Eastern Europe - Romania

After sleeping until 10ish in the morning we woke up had breakfast and looked at our plans for the next 4 days.  We planned to basically copy the Rollins trip of Romania from about a year earlier, but the last day of that trip included about a 14 hour drive, and we really didn't want to do that again, especially what would have been arriving back at their house and leaving for the airport 6-8 hours later.  So I jumped online and starting sending out emails to rearrange our schedule a little.  What we ended up worked out almost flawlessly.

We left at around 2 in the afternoon after saying good bye to everyone (expect the Rollin's) since they were all leaving early the following morning.  This was hard on Paige as she really had a great time with Emma, and saying good bye is always hard for her anyway.  That afternoon, we drove about 4 hours north to the border between Bulgaria and Romania and stayed in a hotel in Ruse.  Ruse is actually a decent sized city, but after the trip we had had so far, for us it really was only a stopping place to break up the driving some.  Our hotel was nice though, it smell a little of smoke, but we had a two bedroom room and each kid had their own bed.  This was great for them as they had been sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor for a lot of the trip.  They liked the sleeping bags too, but a bed was nice.  

The next morning we woke up had breakfast and by 9 in the morning were crossing the border into Romania!

 It was funny, Romain and Bulgaria are separated in this area by a river, and on the Bulgaria side everything is dry and brown, and sage brush like.  On the Romania side everything was green, we really liked it.  Right as we crossed over we drove past this guy who was tearing down and old building or barn or something.  It was really funny, because it was one guy and he has a not very big sledge hammer.  It looked like it would take years to tear the building down, maybe it will.

Anyway, after about 4 hours of driving we made it to our first stop; Bran.  More specifically, we were visiting Bran Castle.  This is the castle that is credited at being Dracula's castle.  Dracula was a real person, Vlad Tepes Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) who lived and ruled Wallachia in the 15th century, and it is thought that he was some of the inspiration for Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula.  In fact, there is no proof that he lived at Castle Bran, it is actually thought he may have spend a few nights in the castle though.  In any case Castle Bran is romanticized as being Dracula's Castle, and in any case, it is simply a really cool castle in Transylvania, which by itself is just cool.  So we spend a few hours exploring the castle.  It is in really great shape as it was used as a principle residence of the queen of Romania in the early 20th century, Queen Marie.  Now it is a museum.

After visiting Bran we drove 20 minutes to the town of Brasov.  This was where we initially intended to spend the second night of this road trip, but had now cut out and intended only to spend a few hours here checking out the city.  Brasov, was interesting as it had a lot of elements of a small walled in medieval town, but clearly was also functioning as a more modern day city at the same time.  We really cracked up at the old church connected to the KFC.  It turned only the entrance walkway to the church was here, the church itself was behind with a little courtyard.  

Anyway, after walking around a bit and stopping so the kids could get ice cream and I could try a yummy local treat, we got back in the car one last time for the day and drove another hour and a half to Sighisoara.  This is where we intended to stay for our third night initially.  Sighisoara is similar to Brasov in that it is a old medieval walled town, and has continued to grow into a more modern city, but with Sighisoara the modern area is down below, while the walled town sits up on a hill and it still 99% unchanged.  When we got there it was just getting dark, so we checked into our hotel and wow, what a hotel it was, check out our room!!!  I normally don't get excited about a hotel room, my general rule is, if it has a bed, I am good, but this was great, and it wasn't that expensive either.

Anyway, after loving our room for a few minutes we walked about 2 minutes from our hotel to Casa Dracula, the childhood home of Vlad Tepes now a restaurant, and had dinner.  After we briefly walked around Sighisoara to see the town lit up at night. 

The next morning we set out early to walk around Sighisoara and check it out before getting in the car for what was to be our longest day of this road trip.  Sighisoara was a great little town.  There really wasn't anything there, a few souvenir shops, some restaurants, church's, etc. but the town was really cool.   We just enjoyed walking the 4 streets that made up the town on the cobblestone roads looking at the buildings.  We go to the top of the clock tower and were able to check out the entire city from above, which provided some nice views.  By about 11 though we were down and ready to hit the road again. 

