FAMILY RESTAURANT: CASA DRACULA

Across the border we go where Oradea is our first stop in the peculiar Romania.
Many expectations created about this country, we are definitely sure to find much more that its ancient history of blood sucking lords.
-" this place has really changed" affirms Jorge as he compares the way of living nowadays with the one he saw ten years ago in his last visit.
In the road from Oradea to Sibiu (European cultural capital this year) and after eight hours of stop and go, get frozen and squeezed in the minibus, we can observe that wooden carts have been replaced for the famous Dacia Logan, the"best selling" car in Romania since this one was built.
Looking around we have the feeling that this country has been rushed into the wealthy and tempting European community category... few examples.

* You can see how some Roma people ( gypsies ) are brave enough to explore the world of the Internet without knowing that mixing your fizzy soft drink with the keyboard is not a good idea.

* traveling through their road you can realize that they spend more money in the signs to inform you of the bad status of the road ahead that actually bother in fixing them.

*Also you can enjoy a tasty but expensive "rare" cooked meat in the family restaurant that they have done from the original birth place of Vlad Dracul, I'm sure he will be turning in his grave!
As i said before, quite a peculiar country, but so far it is the one I like the most.

After Sibiu and capturing a few shots from the nice locals , we head to Brasov, in the heart of the famous Transylvania. Four days there teach us that the myth of Dracula is a merchandising machine and also a good excuse to make up stories like the one of the castle where he lived or how many turks he impaled carrying name of the church.
Snow is to be seen everywhere, which give us the perfect excuse and scenery added to the full moon, to pay a visit to an old church and its graveyard pursuing the perfect creepy shot.
Definitely worth it to try in this region of the world.... Scary!

ICE ON YOUR HOT TUB?

That was the question we kept hearing in our minds as the snow flakes tainted our hair in white while we were enjoying one of the popular thermal baths of the city.

Well... Budapest is a great place. Turkish, German, Venetian, Jewish and Magyar culture all mixed in a city divided in two by the not so blue Danube.

Seven days relaxing in the thermal baths, Psycho Mutants concert and traditional Hungarian food can do no harm to anyone.

For one week we are two more within the big tourist movement in Budapest, even when at this time of year you can nearly freeze your hands trying to get a decent shot from the bridges...

As tourists we also "enjoy" scam by the fake lost guy in the middle of the city and his friend playing the role of the good police... Unfortunately for them, it did not work out after we asked twice to see his identification batch and the only thing that we could see was his video club membership card.

Ready for the move and with our back feeling much better after a few days not having to carry the backpacks from A to B, we say goodbye to Buda and Pest with its seven bridges to unite them.

Our next stop, Eger, With its famous "Valley of the beautiful women"...hey! nothing to cheer about! it is only its origin denomination for their famous wine.

THE " MOSQUE-CHURCH"

Straight streets and elegant architecture on each side of the street as we stroll around Szeged kicking golden Autumn leaves in our way. Szeged is considered a college town and grateful for that we are able to find accommodation for the night before heading to Pecs, where unknown friends are waiting for us.

Kata, Jan and Sarah ( sorry for the misspelling!!) are a beautiful family whom used their own hands to build their home, where little Sarah learns Hungarian and German without realizing it.
This small town is well worth it to be the next European Culture Capital in 2010. Plenty of festivals when is not too cold, Turkish ruins, Churches and a nice Synagogue are only a few of the things this place has to offer.
They even use an old Mosque as their main Church!!. Definitely not many of those to be seen anywhere.

Thanks to our friends we can learn and enjoy a bit more of the local way of living and also we are introduced to the "Psycho Mutants", a local band that hopefully we will be enjoying their concert in Budapest.
Meeting people like them makes travelling easier and thousand times better....
Thanks again guys!!

DRAWINGS IN OUR PASSPORTS

We leave Mostar not before having a big scary moment when I crossed the whole city thinking that I had left my hard drive with all my pictures forgotten in a Internet cafe already closed...
Luckily this time i was wrong.

Rain takes over our steps as we pass Sarajevo and Belgrade, it seems like the weather is trying to tell us something...like if we were taking the wrong route.
Not willing to risk much and following the Nature advice we change our minds and we decide to go to Hungary, hopping to find warmer people that just could smile when you are trying to buy a train ticket or answer something different than " no information here...search on the Internet!" when you are asking something in the tourist information office.

For a few days we enjoy the good OZ company of Suzie and Andrea ( I hope they are written properly).

The city of Novi Sad is in our way north and definitely gets the prize as the ugliest city of the month...I have to say that the weather and the name did not help at all.
We do our last stop before Hungary in Subotica, where the whistle of the train remind us that we are happy to leave Serbia behind.
Just a couple of hours separate us from Hungary, and with rain enjoying the ride with us again, we make it to Szeged, where in the border, we can see trough the window the funny faces of the immigration officers as they look the drawings in our passports.

Just crossing the border and the people seems to have sense of humor'

WAKE UP!

" It wasn't a real war.... only brothers fooling around with each other pretending having a war"
-affirms the biker that we met in Zadar...
Of course he only went as far as Dubrovnik and through the Croatian coast.

Once you leave Croatia and arrive to Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), you just need to look around to realize that the "adventurous" biker was completely wrong.

WAKE UP!!! The nice days travelling comfortably around Europe are over!!
That is the feeling through our minds as we enter this city.
Shattered schools, offices, Mosques, Churches, and other buildings everywhere are the scenery that locals can see everyday since 15 years ago. I guess that i gets to a point that you forget how it was and get used at how it is.
The old town, with it new bridge as jumping point for the brave divers, is where more or less you can not see many crumbled buildings and where if you do not look around much, you would think that it is just a nice old city with a peculiar variety of cultures and religions.
No beautiful pictures to be taken here, just enough to witness what happened and what is probably happening right now in many places in the world that we do not hear about in the mass media.
Who is wrong and who is right I guess is a matter of opinion. This land and its people is a chess service controlled by few.

THE PEARL OF THE ADRIATIC

According to the opinion of some people, in Zadar you can enjoy the most beautiful sunsets in the world, even the famous Alfred Hitchcock fell under the spell of one of them.
The expectations created by the popular thought led us to the city piers...
We waited, we watched, and finally felt the disappointment crawling up to our fingers ready on the shutter of our cameras.
The show was alright, but even giving an extra chance the next day we couldn't stop thinking of the one in Angkor Wat, Campeche, Sydney, Antarctica or even our home town!
Dubrovnik was our next stop and we were not willing to wait forever until the said became true.

It was a long ride following the gorgeous coastline that even on a rainy day can make you forget the amount flags along the coast to identify what's yours and what's mine between Bosnian and Croats.
The Pearl of the Adriatic, Dubrovnik, heals slowly its wounds with tourists that every day arrive from cruises and buses to conquer with their cameras every single withe stone that form this city.
It is certainty a magic place, quite impressive specially at night, where the artificial light of its street lamps can take you to times when Venetians ruled this part of the world.