Miclosoara

On Sunday, June 28^th, we left Cluj for the long day's drive to Miclosoara and Count Kalnoky's Estate. The traffic was lighter than other days, which was a relief. We stopped before noon at Sighisoara, which was the birthplace of Vlad II, the Impaler, the character that Dracula was built upon. The city was lovely, with a beautiful garden at the foot of the hill. At the top were churches and the tower, which we climbed for quite a view. There were numerous restaurants food court style, but we continued to check out the best of pizza shops! My vegetarian pizza was topped with wax beans, peas, corn, and mushrooms! A little garlic and it would have been heavenly! The best? Ice in my diet coke!! I ordered a second one, I was so thrilled!

We had some difficulty with the directions from the Count's website, but finally found our way to the estate about 3 PM. We were greeted by the young host, who introduced us to two other couples (all the guests were English-speaking!) and with brandy and tea we talked for quite a while before going to our guest house. It was small and rustic, but with village charm. It is a Hungarian-based village, and we soon ventured out for a walk to check out the two or three little dirt roads and the sites and sounds of Miclosoara. I asked a couple of elderly ladies if I could take their picture. When I shared the results, they were smiling and giggling...like little kids with a new toy!

The evening dinner at 8 PM was quite an event. We had met Tom and Louanne earlier, along with the first two couples. Also at dinner was an English couple, a German couple, and a bit later, newlyweds from England also. They served a delicious potato soup, then they had prepared a tofu dish for us, with white rice. The white bread was good, and a cake was served for dessert, but the fun was the almost endless supply of wine that most of us kept sipping and toasting! It was festive and delightful, with Tom's guitar and singing wrapping up a great evening.

We had to leave in the morning, after a filling and tasty breakfast of museli, yogurt and jam, and bread and honey. It was a more quiet, reserved meal, with everyone getting ready to be off for their next venture. Some email addresses were exchanged, along with good-byes, and we were off for the next leg of our journey.

We stopped at Harmon (Honey Hill) and caught the tour group going in to the fortress. After a walk around the inside and outside we drove on to Brasov, a very delightful city which lays claim to the Black Church (due to fire) and a lovely square of stores and restaurants. We found our pizza shop and the young woman offered to make me a cheese sandwich with fries – I never expected the fries to be put IN the sandwich! A few raindrops chased us back to the car and we drove on to look for our guest house in Bran. With even more difficulty, we finally found “Laura's” where the young son greeted us (in English) and carried our bags in for us. We will have dinner here at 7:30 and hope to see Bran Castle in the morning, followed by some hiking in these gorgeous mountains.