Autogara 2, it seemed pretty authentic. The little town at the foot of the castle was actually bustling open market of vampire themed cafes and trinket 
shops complete with overflowing parking lots. I roamed around the castle and shops for a bit then caught the next bus back to Autogara 2. Instead of catching the onward bus to the much easier tram station, I decided to walk back to my hostel. It took a while but was pretty easy. I arrived back in old town in time for a large pizza, a chimney cake and a half hearted beer crawl.
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As much as I get easily tired of Europe’s Old town offerings, I enjoyed just roaming around Brasov’s old town and hope to go back for a wider ranging exploration.
But I had made plans to be in London by the following weekend and needed to check off Serbia before I left the Balkans. Spoiler Alert!!! it wasn’t going to be an easy effort.
