My main memory of the journey from Aurial Vlaicu to Bran is of roadworks and mental drivers. Romania has a reputation for bad roads and on our experience it is entirely deserved. This is Highway 1, the main road from West Romania to Bucharest and we must have had to stop for road work traffic lights about 150 times over the 250 km journey. What should have taken us 3 hours took 6! And apart from the maniac who designed the roadworks plan, there are the maniac drivers who decide to go on red lights or overtake just as they change - I sympathise with their frustration but I'm not surprised Romania has one of the highest Road death rates of Europe!

Also on traffic stuff, the favoured forms of transport here are either horse and cart or Dacia cars which is the one remaining communist Bloc vehicle still in production though now Renault are actually admitting that its their design. They all look like very old style renaults and in keeping with most other things here are pretty battered and decrepit looking!

Anyway, we left Auriel Vlaicu to head for vampire country - cue spooky music - but decided to stop for lunch in Sibiu which is one of the 2 European cities of culture this year. Its a Saxon town and has a very nice small centre but is pretty run down in the rest of it. You can see the beautiful plaster work still on the wall of the houses but its been allowed to fall into such a state I was a bit disappointed . But I suppose both Liverpool and Glasgow were in a bit of a mess when they were cities of culture and they've really picked themselves up since, so hopefully this will do the same for Sibiu.

Then we drove for Bran - again chosen as a base as there's a good campsite, sorry, I have my standards - but its also where there is a famous castle that was said to have inspired Bram Stoker, though as he never visited Transylvania I don't quite know how. Its also got nothing to do with Vlad Tepes otherwise known as the impaler, but never mind its a nice castle. We did the tour and its actually more ideal home than Goth and impalings, mainly due to Queen Maria who was one of Victoria's daughters who got married off to King Ferdinand. She seems to have been quite a character and certainly I liked her taste in interior design if that's anything to go by!

Bran as a town is much more affluent than any other part of Romania we've seen - not saying much but here there are a lot of new houses, fresh paint and plaster and even some pavements. And the location is fabulous. There are mountains all round and there are plenty of trails into them. On our first day we took a walk up and got some fantastic views. These are pretty steep foothills but all the locals have to come up and sythe the grass to make little haystacks which they must use to feed their own cow or horse over winter. It looks back-breaking work - we struggled just getting up the hill, let alone sything grass for hours and then pitch-forking it into a haystack, but its another of these centuries old things that they still do here routinely!

On the whole our impression is that Romania is a country under construction. The people are generally very friendly and the countryside is beautiful so we will definitely come back one day and spend more time, but maybe leaving it until they have a few more amenities in place. I hope they don't lose all the traditions and friendliness in the process though!