GOM-ROMANIA

BUCHAREST

Travelling with 3 more friends (Zack, Roger and Stephane), we left Barcelona on 2007 june 17th at 2 am. (with wizzair)
After 2h 15 min flying we arrived in Bucharest at 5 am (Romania is +1h) at Otopeni airport. there is another airport in Bucharest - Baneasa, but it's old and... dangerous! it looks really bad.
We took Bus 783 towards downtown and we arrrived finally at 7 am at Comfort Traian Hotel. the hotel is really good, comfortable and good price (25 €/night)( also with ac, really apreciated such hot days +- 33ºc) moreover we were allowed to enter on Sunday 7am until monday 12 pm paying only 1 night. The location could be better but wasn't so bad.
we slept for 5-6h and afterwards we took a taxi for a sightseeing because there isn't turistic bus in Bucharest (15€/each for 3h). with such taxi we visited the main buildings (old and dirty most of them) including people's house (2n largest building after pentagon built by Ceausescu between 1984-1989).
Is as big as ugly, well maybe not exatly ugly... but nothing special.

Musuem of tipical romanian houses was our next destination. Close to a park is nice.

... and nothing else, only the arc of triumph.

Generally speaking Bucuresti is ugly and sad. Lots of poor people but also new rich with money. Decadent buildings and more or less good cars (big contrast) but also with lots of Dacia (the national car).
I didn't like people in Bucuresti some of them were nice but most tried to hassle you all day, specially taxi drivers: advice- deal the price before the trip.
the fact was that we were looking forward leaving Bucharest as soon as possible to explore other parts.
Sunday night, we went out but we didn't find any local to have fun . Definitely, Bucharest is not a funny-nice place.

SINAIA

On Monday 2007/06/18 we rented our car : Skoda Octavia Wagon diesel 1.9 (40 €/day – 150 € deposit). Good deal considering that to rent a car in Romania is not as cheap as you can imagine, roads are bad and cars are broken quickly.
Comment: Lei is the Romanian currency (1 € = 3.25 lei). They changed recently, 2 years ago 1 € = 325000 lei !!

Well we took the car and started driving towards Sinaia. Driving in Romania is an adventure… roads are full of obstacles : thousands of carriages (they only have a few tractors , of course very old), lots of people just walking, selling, working… whatever. Roads are full of life and there are also lots of crazy drivers driving too fast in dangerous roads with lots of pot holes and irregular asphalt. However it's funny because you find a surprise every 100 m.

We drove for 2h and a half towards Sinaia. Just there we eat in a posh restaurant lost in the mountain where we found more Catalans!! It was a surprise because it was a remote place. They knew Romania really well and gave us good advices for our trip, a curious advice: 'take care with bears in Moldova', they had found a bear in the middle of the road two nights ago. Fortunately (or unfortunately) we didn't find bears during our trip. Bears and wolves are still living in Transylvania mountains. Some restaurants offer bear meat.
Sinaia is a famous sky resort with tourist and an occidental atmosphere. It's specially famous for Peles Castle.
Such castle was used by Romanian kings to have fun with their guests. Located in the middle of Transylvania is a really nice place.


The castle is big and very nice, a worthwhile visit in Romania. Unfortunately it's closed on Monday and we couldn't enter.
Another interesting visit in Sinaia is its monastery where you can find traditional monks.

After a few hours we left Sinai on Monday afternoon. Next step: Risnov.

RISNOV
When you are getting in from Sinaia side you can realize Risnov is a very poor city, what is a little bit strange because it's located between Brasov and Bran in Transylvania which isn't the poorest region in Romania.

I can still remember a tennis court for posh Risnov citizens… unfortunately I didn't take a photo to show you how posh it was…
The main attraction in Risnov is its castle located at the top of the mountain.

We had problems to find it cause of the deficient signs and the bad road but, finally, we found it!! We were disappointed because as every Monday it was closed though we found a freaky man who allowed us to take a few photos from the castle.

The castle is an old fortification with the typical protection walls and a privileged view of Risnov plain and Transylvanian mountains.