Bulgaria: Belogradchik Rocks and Vidin

July 31, 2015

Only 33C today.  Much better.

Last night after we published the blog, we stepped out onto our balcony and were surprised to find that we were in the middle of an amazing electrical storm.  No rain or thunder, but flashes of lightning that were lighting up the whole river.

Today we woke up several hundred kms down the Danube, in Vidin.  We took a 1 hr bus ride to Belogradchik, it was much better than those long bus rides we've been having.  And the scent-free issue took care of itself, since we picked the last seat on the bus and the 4 rows ahead of us on both sides were filled with members of our tour group who have sworn to protect Frankie.  

Belogradchik is a pretty town of seven thousand people in northwest Bulgaria.

The Belogradchik Rocks are a Unesco World’s Heritage Site. They are a group of strangely shaped rock formations on the western slopes of the Balkan Mountains, covering a strip 3 km wide and 30 kilometer long. They are made largely of limestone and are red to yellow in colour, and some of them reach 200 meters in height. 

The rocks all have names and many are associated with legends. Some of the names are Adam and Eve, the Mushrooms, the Shepherd Boy, the Lion, the Camel, the Rebel Velko, and many other stone figures. One of the Belogradchik rocks is named "The Bee Stone" because it hums as if wild bees live inside it.

Two of the most interesting and famous legends are as follows:

The Madonna – There was once a young girl in a nunnery named Vitinya who was famous for her beauty. She fell in love with a horseman named Anton (!) and in time bore a child. Of course, the monks banished Vitinya from the monastery. As they did so, the sky turned dark and loud thunder was heard. The monks, the horseman, and Vitinya (bending over her child) were all turned to stone.

The Schoolgirl – This legend is very similar to the Madonna. This time the young beauty was a student under a cruel dervish schoolmaster. She fell in love with a hammersmith. The hunchback dervish was jealous and pursued her to the rocks, where she came face to face with a bear. Rather than succomb to the dervish, the girl fell before the bear. Once again, the sky turned dark, loud thunder was heard, and the bear, the dervish, and the schoolgirl were all turned to stone.

In the following picture, you should be able to see the trunk of an elephant. To the left of the elephant is a rooster.  To the left again is the first kiss of Adam and Eve.

We had a steep climb to the very top, where we could see the back of the Adam and Eve formation, and from this side it looks as if Adam is reaching his hand around to choke Eve.

Belogradchik Fortress was first built by the Roman Empire, expanded by a Bulgarian tsar in the 1300s, and captured by the Ottomans in 1396, who continued to reconstruct it. For this reason the fortress is still known as Kaleto, which is Turkish for fortress. In 1850, Belogradchik Fortress helped to suppress the Belogradchik uprising and was the place where activists were beheaded. In 1885, it was also used in the Serbian-Bulgarian War.

Belogradchik Fortress incorporates the Belogradchik Rocks as part of its natural defense. The fortress walls are over 2 metres thick and up to 12 m high.

We were returned to our ship for lunch, and then we had time in the afternoon to explore Vidin on our own. Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in north-western Bulgaria. It is close to the borders of Romania and Serbia.

We walked through town, Frankie carrying a map and Anton carrying his GPS.  We found St. Dimitar Church.  It is the second biggest church in Bulgaria. It was first built in the 17^th century as a wooden church, but demolished and rebuilt again with stones from 1885 to 1926. There is a central dome that is 33 meters high and several murals depicting Biblical events. But not just Biblical events: they also tell of the life of the town’s patron St. Dimitar.

Near the entrance of the church, there was a very short glass case with some mummified hands and we could not tell if there was a head under the shroud.  A nice guy who worked at the church came and told us lots of things about the church and the relic.  All in Bulgarian.  Through gestures and nods, we finally understood that it was Mr. St. Dimitar himself and that there was a head under the shroud.  Except partly through the conersation, we remembered that nods mean no and shakes mean yes, so we really have no clue what we got right and what we got wrong.  We got a good laugh out of that.

Next we visited the Osman Pazvantoglu Mosque, built in 1801-1802.  The internet had said that this mosque no longer functions for religious purposes, but we were given a personal tour by the iman himself. He said there are still 30 or 40 muslim families in Vidin.  He was very proud of the fact that it is the only mosque in the world where the minaret is topped with a heart rather than the traditional crescent moon. This was to show the builder's love for a Bulgarian woman. The heart looked upside down to us, we wonder what that means? He built a library in the courtyard for his mother.

