King Carol's castle, crap for tea and a dog named Jack

It had to end sometime. Since we entered Slovakia from Poland 17 days ago we have had continuous sunshine with temperatures often reaching the mid twenties. This morning we awoke on our last day in Romania to leaden skies, drizzle, and a cold wind. It is nearly November in Eastern Europe, and snow is not uncommon at this time of year in the Carpathians so I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky. Time to break out the fleeces and wet-weather gear.

Sleeping Beauty would have been at home here

We spent a quiet night on a car park in Sinaia, 2,500 feet up in the Bucegi mountains, a popular ski resort once the snow comes. The air quality here is supposed to be refreshing and stimulating, but until they build the new motorway to by-pass the town, that probably isn't the case. However, our morning was bright and fresh and we found a track leading up into the forests above the town where we walked the spaniels and enjoyed the brisk cold air. 

A lovely walk

Having deposited the dogs back in the van we walked up to Peles castle, a neo-Renaissance pile which was constructed by King Carol I, the first monarch of an independent Romania. He was actually a German prince who had been snapped up by the Romanians in the age when it was possible to buy a new monarch off the shelf of European minor royalty. It was the world's first castle to be powered by locally produced electricity. It is very Germanic in style and we felt a bit overwhelmed by all the carved woodwork inside. Any attempts to take pictures of the interior were forestalled by fierce lady guides, who leapt on hapless would-be photographers demanding another £7. I managed to get one before being caught.

If you like heavy carved wood you'll love this

Peles is not really a castle, as we would understand it, but more of a palace with  170 rooms, most of which are not open to the public. When the communists took over, the monarchy was abolished and the castle seized for the people, which obviously meant no one was allowed to visit it. In 1997 the castle was returned to the Royal family and is now leased back by the Romanian government. Even on a cold day at the end of October, there were hundreds of visitors milling around in the grounds and traipsing around the palace on guided tours.

Carvings everywhere you looked

Having failed to get the laundry done in Brasov, we had decided to stop in the town of Ploiesti to do the washing, having learned from our trusty app that there was a laundrette in the south of the town. It turned out to be the laundry of a college halls of residence. We had a bit of a struggle to get in. The man on the gate was seemingly not aware the college had this facility and got the impression we were asking for the car wash which was further down the road. Eventually the penny dropped and we were allowed to park up and a lovely lady took Neri down to get the washing on.

By the time we left it was 3.30 and we had decided to try and get south of Bucharest where we had identified a place to stay. The capital's ring road left quite a bit to be desired, a two lane road that was packed with traffic swerving around all the potholes. As darkness descended we were still battling through the rush hour traffic in what is Europe's most congested city. Neri did a fine job steering us around the vehicles coming at us from side roads, where drivers think a Give Way sign is just a suggestion rather than a command. Eventually we got out of the chaos and back into the countryside. We were a bit nonplussed when we found the lane to our overnight spot was blocked off, so we pressed on for a couple of hundred yards, eventually finding our way

Rush hour in Bucharest

back across a cart track in the pitch dark. 

We arrived at our destination to find the vehicle gates locked. Luckily a side gate was opened so I walked through to be confronted by a Romanian dog, who appeared not to be happy that someone had ventured onto his patch. Nearly every house in Romania seems to have a dog, whose sole desire is to escape from behind its fence and tear you to pieces. Having sweet-talked him a bit I walked through the yard to find two men working on a caravan. "Hi" I said, in my best Romanian. 'Hello' said a distinctly English voice. It turned out to be a guy named Simon, who was repairing his motorhome and helping out at the caravan workshop. 

Jack stands guard at the entrance

He introduced us to the owner, Johnny, who before setting up repairing caravans, spent 25 years as a circus performer where he toured several times in the UK and then worked on cruise ships. He even had a publicity poster of a visit to Newquay some years ago.  They found us a space in the crowded yard and allowed us to empty our toilet cassette in their Portaloo. We also became friends with the fierce dog, Jack, who turned out to be far more bark than bite, so much so, that the next morning when Neri set off on her run, he stood on his hind legs and gave her a hug. Neri cooked a lovely meal of carp with Japanese style vegetables. We were amused that, in Romanian, carp becomes crap. It definitely wasn't.

Johnny in his cruise ship days

File de crap

After a brisk walk with the dogs around a nearby lake the next morning, we said our farewells to Johnny. He was keen to warn us about the Bulgarian police who, he said, would pull people over for no reason and demand money in exchange for whatever small transgressions they found. Somewhat apprehensively we set off towards the border, pausing in the supermarket in Giurgiu to spend the remainder of our Romanian currency. Unfortunately we had to buy some more wine to use it up.

A wet crossing of the Danube

Having crossed the Danube on a Soviet built bridge, we found ourselves, for the very first time on this trip, queuing at passport control before we could enter Bulgaria. The country is something of a jump-off point for illegal immigrants heading North so the border is tightly regulated. Once through we dashed to an ATM to get some Bulgarian cash, just in case we had to bribe any police officers, and drove out of the city to park in some woodland close to the Danube. We had just settled down after walking the dogs when a Border Police vehicle pulled up and the occupants sat surveying Florence. I though it best to wander out to have a word but they couldn't have been nicer. We don't have EU plates on the van so they wondered where we were from. Having explained, and told them we were heading for Greece, they said we were welcome to stay where we were and drove off. Maybe Bulgarian police aren't so bad after all.