The road back to Brasov

The plan was then to drive down to Brasov, taking our time, return the car, and then head for the last leg of our journey - the Danube Delta.

The road back to Brasov was actually very nice too. We started off by stopping in the Neamt region, which like Buchovina is very famous for its monasteries. These ones are more functioning monasteries than historic monuments (and therefore also tourist attractions), like the Buchovina monasteries. We visited one located in Agapia. It was not as pretty as the Buchovina ones, definitely less colourful and more austere, but it was kind of nice to see some nuns who did other things than guide tourists, for a change.



From here, we carried on to Tazlau, where we spent the night at the Florean family's farm. After meeting our very friendly hostess (who spoke excellent French), we went for a walk through the village and the nearby hills (and also visited the local ruined monastery). You could say the place pretty well encapsulates the positive "cliches" of rural Romania, without being touristy at all (with geese wandering in the streets, farmers cutting hay in the street, old ladies gossiping on benches etc.). We finished off the evening with another great farm dinner, made from local products, with a nice Alsatian family (French people, not dogs ;-) who were also guests at the farm.



The next morning we carried on towards Brasov, driving through the awe-inspiring Bicaz gorge (pity about all the tourist shops along the road), and finally reached the famous red lake. It's a very beautiful lake set in the midst of the mountains, which apparently has reddish water (it seemed pretty blue to us), because the lake was apparently created by a landslide. Very pretty, though - with tree stumps sticking out of the water.






We were now in the Hungarian-speaking parts of Transylvania, which was apparent from all the Hungarian tour buses passing us by, and the Hungarian restaurant where we had lunch. Actually, we ended up spending the night in a Hungarian-Romanian village near Brasov, called Purcareni, with a Hungarian lady. The dinner was, again, great (and atmospheric, since we had to have it in candle-light due to a power cut caused by the raging storms outside...) - and I even got to practice my extremely rusty Hungarian (all 10 words of it!).

The next morning we drove into Brasov, and returned the car, and jumped on the bus to Tulcea, in the Danube Delta.