For more than 5 centuries, there was a Jewish community that thrived in Vidin, and the second largest synagogue in Bulgaria was built here in 1894. Work was begun to restore it in the 1980s, but the collapse of communism halted the reconstruction just as workers had removed the roof. This left the synagogue exposed to the elements, and now it lies in ruins.

We walked all the way around the Baba Vida Fortress, which is located right at the banks of the Danube. It was built between the 10th and 13th centuries and is the only entirely preserved medieval castle in the country. It withstood an 8-month long seige by the Byzantine Army around 1000 AD.

The legend of the origin of the Baba Vida Fortress goes like this: A Bulgarian boyar (nobility) died and divided his lands between his 3 daughters: Vida, Gamza, and Kula. Gamza and Kula married and squandered their birthrights, but Vida rejected marriage and instead had the fortress built to protect the city. Hence the castle is named 'Baba Vida" meaning "Old Mother Vida".

We were teasing Mike and Carol whose stateroom is next to ours, because we saw his underwear hanging on a chair on his balcony.  So later they looked over and saw our delicates that we had just hand washed.  We've found that hanging things in the shower does not let them dry at all, but a few hours out on the balcony and the laundry is totally dry.

The ship could not leave when it was supposed to because room 209 and 211 had not reported in after shore leave.  They were paged multiple times for 45 minutes.

After dinner we went to a captain's Q &A.  The most interesting facts:  the ship can only travel a maximum 22 km/hr.  It carries 135,000 L of fuel and 156,000 L of water. It has a flat bottom.  The wheelhouse can be lowered to go under low bridges.  That is not an issue for this trip because the Danube is 4 meters lower than usual because of lack of rain.  The ship has its own waste water treatment:  it goes through 3 tanks and the sludge is pumped off by trucks, then the residue is put into the river.

Graffiti of the day:

Bulgaria: Velika Tarnovo and Arbanasi

July 30, 2015

We survived 41C in Bulgaria today.  Barely.

Image credit http://www.hotels-europe.com/info-countries/bulgaria/map.htm

Brief history of Bulgaria: It was first settled by a tribal society called the Thracians in about 400 BC. The Romans conquered Bulgaria in 100 AD. In 200 AD, the Bulgar people settled in the area, and this is where Bulgaria gets its name. The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic Central Asian tribe. The Ottoman Turks ruled Bulgaria from the 14^th to the 19^th century. The Russians declared war on Turkey in 1877, which helped lead to Bulgaria's independence in 1908. Bulgaria joined Germany in World War I because they were promised territory. Bulgaria was also on the losing side of WWII, but avoided open conflict. Bulgaria did not send their Jewish people to concentration camps. After WWII, Russian troops entered Bulgaria and communism took over. Communist leader Todor Zhikov ruled Bulgaria from 1954 until 1989 when he was deposed. How was he deposed?  His own party did not like him, so one day they put an announcement on the radio that he had "resigned".  The country has since moved towards democracy and a market economy. Today the population of Bulgaria is 7.3 million.

In Bulgaria, the locals shake their heads for yes and nod for no.

The ship did NOT go far last night; in fact, we are parked exactly on the opposite side of the river that we got on.  We got on in Romania and are now in Bulgaria.  

Frankie and Annette have to meet with the chef and maitre'd every morning after breakfast to look at the day's menus and choose what is safe for them to eat.

It was ANOTHER 2 and a half hour bus ride to our destination, Veliko Tarnovo. Veliko Tarnovo was named Turnovgrad until 1966, and was at one time the capital of Bulgaria. The houses are set on a steep gorge and seem to be stacked on top of each other. The city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1911, but has been restored.

We started in nearby Arbanassi where the oldest church is the Nativity Church. The entire interior is covered with painted frescos, 3600 paintings.  The paintings are 5-600 years old. You can't tell where the wall ends and the ceiling begins.

Then a tour through some old family's home, the only thing we can say is that they TRIED to make this an interesting day.....  They were really pushing their rose oil as a cure-all for everything from migraines to kidney stones.  

To indicate how old the Tsaravets Fortress is, it was rebuilt in the 8th century. It was destroyed in a Turkish invasion in 1393.  The fortress is surrounded with 3,000 feet of stone walls. Some of the walls are over 11 feet thick and over 36 feet high.