Our goal for the rest of the day was to drive the Translyvanian and the Saxon lands, hopefully drive the Transfagarasan road over the Carpathian mountains, visit the ruins of Poenari Castle (Vlad Tepes actual castle), and make it back to the hotel in Ruse, Bulgaria where we stayed the first night.  If everything worked out, I thought we would be back to the hotel by about 8 PM.  Driving in the Saxon lands was incredible. We drove through several small towns where basically it was a fortified church and several houses, other than the main road everything was unpaved, and most of the people didn't even appear to have cars.  We thought it might have been mostly Roma, but don't know for sure if that is correct or if that is just the simple life in this area for everyone.  Regardless, it was like being in Amish country in Pennsylvania, and we loved it.  We we started to approach the Carpathian mountains, I started to get excited, I really wanted to drive the Transfagarasan road, which is a famous windy road through the mountains.  The road though is closed for the winter because of snow (and windiness, not a good combination...) so we didn't know if it would be open yet.  To our surprise, and my joy, it was open when we got there.  So we started to climb the mountain, it was plenty windy and fun to drive, but really no more so than a lot of other driving we did on the first road trip, especially around Meteora and Delphi.  Anyway, when we were getting close to the top we watched as the thermometer in our car told us the temperature was dropping outside.  Soon the light rain turned into light snow.  As we approached the top of the mountain, which best I can tell reaches a peak but then follows the ridge line for a long time before finally dropping down the other side, we passed a snow plow and then almost immediately came to a second sign that now said the road was closed.  This was a total bummer.  Really, missing out on the driving of the road sucked, especially because the more scenic and beautiful part was on the other side, but also because we had to turn around, drive all the way back down, and then go around the mountains.  This added about 3 hours driving to our day. The kids were also really excited to see the real Dracula Castle, which happens to be located of the Transfagarasan road on the other side, so not only did we completely drive around, but then we drove back up the same road from the other side.  In the end, I think the only part I didn't drive it the segment that is famous for it picturesque views of the area with the windy road below.  So when we finally got to Poenari everyone was ready to get out of the car.  So ready in fact we decided to hike the 1480 steps up to the castle.  1480 is a lot of steps!!!  When we go to the top the wind was howling through the area, and the castle was totally exposed.  I thought it was cool, Julie couldn't wait to take a couple of pictures and head back down a little to get out of the wind.  There really wasn't a lot to see, most of the castle is gone, just the front wall and one tower remains, so the picture from below is really the best view.  But we needed to get out of the car, and now we can proudly say we visited the REAL Dracula's castle.

After this we drove for a couple more hours back across the border into Bulgaria, stayed in Ruse again and the following morning headed back to the Rollin's house.  About 5 minutes away is Boyana church which is about 900 years old.  We had a pizza dinner that night and just relaxed and let the kids play.  It was a great way to end a really great (but long) trip!

Eastern Europe - Greece

Our time in Greece was great.  I think the best way to describe Greece is diversified.  It is an amazing country and there is still a lot we didn't even see.  Again, like Turkey, I could see us going back.  Of course I say that about most places we go, and each year also add more places that we haven't been to the list, so who knows.  Anyway, we really enjoyed Greece and really saw quite a lot of it. 

Our first night in Greece we stay at a beach side hotel in Asprovalta which is just outside Thessaloniki, in the northeast of Greece.  We arrived here late and were quick to get the kids (and ourselves) to bed, and in the morning planned to just have breakfast and go, but the beach called to us (or most of us), so we walked down and played in the Mediterranean water for the first time a little.

We didn't stay long though and got into our cars to head toward Kalampaka; a small city almost right in the middle of Greece.  The driving in Greece was incredible. Mountains and farming land everywhere. It was just bright and inviting.  When we got close to Kalampaka, we quickly hit some real mountains though, and had about an hour of steep curvy roads to drive.  Once crossing over the mountain and dropping back down into the valley, we started to see the reason we came to this little city in the middle of nowhere; the awesome rocks (and monasteries) of Meteora!!!  Wow!!!  Incredible!!!  I can't use enough words to describe it.  Antarctica is still my favorite natural beauty of the world, but Meteora, with the combination of natural beauty and the incredible works of man together were breathtaking. 

We spent the night in Kalampaka at a great hotel just at the base of some of the Meteora rocks.  What a great location.  We easily could have stayed there a couple of nights, but as was always the case (well until the last day...) there was so much more we also planned to see.  Anyway, the first day in Meteora we visited the Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron, which is the largest of the monasteries.  It was incredible, like a small community built on a rock several hundred feet above the ground level...  We explored this monastery for a couple of hours.  It is really crazy to think people would build something like this even with the technologies of today, but 600 years ago?  Wow.  The steps that were carved into the side of the rocks were only added for tourists, the monks hauled everything up by rope, rope ladder, or a simply built rope trolley.  Totally crazy! 

On the second day we first visited the Agia Triada (or Holy Trinity) monastery, which was a long climb up.  It is a slightly less touristy one, I think because of the climb up, but also because the area outside the monastery itself is not well fenced in if at all; you can literally walk to the edge of the rock and look down several hundred feet.   Great for adults, a little scary with a lot of small children.  But it was worth it.  The views were unbelievable, we could look down on Kalampaka and even easily make out our hotel.

