Elenka and I had just spent ten days in Brusno, Slovakia with the relatives. After tears and kisses goodbye, cousin Mana dropped us off at the train station in Zvolen, about 20 kilometres south. From there we eventually made it to Budapest, where we climbed aboard an east-bound night-train bound for Romania. Elenka took one look at our four cabin-mates with their chock-a-block luggage and headed straight for the conductor, intent on working some good old Eastern-European baksheesh. Moments later she came back to our crowded cabin, where I was stuck between a dirty-old suitcase and a large German man, and summoned me. She'd negotiated a first class sleeper two-person cabin for an extra 25 - under the table - Euros, and neither of us could have been happier. 
 

The following morning, we were awakened just before five by the sun as it tried to work its way through a soupy fog. Each and every relative in Slovakia had told us not to go to Romania. Translation for 'thieves', 'poverty', 'danger' and 'crime' were the new Slovak words I picked up during our stay.

 
The first thing that almost knocked me off my seat on the train was one of those old nuclear reactors, the ones that have a wide circumference at the top and bottom and are narrow in the middle. The kind we've all seen photographs of but for most of us never up close and real. I felt like I could almost touch the damned thing, it was so close. And beside it was the tallest smoke stack I'd ever seen. I envisioned them burning their nuclear waste, but saw no smoke coming from the top. A couple of kilometres later we went past a field where the fog had lifted somewhat. There, a horse was pulling a plough with a man standing at the back steering the implement. For 50, maybe 75 kilometres I don't think I saw a building that hadn't been left to ruin. The relatives were right. And I was getting nervous.

 
Sighisoara, our planned destination, along with Brasov to the south-east and Sibiu to the south-west are a triangle of 13th century German fortress-towns, about 1.5hr - 2hr away from one another, deep in the heart of Transylvania. Should we get off at Sighisoara or stay on in hope of finding civilization? Who knew what state the place would be in now. We arrived at the Sighisoara train station just after eight in the morning, looked at one another, and then went for it, along with just two other passengers. We walked for maybe twenty minutes before seeing Sighisoara's citadel perched on a rocky outcrop and commenced our climb.

 
After all the worry, Sighisoara turned out to be the fairy-tale town we'd read about. And the other two passengers who got off the train were French Canadians from Quebec who we've befriended. And we found a quaint little three-room pension right on the town square and last night as we dined at a table in front of our place - even had a bottle of Romanian wine. Elenka, who'd actually been far more frightened than I was, said she liked Sighisoara better than Siena. I took her hand. Our wonderful little world is perfect again.

 
Oh, and speaking of being deep in the heart of Transylvania Vlad Tepes, aka Count Dracula, was born just a few doors from our pension.