katiesfootprints: Romania & Finland with a dash of Denmark

After chatting to come locals on our train up to Brasov, Transylvania, Romania, we had hatched our plan for the next few days. First up, try not to get ripped off by a taxi driver. Fail. Flawless plan obviously. We headed out in search of food and found a cute little under-ground restaurant that was full-on Romanian – right down to the uniform – traditional Romanian food was ordered, delivered and devoured. Delicious as always. We had a lazy afternoon of wandering the streets and sampling the drinks before embarking on yet another walking tour. Most memorable moment: an Australian girl stating that she “hasn't seen any trannies yet, you know, like men dressed as women”? Tour guide: “Umm were you expecting to see that here?” “Yea, I mean we're in Transylvania”. I made absolutely sure he knew that NZ was not a part of Australia for that one. More Romanian cuisine along the restaurant lined main pedestrian street for dinner.

The next morning we headed off in search of Dracula. Our driver spoke zero English which was novel and frustrating all in one. First stop was the impressively detailed Peles (said Pelej) Castle – no photos allowed inside sorry, there are a few if you google it. Bran Castle next, by which time we had finally gotten through to our driver that we desperately needed a cash machine. Bran Castle is commonly referred to as Dracula's Castle but actually has nothing to do with him at all – despite some of the bad rap I had heard this castle given, I quite liked it, simple and just looked like a typical castle – these things were built hundreds of years ago after all they shouldn't be too flash! Feeling pretty castled out by this time we headed to Rasnov to view another “castle”. Ruins it turned out to be actually, and not unlike others we had already seen. In the heat we were a little bit over it but sucked it up and carried on. That evening we just chilled at the hostel and talked travel for a few hours with everyone else.

A train ride back to Bucharest was scheduled for the afternoon so we decided to continue our tourist roll that we were on and headed up the cable car to get panoramic views of Brasov. Having now sussed the taxi's out we caught one to a little fortified town – Prejmer -15km away for less than what we paid to get to our hostel (1.5km away) a couple of days before. We checked out the fortified village and church, I sprained my ankle apparently unnecessarily jumping over a creek, and we got shadowed by a Romanian boy on a bike for a while. It was an adventurous morning. Once we arrived in Bucharest, on board the scary communist looking train, we headed straight out for the Bucharest walking tour – we are getting walking-toured out now too. A delicious Romanian meal at the oldest restaurant in Bucharest and a chat with some locals saw the day out for us. Our time up in Romania was almost done and unfortunately I hadn't allowed enough time for us to see the inside of the Palace of the People – second largest building in the world - but there is a snap below of the impressive outside.

We had a scheduled night stop-over in Copenhagen, Denmark which was absolutely stunning and one of the better decisions made on this trip so far – despite now arriving into 13 degree weather... It wasn't all bad though and I welcomed in the other half of clothes I've been lugging around for the past 8 weeks. A quick nosey around the city and a very tasty meal down on gorgeous Nyhavn saw our time up in Copenhagen. For now.

We arrived in Helsinki, Finland around lunch time, checked in and – you guessed it – headed out in search of food! The trusty tripadvisor app directed us to a quaint local restaurant serving buffet style lunch full of soup, salmon and chicken. We wandered the city and I got sucked in by the markets at the harbour which were totally worth it. We wandered parks and snapped pictures of islands before meeting Dean back at the hotel and heading out to the Ice Hockey – first live game, and our [band wagon] team won!!! 7-1, fights and blood included. Apart from this day we didn't actually do a lot more in Helsinki, night time partying excluded (that took care of the mornings too), except spend time with Leish and Simon who'd made their way over from Malmo in Sweden.

We've now headed on to Tallinn in Estonia where I will tell you about how great I think this place is next time.

Main Square - Brasov.

Peles Castle

I have vowed to take more photos with me in them - me at Bran Castle.

Favoured mode of transport in Romania...

See, getting better, Me and Brasov.

Fortified village in Prejmer.

Just a little place I like to call home; the current Parliament building of Romania and second largest building in the world (photo doesn't do it justice) - The Palace of the People, Bucharest.