Tuesday Morning, picking up the car this morning from Sixt, had a good night sleep and ready for the day! The sun is shining and the weather is already warm but fresh!

09:30AM pick up, the branch was closed, typical. But the guy run down on time and got us up and running pretty fast, we did have to walk almost a mile what thought like to get the car parked on the side of one of the little roads in the old town. Surprised that we had almost a brand new Renault Clio, I was expecting a banger. But it was a manual stick, I havent driven a stick in about 4 years so this is going to be VERY interesting haha.

After checking the car over we got into the car, mum ready to shout her Mrs Bouquet orders out "watch the car coming down the road 500M away!".
I did try a hill start and rolled slightly, then I ended up stalling the car on the hill out of town and up the road, not a great start! However in my defence its been a long time since I used manual car and the car was one of those hybrid / new cars that cut out or the engine switches off when you aren't using the gear box or moving so it felt completely different to what I had driven before. So lets give me credit slightly.

I am also not sure of the traffic signals, speed cameras and lane disciplines so it was an adventure haha! To be honest after half hour or so I was getting used to it slightly more because we couldn't go too fast and the lanes were one or two, a few lorries up my arse who I fancied giving the middle finger to but aside from that not too bad! The scenery was very picturesque and we followed the Transalvaniyan Alps on our first adventure down to Rasnov Fortress where we had breakfast in the car park before heading up the hill the fort. The breakfast, a Latte with a straw (new, maybe a Romanian thing) haha! Eggs, bread, cheese and meat is the usual.

We headed up the hill, most people took the train carriages dragged by a tractor, lazy sods. We strolled up and found that it was being restored by the EU funding, well they hadn't done much with the money they had received because it was looking in very poor condition and was actually closed because of danger! Marvellous. Well the scenery was lovely and the stretch of our legs.

Next stop would be Bran, this is where Bran Castle is (Dracula's castle), Dracula's village! Parked up and headed over to the entrance of the castle, through the 'tack stalls' selling wooly things, wooden things and a load of Dracula and halloween gothic souvenirs. Not for me thanks.
We have to pay to go into the castle of course, I think about 14GBP each. The castle was worth it though, it was very nice to see and read about the history of it. The first room mentioned about the history and time line of the queens and kings since I think 13th Century. It also mentioned how Dracula who is in fact fictional and not a real person, was based on a king from 14th Century called Vlad the Impaler, he was a king and during the Ottoman empire used to drink the blood of those who he killed as he believed it made him stronger and more powerful. He was very cruel and blood thirsty when it came to fighting and battles.

The castle, beautiful and the grounds the same with the views into the mountains, after we had seen all the rooms and winding corridors and stairways, we went over to what was mentioned on Google Maps as Dracula's Village, it turns out I went down a dry dirt road and into a little housing estate amongst the blossom trees and cabin houses, the view was lovely but the village was not a tourism area haha. So we went back down but wasn't particularly easy to manoeuvre, whoops!

Next stop back past the Ransom Fortress and up to Poiana Brasov, which was on top of the mountain and a ski resort in the winter, the season however had just finished so we weren't going to make that, but the ski lift was still working so much to mums dismay we headed up to the top of the mountain and parked to get on the empty cable car to the top of the mountain. Mum assumed it was the first mountain top but she was indeed wrong, that was only half way before we headed to the next peak. We were up there for about 20 minutes admiring the view and watching the silly b******s on mountain bikes getting of the car behind us to ride back down the slope, even though much of the slopes were still covered in snow! The view was incredible but a little sad that there wasn't a pub at the top, so instead we went to one at the bottom with another bunch of rude ass waiters and s*** etiquette who almost spilled a drink on me and took forever to get the bill. They work hard here to NOT get tips.

A lovely drive back down as it was on the way up meandering in and out of the woods and zig zagging around the mountain up to the peak, now back down into Brasov. It was lovely! Behind a local bus, they have a bike rack attached to them for those who like to go up and bike back down or I suppose do what those nutters were doing in ski resort.

The sun still shining and a bloody lovely day, we parked the car I had to download the T-Park app and pay for the car to be parked, the guys said it was free from 7PM - 9AM so I only needed to pay for 2 hours as we would be in the car before 9AM tomorrow as going further a field.

We went straight to the bar for one before going back and getting changed as the sun was out and we had to make the most of it!

Tonight we were going to the Wine Bar as opposed to having a meal, a bloody lovely cheese and meat board, not so great olives marinated in Anchovies both me and dad made a face at the same time haha. Wine by the glass for 2GBP and they got bigger the more we ordered.

Lovely day! Time for bed but not before an ice cream for sweet tooth momma! haha.