Buna ziua from Brasov in Transylvania. Well, i never expected Romania to be so lovely - possibly Europe's best kept secret. Even Bucharest is nicer than i'd been led to believe and the travel agent's assertion that a day in Bucharest was more than enough is wide of the mark.

The centre of Bucharest has some interesting squares - not remarkable - but worth seeing nonetheless and despite the destruction during the communist era a lot of old houses and buildings still exist. There is certainly enough to hold your interest over a long weekend. I didn't get to see the acclaimed Romanian Peasant's and Jewish museums nor did i get to wander through Cismigiu garden or Herastrau Park - but did get a tour of the depressing Parliament Palace and wandered around past the Romanian Athenaeum and further into Piata Revolutiei - where there's a monument which the locals have dubbed "the potato" - it's a marble needle that looks - well, it looks like it has a speared a potato. It obviously has a far deeper meaning and considering what took place here it says a lot about the Romanian's sense of humour and their ability to see comedy in tragedy....

I visited the open air Village Museum which is fascinating. It consists of a collection of old farm & village houses from around the country. They are all genuine and have simply been relocated here to show the regional variation in design; construction & heritage. There are houses from Banat; Crisana; Dobrogea; Maramures; Moldova (the region not the Republic); Muntenia; Oltenia and - of course - Transylvania. One thing i didn't know was that Saxons settled in Transylvania and brought their own culture; architecture & (eventually) the Lutheran religion. The Saxons built lots of amazing fortified churches - many of which can still be seen.

Anyway.

So i had a fairly thorough driving tour of the city which makes me want to come back and explore. The Romanians are very friendly people, too, with English widely spoken & understood. As the language is a Latin-based one - albeit that 40% of the vocabulary is Slavic - it is also reasonably easy to have a stab at translating signs & menus.

The beer here is very good: Ciuc and Silva are brewed by Heineken-owned breweries and are both very clean & fresh with a refreshing bitter/hop character; Ursus is an SAB-Miller beer and a typical Slavic-style heavy lager - again, very good and anyone who likes beers with character will appreciate it. SAB-Miller also brew Timisoreana - which is ok, too. More to discover, no doubt.

And talking of cars, which we weren't, the local car is tha Dacia (dasha) - the Roman emperor Trajan invaded this part of Europe and created the province of Dacia - the Dacian women were famed for their beauty and so the Romans soon found themselves at home here and what was true then is true today - Romanian women are indeed lovely - anyway, Dacia is owned by Renault and they produce a small range of neat - if unexciting - cars - with less than exotic names such as: "Duster"; "Logan" and "Sandero"..........

I have seen three Oltcit - and must admit i'd forgotten they existed. It was a strange thing that looks like it was based on the Citroen Visa. The factory was sold to Daewoo after the revolution but is now owned by Ford who are starting production here (they might already have started)......

There's a new Renault saloon here called the "Fluence" - and, no, i haven't made that up. It looks like it might just be the new name for the Megane saloon......

Disappointingly i've hardly seen any Soviet-era cars - a couple of Trabants & a couple of pre-Volkswagen Skoda being the extent of it - other than the ubiquitous Dacia that was based on the Renault 12 - out in the countryside we came across an alarming number of horse & carts trundling along the roads. I'm not sure they are meant to use the main roads - but they do - quaint but a bit alarming at the same time as you can probably imagine.....

Once out of Bucharest and heading north-west through the Wallachian plain toward Transylvania and the Carpathians - destination Sibiu. En-route we stopped at a monastery in Cozia and then we stopped in Curtea de Argesa, to see the beautiful church, which is decorated in white marble and astonishingly intricate. Legend has it that Manole, the wife of Neagoe Basarab who built it, is entombed within the walls. You can see where her body allegedly lies. And if that wasn't macabre enough her last words to her husband were that she was pregnant with their first child.........

Sibiu was a European City of Culture in 2007 and is frankly astonishing - anyone familiar with the mediaeval cities of the Baltic States or Lvov will know what i'm talking about - amazing that this city has survived for so long.

After two nights of relative luxury in the Bucharest Hilton i stayed in a B&B in Sibiel - Pensiunea Reghina - which was lovely. A typical house of the area built around a courtyard. The village of Sibiel itself is no more than three rutted tracks - it has two little shops; a church with a museum of icons painted on glass (very sweet & well worth the 4 Lei) (just over a euro); a stream running through it and, er, two graveyards - it is surrounded by woods and was a great place to stay. Reghina cooked a lovely evening meal - accompanied by local plum brandy and local white wine - which was heavily oxidised but, hey.......

After leaving Sibiel/Sibiu the driver, Andrei, took us to Biertan. Biertan has a lovely medieval fortified church in an idyllic setting. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site - and you can see why. Romania has 25 such sites dotted around the country - the UK has 28, apparently.

Well, sorry folks but i'm buying Biertan. What an idyllic village in an idyllic setting - a beautiful fortified church overlooking this beautiful mediaeval village. Did i mention that it is lovely?

It's probably hell in winter.......

After Biertan we went to Sighisoara - another stunning walled mediaeval town with another beautiful fortified mediaeval church. Vlad the Impaler was born here and you can see the house he was born & lived in.

Anyway, this is a quick update on the trip so far. The weather has been lovely - although the region around the Danube has had terrible flooding apparently.

I have brought my brand new platinum-plated; Hi-Fi WiFi; twin-turbo; 17 million pixel; 95gb state of the art Nokia E72 with me so that i could keep in touch in case of "emergencies". Well, it hasn't synchronised yet & so the e-mails haven't updated but it is still somehow connected to my Outlook at work because it keeps reminding me of meetings - bizarre & vaguely amusing.

It did, however, deliver in between Biertan & Sighisoara a text-message from Penny telling me she has arrived safe & sound in New Zealand and all is well - so thank you Penny - i hope the rest of your trip goes well & is a storming success........