The second monastery we visited was a small one, and it was actually a nunnery named The Holy Monastery of Rousanou (St. Barbara).  It was funny to walk in, because it was obvious that it was for women, not men. Everything was brighter, cleaner, more organized...  We didn't stay here long as it was small and everyone was getting hungry.

Zac led us to a little field just under some of the rocks where we were able to have a nice picnic in the sun, and enjoy our last couple of hours in Meteora before driving again.  While there we found a couple of turtles (that the kids played with) a some crickets.  It was great.

Our next stop was Athens (southeast mainland Greece).  Our hotel was actually just out of the city to the south, which worked out great; it was less expensive and we were able to take a train into the city without worrying about parking.  When we arrived our car and Zac's was ahead of the other, so we detoured and drove right through downtown.  It was cool to get a first glimpse of the Acropolis, but  the traffic (while not horrible) wasn't fun.  In the end the other car beat us to the hotel by about 20 minutes.  We got settled in to the hotel and ate at this great little restaurant (called Pita Time) about a block from our hotel.  We actually liked it a lot and the prices were really good, so we had dinner there the next night also, and then lunch the following day...

The following day (day 11) we took the train into Athens. Our plan was to see the Acropolis, have lunch and then head over to the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arc. We got a little late of a start though and changed plans thinking it would be better to do the Acropolis after lunch to give us more time. That was our first mistake. The Temple of Olympian Zeus was huge. Most of it has fallen down, but you get a feel for the size, which is just incredible given it was started in the 6th century BC. Those ancient Greeks were crazy!!! Anyway after an okay lunch, which was slower than we had hoped, we headed toward the Acropolis. However, we stopped at a shop selling leather goods, so all the girls could look at sandals and purses; mistake number two. Finally, we got out of there and wound around through town arriving at the entrance to the Acropolis; 20 minutes after it closed for new admission for the day... Who would have thought that the most iconic man made structures in the world would close for admission at 2 in the afternoon!!! Oh' well, we ended up hanging around on the top of Areopagus (Mar's hill) and then went and found a Geocache (another country!) before heading back to the hotel for the evening.

Obviously you can't go to Athens and not go onto the Acropolis, so we headed back into downtown Athens the next morning.  The plan was to get there early, enjoy it before any crowds, get back to the hotel and pack up, head to a beach for a while, and then drive to the Temple of Poseidon, before heading north to Delphi.  Two out of three wasn't bad.  The Acropolis was not what I expected.  It was huge, with some amazing ancient temples, the Parthenon of course, but also the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Erechtheum.  Plus lower on the hill side is the Theatre of Dionysus, and the Theatre of Herodes Atticus.  Their is actually more, these are just the ones I remember. 

 

So after lunch we headed south a little found a decent beach and played.  We decided that trying to to the make it to the Temple of Poseidon also was not going to happen, so we spent a little more time at the beach and just had a good time.  The water was cold, but it was the Mediterranean so, we had to go in, right?

Anyway, it turned out really good that we didn't go to the Temple of Poseidon, because we got to our hotel in Delphi, which is north west of Athens by about 100 miles, at around 5.  This was perfect, but the hotel had lost our reservation, which was not.  It would have really been bad to have to deal with that late at night when everyone was tired.  It ended up working out really well for us, we got put up in nicer hotels owned by the same group at our reserved rate.  That night we had dinner at this great restaurant in town.  Julie and I had a homemade wine with dinner that was excellent.  It was, I believe, the best meal of the trip.  Although, doners (Bulgarian and Turkish) and giro's were all really good too!!!  Below is a of picture from our hotel room balcony in the evening and then the next morning.  Not bad, eh?

Our day in Delphi was the final day on our first road trip of the vacation; day 13.  What a great day, extremely long, but great!  Delphi is a like a fairy tale town.  Up in the mountains, totally beautiful, quiet, peaceful, and it has a great archaeological site.   The Oracle of Delphi in a lot of ways is the most incredible place we visited.  The area is huge, built almost completely on a hill side, and is on the top of a mountain.  Not exactly in a place where you would think "Hey, I have an idea, lets build a crazy city up there!"  I couldn't imagine hiking all the way up to built the city in the first place; it was a crazy drive getting there.  Anyway, it was incredible.  The site has a few temples, a theatre, and a stadium way at the top.  After visiting the site, we had lunch, and left on what was to be a really long drive. The GPS had us at 7 hours I think, but the curves of the roads in the area, stopping for gas, stopping for food, crossing a border, we didn't get back to the Rollins house until 2 am the next day, about 12 hours later.  Literally, as we were pulling onto there street, their odometer clicked over to 1700 miles.  Quite a road trip!!!