After lunch (there's only a LITTLE gluten in the soup, that's okay?), we were given time to stroll the Old Town along Samovodskata Charshia (Rakovski St.).  Frankie searched high and low for the souvenir plate she had seen online, and we finally found Dimitri who makes them by hand.  He uses designs found in shards of pottery from the fortress.  He bakes it several times at 1000C.

At the end of the tour, someone on our bus said he had been chased because he bought a coke and was about to walk back to the bus with it.  They made him pour the coke into a water bottle because they didn't want him to keep the glass bottle. 

We spent dinner (2 hour affairs) and the evening on the ship.  We are rather exclusive, chasing away people who want to sit at our table so that members of our group can sit there.  We feel like a little family now.  We are SOOO glad we did the pre-extension and not the ones at the end like lots of people are doing.

Ship Stats:  The Viking Embla is called a longship because it is 38 feet wide and 443 feet long.  There are 190 passengers and 50 crew.  It was built in 2012.  Our room is teeny tiny, but is has a balcony.

Bulgaria's graffiti does not seem to be as creative as Romanian graffiti:

Bucharest

July 29, 2015

37C today!

Today was a full-day tour of Bucharest.  We had an excellent guide Ruxandra who really went out of her way re the perume and the gluten free. We had given all the rest of our Romanian $ to Kalin as a tip, but we got out lots more so we could tip Ruxandra.  Now we have way too much.

Our first stop was the Village Museum. The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) is an outdoor museum located in Herastrau Park (Parcul Herastrau). It is a 15 hectare exhibition of Romanian folk architecture and life including cottages, windmills, farmsteads, and wildlife. There are more than 300 structures imported from all over the Romanian countryside, several of which date from the 1700's to 1800's. Museum workers dress as traditional peasants and take care of their respective buildings. Many of the houses are fully furnished inside with period pieces. The earth houses of Straja are dug into the ground and topped with thatched roofs.

The Palace of Parliament is the largest building in Europe, and the 2nd largest administrative building in the world (after the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.). It has 1100 rooms totalling 3,700,000 square feet. It was built by the communists in the 1980s, with dictator Nicolae Ceausescu demanding that only materials native to Romania be used. In order to make room for this building, over a sixth of the ancient city of Bucharest was demolished. This included many baroque palaces, medieval churches and monasteries, and four historic synagogues.  A French newspaper called it cultural genocide.  The building, called “The House of the People”, still stirs up controversy, with some lauding it as an architectural achievement while others see it as a lasting reminder of government corruption.  Ruxandra called it megalomania.  It cost 3.3 billion euros to build.

We actually had to surrender our passports and go through security.  We spent an hour and covered 7% of the building.  There was a magnificent hall, and only one wedding has been allowed to occur there, that of Nadia Comaneci.

We had lunch at a local restaurant with an included folkloric performance.  In Romania, you can pay for your meal with a credit card, but the tip has to be paid in cash.

After lunch, we were transferred to our ship on the Danube River.  We were supposed to leave from the port of Giurgiu, a one hour bus ride from Bucharest, but the river levels are too low, so we had to travel 2 and a half hours to the port of Turno Magurele. There are lots of huge fields of sunflowers.

Here is a map of our cruise:

Image credit http://rivers.affordabletours.com/search/itsd/cruises/7232150728/

We are in a room with a balcony at the back of the ship, and Mike and Carol are next to us which is nice.  There was a briefing after dinner and the cruise director said that for excursions we would be with different people every day, unless we travelled with someone and would like to request to be with them every time.  Our pre-excursion group made a mad dash to the table so we could all be together.

Graffiti of the day:

Constanța

July 28, 2015 

Another REALLY hot day!  Every day has been about 35C.

Today we had the option of exploring Bucharest on our own, or taking an optional excursion to the city of Constanța on the Romanian coast. Everyone in our group signed up except for two who can't walk well.  We were supposed to meet at 8 am, and we waited until 8:15 and one pair didn't show up, so the bus left without them.

Image credit http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/europe/romania/map_of_romania.jpg

It was a 3 hour bus ride to Constanța, which is a resort town on the Black Sea. It is the largest port on the Black Sea. Constanța is the oldest populated city in Romania. It was founded by the Greeks around 600 BC and was called Tomis. Legend has it that Jason landed here with the Argonauts after finding the Golden Fleece. Constanța was captured by the Romans in 29 BC and there are many Roman ruins to be seen. Constanța is named after Emporer Constantine (or his sister, we're not quite sure).

