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The end of our stay in Budapest came up fast and furiously. In keeping with our approach to only surveying each new location without committing to it longer than usually a week, we packed up and aimed for the train that would take us to Brașov tucked up against the rolling foothills of the Carpathian mountains (yes, that would be Dracula’s Transylvania) in Romania.  The train to Romania would complete our unholy trinity of gruelling overnight trips including bus, ferry and train. At least this time, we had been wise enough to procure said tickets sufficiently far in advance that we had the option to splurge on our very own two-bunk sleeper cabin. Thanks to the helpful post from people taking the trek before us, we had some idea as to what to expect. While we never got a restaurant car in our train, we were given front-row seats to the intricately choreographed dance of the engines as put on by the Romanian rail system. Countless middle of the night earth shattering thunks later, we roll into Brașov.

Perhaps by virtue of the way by which we arrived in Brașov, it’s a proverbial tug of war of the idioms that first impressions last and to not judge a book by its covers. Suffice to say, stepping off the train without having had breakfast and only a minimal amount of sleep, the train station with immediate surroundings did nothing to immediately reassure us that we had made the right decision in adding Brașov to our itinerary. Moreover, it induced a pang of doubt that maybe the eastern fringe of Europe is less of a diamond in the rough than, say, a hunk of granite. As we wouldn’t get access to our AirBnB until the afternoon and it was barely 10 am, after a number of failed tries in securing a place that served something resembling brunch and would have enough room for us and our bags, we ended up at the Norwegian sounding Bistro Aha, in part because of the associations with the cheesy name, in part because the served food but mainly because we were simply done staggering around laden like people 20 years our junior. Shamelessly we nursed food and drink, OK we did order beer after lunch to run out the clock. Our conscience was clear though owing in no small part to the staggeringly poor service that I don’t think we could have spent less than three hours even if we were in a hurry.

The farther from the train station and the closer to the old town of Brașov you get, the more things look up. Once you paid your dues through the swaths of communist era apartment buildings appearing to attempt, albeit ineptly, to blockade the old town, you’re greeted with an experience that, while not uniformly polished, is more in line with what we expected when we chose Brașov. Lively, bustling service commerce and reasonably clean. While Brașov has a transit system, it’s not in people’s DNA like in Budapest, but the car appears king and people drive with an assertiveness and determination that borders on the extreme. Jay walk at your peril. Some motorists even feel empowered to on occasion venture onto the side walks where entitled pedestrians think they have some right to walk unencumbered. Apparently, and I’m guessing here, the city has put up immovable posts on some of the side walks, not just along the street to prevent parking, but also in a row in the middle to dissuade driving on them.

Brașov is nestled right up to, what is best described as a hill, a hill named Tâmpa. At least that’s what the peak appears to be referred to. This park has a handful of trails of varying complexity and hikers have some, but not many options to string trails together for a longer hike. Reasonably fit people with cross-trainers and enough water can cover most of these trails in half a day even when the sun is beating down. Given the steepness of the incline and exposed rock, I wouldn’t recommend doing the yellow route after rain as that would likely be extremely slippery. The paths are mostly clearly marked, views are rewarding and the large wildlife like lynx and bears decided to keep to themselves when we were there. The Terasa Tâmpa is also where you’d go if you wanted to get to the Hollywood-style lettering adorning the hillside high above the town.

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