4) Bucharest and Mamaia

From Curtea de Arges we drove on a new Romanian autobahn towards Bucharest (16.08.). Bucharest still looks very socialistic/stalinistic... anyways it impressed us how many great Buildings are there, if they just were restaurated... a Lady Gaga concert in front of the parliament (second biggest building in the world) distorted us from fully sightseeing that corner of Bucharest. The city surely houses a great number of wealthy citizens - probably on costs of their fellow countrymen. When walking the city park with it's statues of famous people, we recognized that Romanians are missing - are Romanians not proud of their own history and people? Roman emperorrs, Romulus & Remus, Konrad Adenauer - non really related to Romania!?

However, when we checked into our hotel, right after paying the receptionist told me that there was no room with 3 beds available anymore... but as I had paid already she offered us the King Suite for the same price. Relaxed we started into the nightlife... bars and clubs were great and covered most clienteles... 5am the club closed and we weaved back to our hotel where we could enjoy 3h of sleep before breakfast and checkout :O

We then (17.08.) continued to Constanta at the Black Sea and stayed just north of it in the beach town Mamaia. There a 24/7 party welcomed us. Basses banged all day and night... the party crowed was floating on drugs to the beats over the beach :D

Another long night and super short sleep we made our way towards Bulgaria...

Socialistic buildings with Ads of German companies -
Romanians seem to favour German companies all over the country

around Piata Universitatii

Monument for the revolution with blood spill :o

3) Dracula castles and Curtea de Arges

After spending the night listening to dog fights around our tent, we visited Rasnov castle (15.08.). Not fancy, but some nice views over the mountains... they could have made more out of it - maybe if they spent the money for the Hollywood-like letters for restaurations instead ;) Bram Stoker's set for his Dracula novel - the famous Bran castle - was next on our route. A gorgeous setting, but hordes of tourists kinda ruined the great ambience. Also the Romanians seem to dislike all the Dracula hype somehow... and they are right - the region has so much of its own to offer :) We then continued over the roads of Karpaden (Fagaras) mountains, which offer amazing views, to friendly Curtea de Arges - hub between the mountains and Bucharest. Curtea de Arges houses a fancy russian orthodox cathedral. A small city full of young folks - good place for some nice bar evening^^

Rasnov castle

Bran castle - Dracula's

nice spot to enjoy our melon snack :D

Curtea de Arges' russian orthodox church