Brae. A gay woman's tale!

… In Romania ….. oh damn .. doesn’t quite fit with the song!

Well .. I’m back in Scotland after the most fantastic week with friends in Romania.   My pal Alex and I travelled over together, which in itself was an experience!   Alex has a broken ankle and had booked wheelchairs at the airports .. great .. fantastic .. aye right! … she sat there like the Queen of Sheba being pushed along the long, long corridors of Heathrow while I ran alongside like some sort of Quasimodo from the sticks!!     However, we did get priority treatment and to the front of the security queues etc … so it wasn’t all bad!

We spent the first two nights in Bucharest at the home of my friends … during this time we experienced the drivers of Bucharest in all their glory!   Traffic lights are for decoration, lanes are just paint on the road .. and roundabouts … well .. they are just parking spaces!

To see Bucharest was an experience is an understatement … absolutely fascinating.. from the drivers (obviously!) to the beautiful buildings on show (and hidden away) … a place I would highly recommend everyone visits!

We left Bucharest after 2 nights of being fed so much food that I thought I was going to explode only to arrive in Sinaia in Transylvania and be treated to another HUGE traditional meal at a restaurant in the mountains.    Not only was the company and food great BUT during the time there a bear was wandering outside the restaurant .. not that we seen it .. but Alex and I were like two kids in a sweetshop … until we had to leave  … then I was more than delighted to get into the car before the bear got me!

After 2 fantastic days in the Sinaia area, where we visited Bran Castle (Dracula’s castle) and Peles Castle and saw some wonderful scenery, we moved up to Sibiu … not as dramatic scenery wise around the hotel but the main town was extremely beautiful .. as was a very special little bar we found that had only been open for 2 days .. I think we sampled most of the cocktails there … *smile* … 

We discovered new words in the English language like Parkated .. infact we decided we like the word parkated so much we used “ated” at the end of most words … which at one point nearly killed us all as we were laughing so much in the car I thought we were going to crash!

We had a fantastic traditional meal in the town … along with traditional Romanian drinks … and although Alex and I were very keen to taste everything that was authentically Romanian we did draw the line at pigs brains …. *shudder*

Our final day up in Transylvania was visiting Balea Lake which is high in the mountains up the famous Transfagarasan Road … the drive was spectacular, the lake mysterious and wonderful (still partially frozen over in June!) and we even managed to have a snowball fight!

We left the lake and headed back down the mountain, presuming that we had seen everything exciting that we were going to see … how wrong we were … as we turned a corner, there in the middle of the road was a huge bear … we screamed with excitement and scrabbled for our camera’s .. I managed to get a couple of shots in .. but the do not capture the size or the beauty of the animal … he (or she!) was HUGE … and sat looking at the car for a good few seconds before heading back into the forest.

Our last night ended at 3.30am in the morning … me and one of my friends staying up to chat about the holiday, life and laugh at the experiences of the past week….  it was truly a holiday of a lifetime for me .. brilliant scenery, brilliant experiences and brilliant company … 

I hope to return … 

Some photos of the trip below!