Constanța has a very famous casino (Cazinoul). It was completed between the two World Wars in art nouveau style. We had no idea what that meant, so we researched “art nouveau”: It was basically an art form that was most popular during 1890–1910 and was inspired by natural forms and structures. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. It is a beautiful building on a cliff directly on the Black Sea, with a beautiful view over the harbor of Constanța.

The Saint Peter Saint Paul Church:

The Great Mahmudiye Mosque was built in 1910 by King Carol I.  The muezzin (the person in charge of prayers) climbs the 140 steps to the top of the minaret to call the faithful to prayer. He does this five times a day.

Ovid's Square was named after the famous Roman poet, Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso). The Roman Emperor Augustus exiled Ovid to Tomis in 8 AD. Ovidiu's Statue was built in 1888 to commemorate Ovid, by a sculptor named Ferrari, no less.

We toured through the archeological museum which had lots of Greek and Roman stuff.   Our guide says that the reason the heads of the Roman emporers have no noses is because the new emporer would cut it off to make the old emporer non-important.

We walked around the Roman Ediface. The Roman Edifice was a vast, three level complex which once linked the upper town to the harbor. There were rooms, terraces, and halls, and more than 9000 sq ft of colourful mosaics. The third level is now underwater.

We spent 45 minutes at Mamaia Beach (Plaja Mamaia), which is 8 km long.  We got to dip our toes into a brand new body of water for us:  the Black Sea.

We have exactly 20 RON left after lunch, and that was going to be Kalin's tip, except we stopped at a gas station on the way back to Bucharest and bought water and chips for our supper.  Rationalization:  Frankie told him on the first day about her perfume allergy, and he has not helped at all with seating on the bus NOR has he told the bus driver to stop piping in scented products through the bus vents.  Ugh.

The most common car in Romania is the Dacha.  It is owned by Renault.  The car is completely produced in Romania, and is very inexpensive.  There was a campaign to promote the car in other parts of Europe, which made the Romanians complain because the Germans could buy it for 5000 euros but the Romanians had to pay 6000 euros.

We got back to Bucharest at 7 pm.  It was alot busier because the other 164 ship passengers have arrived. We went for one more walk through the Old City and finally found the Old Princely Court, a place that Vlad Tepes used to live when he made Bucharest the capital of Romania.

We have an amazing view out our 17th story hotel room.

There is graffiti on EVERY building, no matter how historic.

Graffiti shot of the day:

The Real Dracula

July 26, 2015

Even into the last century, the people in the villages near Bran believed in the existence of “strigoi” – people who led normal lives during the day but whose souls left their bodies at night to torment the village. Their evil powers ended at daybreak. The Dracula character derives from these local myths.

Bram Stoker's real-life inspiration for the fictional Count Dracula seems to have been Vlad Ţepeş (Ţepeş means impaler), born in 1431. His father was Vlad Dracul, meaning dragon. He was named that because he had joined The Order of the Dragon, which was an exclusive society for nobility that defended the cross and fought the enemies of Christianity (part of the Crusaders). Since his father was named Vlad Dracul, our villain was named Dracul-a, meaning son of Dracul. Vlad Dracul (the father) ruled in Wallachia (modern day Romania). He was seen as playing both sides, the Christians and the Ottomans (Turks). Because of this, the Turkish ruler held Vlad Dracul's two young sons prisoner for many years. Being raised by the Turks contributed to Vlad Dracula's cynical and sadistic tendencies.

Eventually, Vlad Dracula became ruler of Wallachia. At that time, the ruling nobility class (boyars) were a deceitful bunch and never allowed anyone to rule for more than a few years, thus the high number of princes that had ruled in previous years. They were also responsible for the death of Vlad's older brother, having buried him alive. Vlad took it upon himself to punish them in the famous Easter slaughter. The boyars were invited to feast at his castle wearing their best clothing. As they exited the chapel, the weak ones (including wives and children) were immediately impaled, while the strong became forced labour to help build his fortress. They worked until their fancy clothes fell off their backs. Vlad was very popular with the peasant classes and he often gave them the properties that were confiscated from the boyars.

He was not always kind to the lowly, however. He rid the country of beggars, of whom he said, “These men live off the sweat of others, so they are useless to humanity.” Along with the vagabonds, he invited the old, the lame, and the gypsies to dine. He then fed them, got them drunk, and locked them into the room, which he had set on fire. Thus he rid his country of what he considered a social plague.

