Day 6 325miles 15 March
Leave Prague early on a grey snow laden morning – navigating past the National Museum at the end of Wenceslas Square through the very cold rolling hills of eastern Czech Republic. Car cruising along a good motorway system at 80mph. Through Hungary immigration in two minutes and then off over the great Hungarian Plain to arrive in Budapest at around 3.00pm. Very easy drive until we reach the city where the traffic brings us to a total standstill. We have arrived on 1848 Revolution Day and join most of Hungary on the streets of its capital. After several false starts we find our hotel, immediately below the castle near the Chain Bridge. Tour the castle with its amazing views of the Pest side of the Danube River. Then we ready ourselves for dinner. At this point Julian – uncharacteristically - declines the opportunity for high class Hungarian food and drink and retires to his room, while I go out to be serenaded by a violin over chicken paprika etc.
Day 7 355miles 16 March
Joined for breakfast by Julian who announces he has a dose of salmonella, but that all is well because the medical kit has the appropriate antibiotics. Crawl out of Budapest in the rush hour. Still grey and overcast but ten minutes of sun appear as we are leaving the city. Then open highway over the plain towards the Rumanian border. Despite general adherence to Hungarian law, we are pulled over and fined by the most friendly traffic cops in Eastern Europe for a technical lighting offence. Race to the Rumanian border to avoid the fine – 5 Eur – and cross into the poorest country in Eastern Europe. “Guns? Drugs? Women?”….?? We weren’t sure if these were questions or offers – but we blasted through into the border town of Oradea.
Our first steps in Rumania said poverty, deprivation, pain. It was like arriving in Bombay, a culture shock with beggars pulling against the car – unwashed windows rewashed. But as we headed east with the trucks, life looked better. Rolling plains with open “big” skies were the western Carpathians. After along day and well after dark we made Sighisoara and drove through the control gates into the citadel. What a fantastic place to finish our 10 hour run. A great hotel with Prince Charles as a recent neighbour next door…..and Jules happy to hit food and booze again – what an anatomy!
Day 8 78 miles 17 March
We amble around Sighisoara through the morning and take in the ancient and tiny Citadel. Visit Vlad Tepish house – closed – visit the ancient town church which is also closed as is the Duke’s Palace since this is in private hands and not open for us tourists. However the pharmacist is open and we stock up on reading glasses and pills. This is certainly an over fifties trip.
After lunch, we decide to find the fortified Saxon churches in the region. We ease out into the grey drizzle and find a countryside of rolling hills giving into secret valleys with a little plowed land in the fertile bottoms and beech, larch and pine as well as open downland higher up. Quite a lot of muttering about great shooting country…. Then we came to villages, surprisingly large with gaily painted cottages many with dates – 1746 to 1984. The streets are mud and most houses give on to smallholdings behind. Few people around but all smile a welcome some in traditional dress and many with children dark with ingrained grubbiness. Pony traps abound, carrying loads of manure, hay or human passengers all trotting purposefully through the gloom.
The churches, fortified with huge circle walls and towers, are giants on this medieval landscape. They were built by incoming German Saxons in the 12th century and clearly stood as a stout defence. At Jacobeni we managed at last to find man with a key, so instead of standing outside in wonder, we see the ancient bells having scaled a ladder series to the top of the tower. This was the lookout and defensive battlement with views over the huddled mud linked hovels of the village and the mud road snaking out up into the hills behind. In the lower church everything was German and it became clear that the church was supported by a fanatic religious sect. We sped away.
For the first time on the trip we have confronted a world which is very different from our own. To say that we have seen a medieval scene sounds trite, but the people are worn, tired, dirty and dispirited. This not the France profonde but a real reminder of a less comfortable time. Thought provoking, beautiful in its way but a little sad.
Day 9 250 miles 18th March
We head south towards Brasov and the home of Dracula, Bran Castle. We make good time and make Bran in the snow by early lunch. It is a wonderful Gothic castle with only tenuous links to Vlad the Impailer and a more direct connection to the UK royals – many pictures of a daughter of Queen Victoria who was chatelaine. The next five hours spent climbing a frozen high pass, negotiating endless ribbon villages on the lower ground and eventually roaming Bucharest almost aimlessly, trying to find our hotel. When found, it was not a good choice so down to the Athenee Palace to restore our spirits and plan a quick departure from the “Lev Dor”- ok we know that the name should have given it away….
Day 10 78 miles 19th March
Move to a somewhat improved location and then stride out into the strange world that is Bucharest. This city was the Paris of Eastern Europe before the war. Now she is like a prizefighter – blooded but unbowed as she climbs back on her feet having survived a devastating period until the 1989 revolution with the mad Ceauşescu and then until 2004 with the bad and mad Illionescu. She is a city with spectacular 19th C and ArtDeco architecture mixed in with the slightly embarrassing Great Dictator version which has been imposed on large chunks of the city. The old quarter was almost completely removed to produce the Peoples Palace – marginally smaller than the Pentagon and Bd Unirii – six metres longer than the Champs Elysee upon which its conception was based. The shadow of Ceauşescu is all around and reminders of the sacrifices in the revolution when more than a thousand people were killed on the streets, lie in monuments and crosses throughout the city.