Leaving Transylvania and a Summary

Since I missed my run the Final Day I decided to do it in the morning before we started to travel back home to Sweden. I really NEEDED one more run in Transylvania. 

Even if it meant that I could only drink a little wine on our final dinner.

At dinner Lucian and Alex (our guides) helped me to find good places to run, so I went up at 6.30 and left at 7 in the suggested direction. The weather was great and it was not too hot. The first part went only uphill. The surrounding was beautiful and picturesque with the mountains, plenty of cute houses and farmers just arriving to their fields for the day’s work. Even though it was uphill I fully enjoyed the run. I took it easy and focused more at the surrounding than the speed. After 4.5 km I turn around and went downhill the same way as I came. Now it was just pure fun. I even stopped to take pictures. It was the perfect end on a perfect hiking trip. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

My morning views

The rest of the day we spent traveling back to Sweden. EXCEPT for a stop at the world’s second largest building: Palace of the Parliament. It was HUGE!!!

Palace of the Parliament

The trip back went fine and the group only lost one pice of luggage, as far as I know. ;-) See an earlier post about flying with KLM.

As a summary of the trip I have to say that Transylvania exceeded my high expectations. It was even more beautiful than I expected: the food was better, the people were among the kindest I have met around the world and most importantly the hiking was one of the best I have experienced. It only lacked in toughness, but I think I could have found tougher trails around if I would have looked for them. They were just not included in our trip. So I can really recommend to go hiking in Transylvania, where the environment is still romantic in the old-fashioned way.

Until next time - Take care! Hugs!

Alex and I

p.s. It is possible to loose weight on vacation, IF you go hiking. I lost 1 kg, despite lots of good food and drinks. :-)

The Final Day

On our last day in Transylvania we stepped out of the hiking boots and into the city sandals and took off on a trip to Bran Castle and Brasov. It actually felt a bit strange not to pack and dress for a day in the mountains.

We started with Bran Castle. When I first heard about this point on the schedule I was excited to visit the Dracula castle. But I was quickly informed it had nothing to do with Dracula. It just looks like the castle that is described in Bram Stoker’s book about him. It was still an interesting place to visit. I especially liked the music room. :-)

The piano in the music room. Lovely piece.

The Bran Castle.

The rest of the day we spent in Brasov and visited all the city highlights: St Nicholas Church and first Romanian school, all the city protection that was built during the 15th century, the black church that was built between 1385 and 1477 and so on. I liked to stroll around the city and look at how it has changed through the years. It is a really cute city.

In school with Alex as our teacher.

 

The Black Church                           The alleys are quite narrow

For those of you who know me, know that I like to plan. When I looked through the trip itinerary I decided that I would go for a run the final day. That was the whole idea behind me bringing training clothes on a hiking trip. Yes - I got to use the clothes on an earlier occasion, but this was my main running day. Unfortunately there were some misunderstandings on the schedule and I didn’t get the time to run after the trip to the Brasov. So frustrating! I REALLY wanted to go for a run and see how my body felt after a week of hiking. That was the ONLY thing that put me off during the whole trip. The rest of the week I just kept smiling.

In the evening we looked at a movie about the region including interviews with our guide Alex. It was interesting to see how Americans had taken on Transylvania. :-)

Then it was the final dinner. It is always a bitter sweet thing. I usually never want to go home from a hiking trip. I ENJOY hiking and I often think that I will buy a house in the mountains so I can go hiking everyday. It is also sad to say goodbye to some people, especially the guides. Most guides that I have met are great people (only a few exceptions). This time was no exception. Lucian and Alex might even have been some of the best guides I have ever met. 

It was another great day, even though I missed to be in the mountains and didn’t go for a run. ;-) This is happy me!