Vlad would test the honesty of his people by leaving bags of gold in the square.  No one dared touch them for fear of having their hands cut off.

Vlad Dracula believed that he should be awarded respect for his position as prince. When some foreign Italian ambassadors came to his court to visit, they removed their hats but not their skullcaps, as was their custom, which they explained to him. He then aided them in keeping their custom by nailing the skullcaps into their heads.

Vlad Dracula had granted the German Saxon people an economic treaty enabling them to trade their goods freely. However, the Saxons broke their deal by supporting other contenders to the throne of Wallachia. As of that moment, Vlad began engaging in numerous raids as “punishment” campaigns. He attacked villages, set fire to crops, and impaled prisoners next to the Saint Jacob Chapel of Braşov.

As many as 80,000 Saxons died during his reign, and as many as 20,000 of those were impaled. This is when he earned the name Ţepeş (pronounced Tsay-pesh), which means Vlad the Impaler. I had always believed that “impaled” meant the head was chopped off and then displayed on a pole, but actually the whole body was pierced through on a pole. The pole would enter the bottom and leave through the neck, leaving the victims to die slowly. When the body was discarded, the only visible wound was a hole in the neck (vampire?).  He is said to have sat at a meal and watched the Saxons being butchered, and even dipped his bread in their blood. Thus his later association with being a vampire.  

Meanwhile, the Turks were an ever advancing force that none of the other European forces took seriously, as they were reserving their warfare for their own petty differences. Vlad recognized the danger that the Turks imposed, and took upon himself the destruction of all the ports on the Danube so that the Turks had great difficulty in crossing over. Once the Turks did manage to cross over, Vlad Ţepeş made a “strategic retreat”. He withdrew deep into his own known territory and destroyed towns, crops, and water sources behind him so the Turks would not be able to gain strength from those resources. He sent diseased people into the Turkish camps to spread illness. He made a famous “night attack” on the Turks and massacred Turkish troops. When the Turks approached Vlad's capital city, they were greeted by “The Forest of the Impaled”, a wall of 20,000 impaled Turkish bodies on stakes. The next day, the Turkish sultan and his troops retreated.

Following the Turkish retreat, the war torn people turned to Vlad's younger brother Radu for leadership. Radu had also been raised by the Turks, but did not hate them as Vlad did. Radu was ready to rule with “friendly co-operation” with the Turks. Radu pursued his brother to his castle, where Vlad's wife threw herself from the turret rather than be taken by the Turks. Vlad carried out an ingenious escape by having the horses shod backwards, which confused the enemy. Vlad Ţepeş then put his trust in the Magyar (Hungarian) king, who betrayed him and had Vlad arrested on false claims that Vlad supported the Turks. Vlad was taken to Hungary where he lived under house arrest in the king's palace. After fourteen years of imprisonment, Vlad the Impaler was set free when Radu died of syphilis.

Vlad once again became ruler of Wallachia. It was time to crusade against the Turks again. However, shortly afterwards he died in an Ottoman ambush in 1476, at 45 years of age. It is not exactly clear whether he was killed by the Turks, by another contender to the Wallachian throne, or accidentally by one of his own men. It is known, however, that he died in fitting style: he was killed and then beheaded. His head was sent to Turkish Constantinople where it was displayed impaled on a stake, as proof that he was dead.

Though other countries may see him as a monster, in Romania Vlad Ţepeş is remembered as a hero.

To give credit where it is due, the majority of our information was interpreted from the following book:

Florescu, Radu, and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His times. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1989. Print.

Bran Castle, Bucharest

July 27, 2015

We started the day with our walking tour of the city. Braşov is the 7^th most populated city of Romania. 

The Piata Sfatului (Council Square) is in the heart of the old town. It was built in the 1200s and used as a meeting place for councilors. It contains the Town Hall which was built at the beginning of the 15th century. At the top of the Town Hall is the Trumpeter’s Tower which was once used as a watchtower but is now used for tourist information and the Braşov History Museum.

One of the buildings here has an interesting origin.  A noble couple had a young daughter who fell off a horse and died.  She was laid out in the church.  Some thieves came and tried to cut off her finger to get her jewels.  This woke the girl up because she had only been in a coma.  The parents were so grateful that their daughter was not buried alive, they promised the thieves anything they wanted.  The thieves asked for a building for the merchants, which they got.

