Romania 2025: Part Three: Sighișoara

 

13^th March 2025, Brașov-Sighișoara

I have an awful night’s sleep, first shivering then sweating, because you can never be sure when it’s going to be 22c and when it’s 3c and therefore whether to wear thermals or not, and I’ve caught a heavy cold. But the thing about travelling is you’ve just got to get on with it.

Uber to the bus station. I bought from a Turkish website months ago, but I’m not convinced what they’ve sent me are tickets. “Do you speak English?” I ask the guy in the information booth. “No,” he walks off. An old lady periodically opens the ticket office hatch then slams it shut. There’s no timetable, the buses look decrepit and incapable of carrying our suitcases and it’s all very grim. “Let’s get the train,” I say.

There’s one going at the same time as the bus, but for some reason that nobody can fathom (i.e. Guido) it takes an hour and a half longer. I wait 20 minutes in the ticket office queue before learning you buy them on board. Is a 200mg packet of Nurofen supposed to cost £6? Well, that’s what I paid and it said it on the receipt.

Platform 9 is about half a mile from the station and reached by crossing several in-use tracks without so much as a ‘look out!’ sign, and greeting us is an old two-car train. It’s hot inside and I’m streaming from my nose.

Why it needs to take so long is a mystery at first. There are no mountains to cross, it’s not stopping at every village and, when it wants to, the train does a decent speed. But after an hour it comes to a halt and the kid who sold me tickets earlier says: ‘we stop 20 minutes.’ Perhaps we’ve been going too fast. Everyone gets off the train for a cigarette.

The reason is because an express train up the pecking order has to get through and there’s only one track ahead. This also happens later and we have to go backwards for a while. I think the kid is the lookout, perched on a tall ladder above the driver’s cabin.

Otherwise, it’s quite a pleasant 3.5 hours for the 125km journey because there are huge clean windows through which to gaze at rivers, undulating grey hills, and the depopulated village shacks with their real-life peasants in their donkeys and carts, sheep in their back gardens. It would look magnificent in spring.

There’s nobody at Sighișoara train station because it’s a small city of maybe 24,000 people, and there’s no taxi rank I can see. I try Uber, Bolt and their Romanian equivalent Star on haunted phone, but nope, they don’t exist here. So, we have to walk. As we set out the heavens open and we beat a hasty retreat. When we do leave it’s sunny, there’s a lovely rainbow and we see a few hundred taxis in the streets which are all called ‘Clit’ or something, but I’ll have to look that up.

Our accommodation is number 2b on the Strada Anton Pann. 2b or not 2b, that is the question, as there are two 2b’s, both with lock boxes, and a number 6 between them. We choose the one that gives us keys.

It used to be that Airbnbs were people’s homes but sadly no more. The rich own stacks of them, thus preventing local people from getting their own places, and these are run by letting agents who don’t give a monkey’s. Only the cleaners get to see the properties on a regular basis and they’re not going to report a broken toilet because they don’t use them, or point out that the keys get stuck in the lock and there’s only one glass in the house (seriously). And what do the Romanians have against basin plugs? We’re constantly having to improvise with the meagre tools at our disposal.

Even on a grey late afternoon you can tell that the castle area of Sighișoara is astounding. It’s a perfectly-preserved medieval upper town with stunning architecture. I’m not particularly good at describing such things but, suffice to say, surely they filmed the child-catcher scenes in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang here? Problem is, this time of year it’s completely dead. A bit like its most famous resident.

Vlad ‘Tepes’ Draculea, three-time Vojvode of Wallachia was born in a house in the main square. Most of the military leaders in this region were gruesome in the 15th century, but Vlad had a particular fondness for impalement as, by carefully positioning the javelin so it misses the vital organs, you get a lot more torture for your money.

Vlad’s house is now a themed restaurant where an actor lies in a coffin for most of the meal before rising dramatically, saying ‘I vant your blood!’ in an exaggerated accent and generally annoying tourists while they struggle to ingest their pig’s knuckles. I’ve read this on Tripadvisor because we’ve absolutely no intention of eating there.

But at sundown around six-thirty as we’re having a beer, a mighty wind blows up, sending menus flying and knocking over glasses, before the heavens open and ghostly sounds are heard in every nook and cranny. Just saying.

