Day 26 - Saturday 20th June

I had a restless night because of the heat and humidity. When I got up to have a shower, there was no hot water. Outside it was cool and cloudy.

When we went down for breakfast at 8am, they were still setting it up. As with other guest houses, it was a limited choice - cold meat, cheese, tomatoes, home-made bread, cereal, home-made jam, hot milk, coffee, butter and a bowl of apples. They cooked an omelet for me - although it didn't look like an omelet.

We set out at 9am and travelled back along the "road" from Viscri to the main road. Because of the poor quality of the "road", it took almost 30 minutes to travel the 6 or 7km.

The first stop was at a fortress on the top of the hill overlooking the town of Rupea. From a distance, it was an imposing site. It was just as impressive as we walked through the site and up to the top. There were plenty of opportunities to take photos of the various parts of the structure and of the view below.

The next stop was going to be the bear conservatory which is close to Brasov. Suzy had asked Alex if there were any places she could see bears. We'd seen one in the zoo we'd been to yesterday but this zoo near Brasov sounded more interesting.

Alex had calculated that it would take 90 minutes to get there from Rupea and the last entry for viewing the bears was at 11am. It was 9:40 by the time we left the fortress and so it was going to be a tall order to get there on time.

Despite Alex's best efforts it was 11:40 by the time we arrived. Part of the delay was the condition of the gravel road which lead to the site from the sealed road. Several times we thought it wasn't worth the trouble to be trying to navigate such a poor track.

After we parked near the gates, Alex asked the attendant if we could go in but he refused. There was a sign on the gate saying that nobody would be admitted after 11am. We consoled ourselves by taking photos of the countryside and headed back along the gravel road again.

The next destination was Bran Castle which is located about 30km from Brasov. It is obviously a popular tourist location because the car park was full of cars and tourist buses and there were large crowds of people.

Before you get to the entry, there are rows and rows of street stalls selling nicknacks to tourists. Suzy asked Alex to wait for ten minutes so she could stroll through to see what was on offer. Alex has keen not to delay too long because the black clouds overhead threatened rain at any time.

Inside the grounds, he took us first to a location where we got a good photo of the entire castle. He then took us up to the castle and gave us a comprehensive guided tour through most of the rooms.

Although the castle is promoted as being related to Dracula, it has little to do with him. The building is now privately owned and the furniture inside is not the original castle furniture. Nevertheless it was a good place to visit.

He then drove us a short distance to a nearby restaurant, Popasul Reginei, for lunch. Initially the waiter suggested that we sit outside next to the pool but we thought it would be too cool out there. Just as well we sat inside because the storm arrived soon afterwards.

On the other hand, a couple of large noisy family groups arrived soon after that and the kids made quite a lot of noise. It was still an enjoyable meal in an elegant setting. Alex pointed out the deer next the restaurant.

After the meal, Alex drove us through the rain and the puddles to our hotel, Armatti Hotel, which is located close to the old town in Brasov. We got there at about 3:30pm.

He parked under cover and helped us get our bags to the reception. This hotel has a lift and so there was no need this time for him to carry our bags upstairs.

Although the hotel is in an old building, it has been refurbished as a modern hotel. The ensuite bathroom has a large shower. The room has a large double bed with single doonas and a suitable desk for my laptop.

We had a lot of trouble getting the Wifi to work. It only worked briefly for one or two of our devices and then dropped out. After consulting with reception several times, we eventually gave up and used our mini WiFi.

On the other hand, there was a cable connection for my laptop that gave me speeds of about 50Mb/s in both directions. This wasn't mentioned by the receptionist or in the hotel instruction guide,

The air conditioning in the room was also a problem. We set it for 19C but it showed the current temperature as 22C. The reception staff assured us that it would soon cool down but after two hours it hadn't changed. A temperature of 22C might have been OK but it felt a lot hotter than that.

Another problem we experienced was that there were regular short blackouts - about a dozen of them over the two hour period. Each lasted only a few seconds. When we asked the reception about this, they suggested we try the other room key in the slot near the door.

By this time, certain aspects of the hotel were looking somewhat dodgy. When we met Alex at 6pm in reception for our walking tour of Brasov, we told him about the problems and he spoke to the receptionist in Romanian about them. We felt uncomfortable having them talk about our problems in a language we didn't understand.

By the time we set off on our walking tour it was still cloudy but the rain had gone and there was some sunshine. Alex took us along cobblestone streets past the shops and open air cafes and into the main plaza.

The main attraction was the Black Church which is large Gothic church next to the plaza. As always,  Alex gave us a comprehensive explanation of the church and its history. It's amazing that he can remember so much detail about each place he takes us.

After strolling through some other streets he left us in the main plaza. We strolled back through some of the cobblestone streets before going to one of the restaurants he had recommended for dinner. Some of the cafes we had walked past were sparsely populated or empty whereas this one was busy. People obviously know it's a good place to go.

The menu as quite extensive with a wide choice or food and wine. I decided to go for a sirloin dish - my first red meat in Romania. I chose a bottle of Dracula Cabernet Sauvignon which turned out to be a nice wine. We searched for it on my iPad and found that it comes from a vineyard north of Tulcea.

We were particularly impressed  by the waitress. She was very attentive and spoke good English.

When we got back to the hotel, we tried the air conditioning again. After about 20 minutes, we gave up and opened the window.

At about 10pm, I went downstairs to talk to the man on the reception desk to tell him that the air conditioning still wasn't working. He said they would get someone to service it tomorrow to which I told him that we'd read on Trip Advisor this evening that this was not a new problem with the hotel.

I also told him that the WiFi was still not working. He offered to provide me with a cable but I told him I already had one and the cable was working well for my laptop.

I asked him for a fan and about five minutes later he brought one up to our room.