…your blood, that is. 🧛🏻‍♂️ When you think of Transylvania, do you think of fog, pale skin, and creepy music? Well, that’s what we thought too, instead of reality, which is sunny skies, castles, and dancing!

Our first stop was Cluj-Napoca. We weren’t there for very long, so mostly all we did was take a day tour. It was called Curly Tours, and I think it was called that because our tour guide had curly hair. Anyways, first, we went to a salt mine that had two things that I think are intresting: one, it has an underground amusment park where you can row boats, play mini golf, ride the ferris wheel, and play on the playground, and two, MrBeast made a video there last year! Then we went on a super long zipline, and my dad was so heavy that he needed to wear a parachute to slow him down. The thing was really fast, and it could go up to 100 km per hour. 🤯 Next, we ate a really interesting thing called kurtos kalacs, which I had never heard of before. It looks like fair food. It is a long dough that swirls around a rolling pin that is roasted over a fire. They put butter on it, so it gets all sticky. Then, they take it off and roll it in sugar and cinnamon. It is really delicious. Last, we went on a hike that crossed a lot of bridges, and almost the entire thing was limestone, which is slippery, so we had to hold on to a rope the entire time.

The only other thing in Cluj that we did was go to Steampunk Transylvania, which is a kinda sci-fi nerd museum.

After Cluj, the next place in Transylvania that we visited was Sibiu. It was kinda creepy, because all the buildings had eyes. It was probably the creepiest thing in Romania that we saw. Like this, for example:

There was a music festival going on, so there was a bunch of games and stuff set up in one square, an art installation thingie that was shaped like a bunch of bubbles, and a band parading down the street. There was also a big (almost) disaster in Sibiu. My mom brought her computer, and I brought my Kindle to a cafe so I could work on my blog and my sister could read. Driving out of Sibiu, I asked for my Kindle, and she said, Where is it? At that moment, we both realized we had left the Kindle and the computer! Thankfully, we were only 5 min on our way to the next stop, so my mom ran into the restaurant to get our stuff!

After Sibiu, we visited Sighișoara and Viscri. Sighișoara is the hometown of “Dracula”, even though most people think that Bran Castle is. Bran Castle is a terrific example of tourist marketing - it has 0 things to do with Dracula, even though the locals call it “Dracula Castle” (we didn’t go there). Dracula is based on Vlad Tepes, who used to kebab people. If you are wondering why he is called Dracula, it is because his dad’s name is Vlad Dracul, so Bram Stoker decided to write a book about a scary guy called Dracula.🧛🏻‍♂️(also, if you’re wondering why I used the Dracula emoji twice, it’s cuz this is Romania).

Then in Viscri, we went to a church/fortress. At the top of the church, we took leaves and ripped them up so the pieces could float on the updraft. We squealed every time it happened. It was really fun! You should try it! Afterwards, we ate cake at a small cafe and visited King Charles’ Romanian vacay house! It wasn’t open, though, so we just looked. Unsurprisingly, it was the biggest house in Viscri. On the way back, as we were driving, we saw a bear on the side of the road! Our tour guide pulled around so we could take pictures of it, and then this camper van came up, and a man got out and started throwing white bread at it. He ran out of bread, so he went back in to grab some crackers, and at that point, we decided to leave. It probably wasn’t too healthy for the bear, but a bear’s gotta eat.

We couldn’t leave Romania without seeing some castles. We visited two of them near Brasov. The first that we went to was Peles (pelish), which King Carol built, but the castle wasn’t actually in Transylvania. It was in another region of Romania, because at that time, Transylvania didn’t belong to Romania, but King Carol really wanted it, so he built Peles as close to Transylvania as he could. It was 5 min from the border, and it was really decorative and grand. In the main hall, there was also a ceiling that opened up so his guests could see the sky, and the rooms had themes from different countries, like the Italy room, the Hungary room, the Turkey room, and the Japan room. We also visited Cantacuzino Castle. If you’ve watched Wednesday (the TV show), that’s where it’s filmed! We also got to see Prejmer fortress. Back then, each family got their own room in the fortress. There was also a wall with holes lining it, so you could do your business into a kind of moat outside the fortress. Since the invaders had to walk really far, when they would cross the moat, their cuts would be infected with…you know what.

We ate a lot of traditional food in Romania, and in Braşov, dinner also came with dancing. As we were sitting down and waiting for our food, a bunch of people came parading through with instruments and Romanian dancing. Plus, at the end, they gave us Romanian fruit cake.

Bucharest was our final stop in Romania. We went to a giant bookstore with 5 levels, and the Romanian communist museum. At dinner, there was another dancing performance, except this time, there were no instruments and fruit cake, but when the performance was over, they did it again 30 min later! We probably watched the performance 4 times.

Transylvania staaaaaats!

Best food: Kurtos kalacs (cur-toes cah-latch) (second place rose lychee raspberry gelato at Velocità Brasov)

Best shopping: Cărturești Carusel (the bookstore in Bucharest; we didn’t buy anything, but my mom downloaded books I liked onto my Kindle)

Fun fact: Even though it is the home of Dracula, Transylvania isn’t very spooky! (no pale people or mystery music)

Best things to see/do: Turda salt mine

Where we stayed: Siesta Smart Suites (this was interesting because we saw no workers besides the cleaning lady!), Craft Inn, Schuster Boarding House

How 2 pronounce: Cluj-nah-poke-ah, Sih-bee-ooh, Viz-cree, Sig-ih-shore-ah, Bra-shof, Boo-kah-rest.

This place doesn’t suck…

Transylvania staaaaaats!

The wurst place possible