All the restaurants around the castle are closed or nobody’s eating in them, so we go to the lower town, find a supermarket and see that the situation’s much the same here. Mrs Mad won’t eat at the most popular place because the menu’s too long, but that applies everywhere. In București and Brașov you had the choice of either Romanian or Italian food, here all the restaurants do both. So, we’re forced to return to the Airbnb and improvise with cheese, bread, butter and a frying pan.

I had originally thought we’d just stay in Brașov and do day trips to these other places, but you can see that’s not really possible. Next year I’m taking a cruise.

14^th March 2025, Sighișoara

Thanks to some medicinal Metaxa I sleep through till 8. Chilly this morning, what sounds like a duck abattoir is in fact an aggressive murder of crows swirling around the castle turrets.

As happens so often on our holidays we spend the morning searching for filters in a country that doesn’t smoke roll-ups. I notice that the old houses have tombs instead of chimneys.

We chance upon a farmers’ market that mainly sells tiny pickling onions. The local peasants regard us with fear, huddling in groups and whispering as they chew on their pitchforks, giving us the evil eye over their shoulders. A distressed old woman points to the castle, thrusts a crucifix into Mrs Mad’s hand and in broken English exclaims: “no go there!”

Stopping for coffee, a little Roma boy begs with a big box of chicken and chips in his hands. It’s not a good sell, although he may just be asking ketchup. I admire his persistence though.

Up the street of unfeasibly large cobble stones to the Clock Tower. I see people in its high gallery but no obvious way to get up. There’s a tiny door to a museum that dark inside, but the door pushes open and a surly lady who doesn’t want our custom accepts 20 lei each. There are about ten floors via tiny steep staircases and on each of these there’s a collection of quite boring objects. The only signs in English say ‘do not touch’ and, in case this is not understood, there’s a person on each floor to make sure you do not touch. The creaks on the wooden floorboards are very loud and mildly worrying.

We get to see close-up the ancient little figures that party under the clock each hour, their quarters doubling as pigeon coops. Then there’s the open gallery with terrific views and a low balcony. We hug the wall as bats swoop around us.

I learn that King Charles is related to Vlad, which explains why he owns several properties in Transylvania and came here immediately after his coronation to pay homage to his Lord and Master Dracul… I vant to drink your blood…. (Mrs Mad: Stop it!)

The entrance to the castle is via a covered walkway known as the ‘pupil’s corridor.’ It was built in 1642 and has 175 torturous steps. There are a lot of school kids around and I’m wondering whether they’re on a day trip from București, until we realise that the ‘castle’ is actually Sighișoara’s main secondary school. A medieval secondary school, natch. There’s also a huge church and a scenic graveyard full of victims… I mean Saxons.

 

We stop for a beer in a pleasant cafe that’s surrounded by strings of garlic and order a plate of Romanian cheese consisting of dolcelatte, Brie, mozzarella and Parmesan.

We return to our over-heated bungalow. Just before sunset we hear the crack of a hundred window shutters slamming as the peasants retire for the night. As we leave the Airbnb the wind stirs suddenly until it’s almost a gale, and we see an eerie carriage, drawn by four horses as black as night, a ghostly tall man in a cape and top hat whipping the creatures with all his might, and this devilish cab careers up the medieval cobbled road into the fortifications. The crows, which have been noisy all day, are now a cacophony of cawing.

We want to eat something that avoids the three Romanian food groups - pizza, pasta and pig. First, we go to a bar called Renfield’s where the barman is snacking on a bowl of what appear to be raisins. There’s a long mirror as you go down the stairs to the toilet and, oddly as it reflects the bar, I can only see myself.

At the restaurant the aubergine dip is quite garlicky, as is the garlic dip. Then there’s a dish of roasted potatoes, tomatoes, beans and garlic, with fried garlic crisps and a garlic jus…

(Mrs Mad: Enough of this vampire bullshit!)

Actually, we have a cocktail on a freezing terrace where Romanian families bring their little kids to eat, then to a supposed Asian-Italian-Romanian fusion restaurant. Mrs Mad has pasta, I have pork, because the Asian options are limited. I’m told the fettuccine is very good, as is the red wine, but the schnitzel is an abomination, like a deep-fried odour-eater. Sadly, we’re getting used to the bland Romano-pop-techno medleys that are played too loudly at every restaurant in this country.

I’m reading a certain book by Bram Stoker, as you may have guessed. No book written in the 19th century is an easy read, but it’s good for getting me to sleep at night and on trains. Now it’s quite gripping. “Dracula’s getting better,” I say to Mrs Mad. “Was he ill?” she asks.