Felt better than expected after lying awkwardly on the bed last night for most of the night. Dry mouth and boiling again though!
Straight in the shower and a bit more of a chill this morning before we headed out, a new day a new place!

We headed to the car and hoped for no ticket! - Success! We got it right and no tickets!
Today we were off to a good start and on our way to Peles Castle and a walk that dad was in charge of near to the place. Didnt know what to expect to be honest.

A little cloudy today but the sun was still forcing its way through!
We headed on one road out of town, a different direction today, a nice sauntering drive through at a leisurely pace. We soon figured that we didnt need to change any road and stayed on the same one all the way to Peles. I also wasnt expecting the scenery we epxerienced. We went up almost immediately leaving Brasov City. Through the mountains today not up a steep hill but gradually. Amongst the pine trees and through the villages, not as derelict as they were on the other side of the Alps! There was snow still about and this was clearly some sort of skiing resort area or their houses just look like the typical skii chalets that you would expect to see in the slopes.

The drive was lovely and only really an hour and half so we decided to stop at a place only around 20 minutes or so from Peles as it seemed a little more affluent, busier and touristy, clearly it was a skii resort. There were even tour guides stood on the side of the road trying to rush up to the car when I pulled in and around for a u turn as I missed the pull in on the side of the road to park outside the cafe. So, we were in Busteni Town, in the middle of the mountains and fairly high up unexpectedly.
Breakfast was nice, another egg, cheese and carb breafast. Me and mum had a tuna sandwich which had a big fat gerkin in the middle of it - yum! but that made it a little soggy for mum. Dad's omlette was better than yesterday apparently, seems to think it was cooked in butter, just to make it a little more healthier haha. It was chilly when we first sat down even though the sun was out but soon enough when we sat and it pierced us we got a little warm and mum slight ting of red.

Breakfast eaten, onwards to Peles, dad had to guide me out of the car space as the main road was very busy.

Peles was similar but a littler smaller, we did a first turning off the roundabout and came to cobbled street with a ticket man for the car. 30 RON for the day, I guess it got us 900M from the castle as he said haha.
So we parked, a bus full of young kids dressed up to the nines, clearly on graduation or a ball of some sort here. Good luck to those girls in high heels that looked like they had never put a pair on before walking up the road because the cobbles were all over the shop.

Already loving Peles, before we had even set eyes on the Castle. But when we did, WOW. This castle was dramatic and epic to see! The colours and thatched looks with dark roof made it look tudor like. We walked up the covered driveway to the side of it, a man sat under the tree playing his Accordion which set the tone. As we went further up the driveway we could see more houses in similar style to the castle, there were about 10-15 of them big huge houses some turned into little hotels with cafes and restaurants underneath them that were perfect place to sit and get sunned whilst drink a cold beer or umm sorry I mean coffee...

Couldnt believe the beautiful buildings, we walked amongst them all and dad got his camera man skills out to do his best videoing.
We headed for the walk or hike were we calling it? Through the forest and up into the mountains or bear country should we say. I was a little uneased by that thought but didnt show it as I knew mum would be pooping her pants too. The trails looked to be alright, aside from the odd occassion trees that had falled down over the pathways and having to find alternatives to get around them. We were still in the grounds of the castle I believe as the path was paved with very old cobble stones. We zig zagged up gradually and dad was following his walk guide map that was pretty accurate to Google Maps also. We soon got to a road (not a busy one a trail more llike) that was near to a sandwich stop that had lots of BEWARE signs near to them so the Google Translate app had to come out as it was all in Romania, not just brown bears to be mindful of but wild boars and wild cats that had an uncanny look like a leopard or cheetah. Great. But the advice was not to leave food out and watch out for their foot prints. That also didnt put much faith into me, only that we needed to keep making a noise because that would scare them off right?

A man went past on his huge 4x4 quad bike so that made enough noise for a little while, we had to follow the road up slightly but made a short cut as the roads were weaving in and out and we could cut a lot of time out going up straight through the woods instead of following the road. I almost stood on a bloody snake which scared the s*** out of me, it was a little weird where it was placed though and wasnt moving, considering the road was a gravel road that mountain bikers come down. Dad poked it with a stick, it wasnt moving so we guessed maybe a bird had picked it up and dropped it and it died on impact but there was also no sign of claws or blood on it. Strange!

There were lots of very old but grand walls in the valleys of the mountains used as walls to prevent the water piling down the mountain when it rained, instead went through the little whols in them which made them look like castle walls with large canon holes in them. We got a little more confident and started looking around. We spotted another cable car, this for sure had to be the one that mum and dad was watching on You Tube, it went over about three or four mountains to get to the peak. That would have been great but mum had had her fair share of cable cars for another 18 months haha. Damn it.

The walk was pleasant and we sort of did a big loop around and came back on ourselves eventually going down through the same pathway back to the castle grounds. The down part is the worst, it hurts the knees.

We werent fancying paying to go in and see another castle, I think it was as grand as we could get it from oustside and going up closer to it in the grounds. So instead after having a nosey around the courtyard we went up to the restaurant and sat to have a drink, mum wanted an ice cream but got distracted by the ENORMOUS cake with custard in and flake pastry, not for me thanks but she enjoyed it and got the powder all over her face haha. The view of the castle was grand!

What a lovely day out! We headed back down to the car, a couple got engaged on the driveway of the castle, bit weird considering he chose the worst part of the site to get engaged with no view or romance in it. We headed back the same way we came and it was a lovely relaxed drive back. No rushing and no getting lost because it was one road. Trying not to get distracted by the beautiful views I had precious cargo in the car.

Got back around 5PM after filling up at the petrol station, dad had to fill as I havent done that since 2017, Dubai we have someone doing it for us haha.

We got back dropped the car back to the Sixt team, he just needed to know where I had parked it and gave him the car keys, that was pretty much it. No sign out no nothing, glad we took photos and videos of the car for record.

We went to the pub, back to Merlins but the waitress wasnt there we assumed it was the family that owned it after our conversation with her the other day, they were very umm I dont know how to put it. Well lets say you wouldnt expect them to own a pub more like a library or charity store, even the young daughter. Thats mean shouldnt say that haha. Ross facetimed he is in the virgin islands on a super yacht floating around for free lucky b******.
We proceeded to the Italian across form Merlins and have a scumtious dinner with some Vino for the last night.

Afterwards we went for a walk around and another ice cream, the square seemed to have a strobe light DJ/party on which was very out of character for the place but the head bangers were out, we walked through the middle with our ice creams and proceeded to bed or to pack even before heading back down to Bucharest tomorrow.

Brasov and Transalvania has been a tick to the bucket list I never knew needed to be on it!