Driving around Zarnesti was a nightmare, it was Sunday market day, music was blasting out a speaker and men in matching hats were wasted by 11am in the pop up pubs. I loved it though, it reminded me of the markets in Central America, bustling with colour and culture. But, it meant certain roads were…
Tag: culture
The Bear Necessities in Romania
We’re well and truly in bear country now. Romania has 40% of Europe’s wild bears, if we don’t see one here, our chances elsewhere are pretty slim. We drove south of Brasov to the Southern Carpathian’s where the ski village of Poiana Brasov sits at 1030m. Finally we got a piece of tranquility compared to…
Tantalising Transylvania
Transylvania conjures up the thought of mythical creatures, misty mountains and creepy castles. It’s somewhere I’ve ways wanted to go, a bit like Timbuktu, it has such a nice ring to it and sounds like a place that doesn’t actually exist. But indeed they both do and now it’s time to explore the land of…
Raving about Romania
What a great start to Romania, every person we’ve spoken to has had a big welcoming smile and it makes all the difference. Plus, the English seems remarkably better than in the neighbouring countries. One worker even started conversation with us telling us nice places to visit and how apparently England wrote in its papers…
The thermal cave pools in Hungary
Hungary is well known for its thermal baths, we were only swinging through the country but made sure a day of relaxation was involved. Just to make us really need a relax day, we had a small car crash. Brilliant. We chose the thermal caves on the outskirts of Miskolc, a city in northern Hungary….
Our final bite of the Baltic sandwich
Lithuania was always going to be hit or miss. I’d read that the locals don’t smile at strangers, and if you smile at them they’ll presume your laughing at them, which clearly doesn’t go down too well. As we head south, the populations are growing country by country, and the sun is sinking quicker and…
Exploring Riga and Jurmala, Latvia
We drove south to Riga, Latvia’s capital. It had a beautiful old town full of art nouveau buildings; the finest and largest collection in Europe infact. Faces followed us around the city on the edges of buildings and carved into walls. The old town was a maze of tall pastel buildings, all so well preserved…
Trying out the Olympic Bobsleigh track in Latvia
We visited three towns within Gauja National Park; Cesis, Ligatne and Sigulda. The sights revolved around the Gauja river, with red cliff walls along the banks and orange coloured caves. The towns were pleasant for strolling around with nice castles, churches and old squares. It was all ‘nice’ but not blow away nice, so we…
Our first slice of the Baltic Sandwich
We didn’t spend long in Estonia, just 3 days, but we enjoyed what we saw of it and Tallinn is one of my favourite cities. Heading south we stopped in a few villages, and at Soomaa National Park looking for wildlife. The park is mainly made up of bog, and is said to have a…
From modern Helsinki to medieval Tallinn
We managed to get a free IKEA bus into Helsinki city centre, and repaid them by eating 5 hot dogs, 2 calzones, 1 ice cream and 1 drink for a romantic dinner. I enjoyed walking through the Tori Quarter with its little lane ways and hidden cafés. It reminded me of the lanes back home…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 