Bulgarian Experiences: Romania

As promised - Romania! Our tour started with a drive around Bucharest, the capital of Romania, an interesting city with some huge buildings.

These were built after Nicolae Ceausescu demolished the ones that were there to widen the boulevard. He wanted it to be wider than Paris' Avenue des Champs-Elysees. Our guide said the man started his career as General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party doing good things.

He built this palace at the end of Union Boulvard. It is now known as the Palace of Parliament. It's so big I couldn't get it all in the photo.

These are just some other buildings we saw in Bucharest

From Bucharest we drove north to see Peles and Pelisor Castles in Sinaia. On the way we stopped to see this church.

A prince from Germany became the ruler of Romania after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. King Carol ruled from 1866 to 1914 and built this palace during his reign. It's beautiful and very lavish inside but we chose not to pay to take photos.

This mini-palace was built for King Carol's nephew and successor. It was styled more simply. Ha.

Next we visited the Medieval city of Sighisoara. I'm not able to identify these places. It was just a cool city.

On the second day, we visited Bran Castle near the city of Bran. This one is sometimes called Dracula's Castle. Actually Dracula's castle sounds more like Poenari Castle 200 kilometers away and was the home of Vlad the Impaler. We learned a bit of history about him. Gives me the creeps.

Rasnov Citadel is located near the city of Rasnov. It was interesting to walk around and offered some great views of the city below and the mountains around.

Next we went the city of Brasov, which was another very old and very interesting city.

Strada Sforii - Rope Street - is the narrowest street in the...world? I forget, but it's only 54-55 inches wide. If you Google it you can find an interesting story to explain why it's so narrow.

The Black Church is called "black" because it burned, I guess. I didn't really get it.

The Black Church contains an interesting collection of carpets. Yep, carpets. They are hanging everywhere. Members who wanted favors but couldn't afford to pay could contribute a carpet to the collection.