Romania, the Country Where I Met Pálinka

A twisted combination of Easter Eggs & Pálinka

I have to admit that Draculas was the first reason why I found Romania is so interesting. However, after I visited the country, saw many places and tried lot of local things, I changed my perspective. There are so many other interesting things that tourist can experience other than anything related to Dracula.

Statue of Vlad the Impaler, the guy who started Dracula story

Initially, I wanted to visit Bran Castle, the Dracula Castle, which is close from a city called Brasov (around 3 hours from Bucharest). Unfortunately, I had to drop Bran Castle from my plan because it will take another day to visit Bran Castle while I needed to be in Vienna again very soon. Plus, the weather was so shitty at that time. In the end, I visited 2 cities in Romania, Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca, which are the 2 biggest cities in Romania.

'Man, Time, and Space' statue

Since the weather was not the best at that time, I didn’t spend too much time outside. I was so lucky because there was a couchsurfer, named Vlad, who spared his time and helped me showing around Bucharest. Vlad showed me some important places like the old city, Palace of the Parliament, and a big park in the middle of the city.

Palace of the Parliament, the second biggest administrative building in the world after Pentagon

With Vlad in Herăstrău Park

After looked around the city, we chilled out in a Romania traditional restaurant where I tried lots of interesting Romanian food and drink. There I tried a local soup called Ciorba de Dovlecei  that has sour and creamy taste. The soup was super delicious! I also got an egg as a gift because it was still in Easter time. After that, I tried a shot of local alcohol drink called Pálinka. It is also very delicious (and quite strong)! It is sweeter compare to other alcohol drinks. One of my Romanian friend said that after drinking 1 bottle of Pálinka, you would be able to speak Romanian fluently! So far it is one of my favorite alcohol drink.

Ciorba de Dovlecei Soup + Pálinka! What a perfect combination...

In Herăstrău Park

After Bucharest, I continue my journey to Cluj-Napoca because that is the best route to Vienna. I spent only 1 hour there because I had to catch my bus to Budapest.

Wonderful view in the highway near Sibiu

In my opinion, Cluj-Napoca has a different style compare to Bucharest. The architecture style resembles to Budapest and also Vienna. The reason could be because few hundreds ago, Cluj was also the part of Astro-Hungary empire. Even though it was already late and dark, I still like the ambience and the layout of the city.

St. Michael's Church in Cluj-Napoca

  

In summary, Romania gave a unique and interesting traveling experience. Since I only visited the big cities, I skipped some other interesting places such as Brasov, Bran Castle, Sibiu, and many others. Not so many things I can explain compare to other countries such as Bulgaria and Serbia, but I have lot of interesting stories when I hitchhiked in Romania, which I will tell you in the upcoming post…

See you in my next post!

B,
Vienna, 2^nd of May 2017