The Black Church took almost 100 years to build, from 1385 to 1477. It got its name because of a fire at the end of the 17th century that destroyed most of the town, and blackened the walls of the church. It then took nearly 100 years to restore the church. The church has stone columns and Turkish carpets, and an 1839 organ with 4000 pipes. The church bell is the largest in Romania and weighs roughly seven tons.

Yekaterina's Gate is one of the oldest gates (built in 1559) and the most beautiful. It has been restored to its original state. It has wooden corridors, a drawbridge over a moat, and four towers. The towers represented the fact that the city had judicial autonomy and could impose death sentences. One story tells how Yekaterina and Vlad Ţepeş fell in love and had children. The locals killed her because of her relationship with Vlad, and they built the gate giving it her name. The 4 towers were a warning to visitors that they had to obey city laws. For centuries it was the only gate that allowed access on the northern part of the fortress. The gate was walled up and used for storage until 1955, then restored in 1973.

After a short tour of Brasov (we're glad we were among the 6 who came into town last night!), we had time to go off on our own.  Since we had seen alot last night, we hopped over to the Jewish synagogue.

The Sinagoga Neologa is the Hebrew synagogue in Braşov. It was built in 1901 in a Gothic style with Moorish influences. Hebrew families first arrived in Brasov in 1807 and numbered 769 in 1890. Numbers had gone up to 6000 people by WWII. During May 1944, almost 150,000 Jews in northern Transylvania were sent to Auschwitz and almost all were murdered.  

We also ran up to the Black Tower to get a good view over Brasov.  Along the Graft Ditch we ran into a very sweet Romanian couple who couldn't figure out that their camera wasn't taking a picture because it was in video mode.

At noon we headed to Bran Castle in Transylvania.  Transylvania means “beyond the woods” because it is a dark, forbidding place far away from civilization.

Bran Castle is famously known as “Dracula's Castle”. When Bram Stoker wrote the novel Dracula, he never actually named the castle, but it was based upon a description he had heard of Bran Castle at that time (Bram Stoker himself never visited Romania). Bran Castle is the only castle in all of Transylvania that actually fits Bram Stoker’s description of Dracula’s Castle. The real life inspiration for Dracula was a Walachian ruler named Vlad Ţepeş; however, Vlad Ţepeş did not live at Bran Castle at all. Even so, the atmosphere of Dracula is here: “a magnificent, brooding castle with narrow passageways, secluded courtyards, and gabled turrets” (Viking description).

More on Vlad Ţepeş in another blog; here is the real history of Bran Castle:

Bran is actually the location of the castle. Bran is a Turkish name meaning “gate”. King Louis the Great of Hungary granted permission for the castle in 1377 (when Transylvania was ruled by the Hungarians), and it was completed in 1388. The castle had two functions: it levied a tax of 3% against all goods going in and out of Transylvania; and it was a fortress to protect the border of Transylvania, especially from the Ottoman Empire (the Turks). Thus the ones to inhabit the castle were professional soldiers and mercenaries. There was always a lord of the castle, elected by the King. The castle saw centuries of war, poverty, and different political regimes.

There have been many legal battles regarding ownership between the royal family and the state. In 1407, the castle was entrusted to the Princes of Transylvania. It was privately sold in 1651, and lost its commercial and military importance in the 1800s. It was even inhabited by foresters for 30 years and fell into disrepair. After 1918, Transylvania became part of Greater Romania, and the castle was offered to Queen Maria of Romania.

Queen Maria restored the castle and it was used as a residence of the royal family. In 1948, her descendents were forced to leave the castle and the country due to the new communist regime. The communists assumed ownership of the castle and transformed it into a museum in 1956. After many years of legal proceedings, the castle was returned to the royal family in 2009. The royal family who now owns it are descendants of Queen Victoria with the last name Habsburg. They are 3 siblings in their 70's, and in 2014 they put the castle up for sale. For anyone interested in buying “Dracula's Castle”, there are 57 rooms on 22 acres. However, the property has no plumbing or bathrooms, and is selling for $135 million. The owners are asking that the castle continue to be used as a tourist destination, since it is the most significant tourist attraction in Romania.

We are back in Bucharest at the Intercontinental.  We had dinner with Annette and Trevor, Frankie has connected with Annette because she is also gluten free.  They are from England but have lived in Australia for decades.

We wandered the Old City after supper, and ended up in some very interesting areas.... It's a restaurant, we think!

Graffiti shot of the day: