A European Mini-Vacation - The first 6 hours

I have one of the worst excuses for not writing a post in over two weeks: my computer was overloaded with pictures. Seriously! I didn’t prepare to have this much data on my computer that it was stuck until I started deleting my precious pictures. It was awful – I would never wish it on my worse enemy.

So now that I have made it past that horrible mess up, and my computer has space again, I can write again! [And save my work.]

…

Train's here. 

My trip to Sinaia and Brasov was an amazing experience (as noted in my other blog), however I was sick. Somehow I had caught a bug the night before we took the train out of Bucharest and I was a snotty mess. Snot or no snot, I still did everything with my parents… and learned how to get medicine from the pharmacy in Brasov.

The first leg of our trip was traveling up to Sinaia by train. It was interesting trying to find the train platform at Gara de Nord (translation: North Railway Station) because the ticket didn’t print the platform number. My parents and I checked and double-checked the schedule board to make sure that we didn’t miss the train. The train only stops for 13-15 minutes at major stations and exactly 2 minutes at smaller stations, so you better be on time! Once on the train we put our luggage on the open racks above our assigned area and settled into “well-used” seats. At exactly 8:30am the conductor blew the train whistle and we were off on our mini-vacation.

It didn’t take long for us to get to Sinaia. The train ride was quite smooth and watching the horizon change from urban landscape to mountainous villages was fascinating. Around 10:00am we arrived at Sinaia, home of Romania’s famous Peles Castle. It housed most of Romania’s influential kings and queens during hot days in Bucharest. It was a wonderful, sunny day when we got to Sinaia, so my family and I got to see the castle in its eternalized glory.

Peles Castle - September 2014

That white thing in the right-hand corner is the heated room.

When you visit Peles Castle, though, be aware that you need to wear slippers over your shoes during the castle tour, taking pictures costs extra, and there is still cat hair mixed with the 100-year-old dust all over the castle. Sadly, I found out about the cat hair the hard way. I am highly allergic to cat hair so I ended up I grossing out people by sneezing everywhere and stuffing wet, snotty tissues into my pants pockets. It was not a pleasant tour, but at least I found out that one of the kings collected samurai swords and the queen had a marble heated room.

Sinaia is also known for ski mountain resorts. There wasn’t any snow on the mountains, so no skiing yet, but my parents and I did go on the cable cars up the mountain. (You read that right, I said CARS.) We took a ride on a fairly new cable car up to 1,400m and then a crowded old cable car up to 2,000m. Once you finally get to the top you can see the whole town of Sinaia and beyond. It was beautiful… until you turn around and see the construction site. I was told that governing leaders are building a church at the top of the mountain. It’s going to be fascinating going to church during the snowy season…

Great view for the church. 

We only stayed in Sinaia for 6 hours and I want to say it was hours well spent. However, if you want to do Peles and the cable cars in that amount of time, make sure you have the phone number of a taxi driver. It may be beautiful to hike the mountainous area of Sinaia, but you won’t make the train departure in time. This is a station that only allows two minutes to get off and hop on the train.

Next stop: Brasov…