Middle-aged flash packers

Today we visited peles castle in Sinaia. It was built in the 1800’s before the days of communism. It is in a beautiful situation, surrounded by the carpathian mountains. 

Many of the rooms were very sombre with dark wood and heavy furniture but some had fabulous chandeliers and mirrors, similar to the Linderhoff castle we saw in Bavaria. There were also Arabian and Turkish rooms – obviously very fashionable at the time as they were also in Ludwig’s castles. 

We had a spot of lunch in a nearby hotel and then attempted to go for a walk in the hills. Steve had found a trail online which should have been about 8 miles. 

The man giving tickets in the car park spoke brilliant English and was surprised we were walking there as “not even Romanians know about that track”. Hmmm. Faithful readers, do you recall my comments re ‘off the beaten path’ in Bosnia? How Steve and I actually prefer being on the beaten path?

We had to cross the railway line to get on the track which was slightly unnerving, but actually fine. All good until we came to a barrier across the road and something written in Romanian which looked like “access forbidden ” or similar. More worrying was a sign with bears on it. For your info, there are 6000 bears in Romania, mainly in the Carpathian Mountains. 

Not wishing to seem a total wimp, and with Steve unconcerned, I carried on. I’ve heard that you should be noisy around bears so they know you are coming. After picking up a handy rock, I sang a rendition of “Teddy bears picnic” and kept up a stream of nervous chatter. This was not enough to assuage my concern and I think my fear must have transferred to Steve as after about half an hour he decided it was unwise to continue (more a fear of humans than bears) and we turned back. Ironically on our return journey, after seeing not a single soul, we bumped into an old man foraging. He couldn’t have been happier to see us and as he seemed unscathed by wild bears, I felt a bit silly having been so concerned.

We walked into the town of Sinaia where some sort of car rally was being held. Lots of nerdy men taking photos of ancient cars and much revving of engines. The race was along a torturous route into the mountains but no-one seemed to be doing much so we didn’t hang around too long.

Tonight we decided to have dinner at the Belvedere restaurant, 2 minutes walk from our hotel. It was highly recommended by our very discerning son Charlie so we thought we’d give it a whirl. (He described it as poncy noncy food)

The menu was copious and in the end we decided to go for the taster menu as we were both incapable of making a decision.

So glad we plumped for it. Amazing. The greedy side of me thought I’d still be hungry but I left the restaurant looking as though I would be giving birth imminently.

Absolutely delicious. I particularly liked the second course – caviar balanced on a thin wafer on top of a Bloody Mary. I don’t think my fish eggs were meant to fall into the tomato juice but it tasted good – maybe I should have informed the chef.

Unfortunately Steve’s stomach chose this meal to make its revolt. I thought something was wrong when he went completely red and burst into a sweat. After a visit to the loo, he gamely carried on but after dessert it became apparent we couldn’t linger and had to make a quick exit home.

I do hope everything sorts itself out by tomorrow or it could be a very long day on our way to Oradea.