Morning in Brasov and on to Targu Secuiesc

Saturday, September 22, 2012

We wake up to a beautiful day, everything clean after yesterday's rain. We pack our bags after breakfast and head down to the old town, where we walk through the pedestrian streets in the direction of the Black Church on the other side of the historical center. Other tourists are beginning to walk around and the shopkeepers and restaurants are setting up for the day. 

We walk slowly, enjoying the sights, and even find an Italian 'antique' seller, in whose shop we'd seen a little bear with Bogdan, but hadn't bought it. It turns out the bear is now twice the price, but Oswaldo's Italian and gentle manner bring the price down to just a little over the original price - which the owner "doesn't remember at all." He's an irascible fellow, with white hair and bright green glasses, who says he doesn't like bears because they're stupid -"the only animal more stupid than the bear is the basset hound, belive me, I know," he says, "I've had two." Oh kay.... 

On that note we leave, happy with our bear and thinking they may be way more intelligent than this man. 

The Black Church is lovely, hung with Turkish prayer mats, which another intrepid lady took the initiative to restore. From the 14th century it's the largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul. On one of the pillars we see bullet holes from the revolution in 1989 when people took refuge in the church during the fighting. The pillars and the lofty heights make me recall the wonderful Ely Cathedral outside Cambridge, which I saw years ago.

We stop to have a coffee and share a sandwich at the German bakery on the main square - we also share a Berliner Phannkuchen, a sort of German doughtnut, which tastes exactly like the ones I ate in my youth - and showers me with white icing sugar. While we eat the strains of a violin playing something very familiar reaches us. I look and I look and finally locate a thin young man playing in front of a bank. Suddenly I identify what he's playing - it's the tango from "Scent of a Woman" - Al Pacino, blind, dancing with that slender young woman. We go over to talk the him. He say's it was composed by John Williams and someone else, "Por una Cabeza."
Back at the hotel we get ready and at 1pm our new driver, Marinel, presents himself. He seems nice, has some English, but basically drives in silence. Great. He's accomodating when we spot eagles in a field and drives slowly while we're trying to snap pictures of them.

Soon we reach the tiny an ancient market town, which used to be Hungarian, but became Romanian after the Trianon Treaty in 1921. It has a name that we simply cannot remember - something which is true for many Romanian words - Targu Secuiesc (or Kézdivásárhely - if that's any better) meaning the Black Pearl. We're installed in an 18th century house on the main square. We take a walk around the area, which seems unusually deserted until we remember it's Saturday afternoon. We pass a young couple where the girl has broken down in hysterical laughter. She's watching a little dog dealing with an itch on its back, slowly sitting and standing with its butt against a corner. Maybe more intelligent than the Italian man ;)

We're in the mood for a cold beer, and ask some young women in an Indian (why in the middle of this town?) souvenir store - not the owner, who refuses to get off her cell-phone, but these customers who turn out to have no English. "Ursus?" I then ask, referring to a famous beer brand. She points. Round the corner we see the sign and the ambience of the place is such I make Oswaldo go in first. First impression is a stout farmer type sitting up asleep behind a big beer bottle. Second impression is that people have been smoking here for a long, long time. So we leave. Fortunately, further along we find an open air beer garten, where a very nice Romanian waitress with some English helps us to 2 hefty 1/2 liter bottles of Heineken and an order for a cheese and mushroom pizza. 

She, like the other women in the shop, has very bad teeth, which is startling to see nowadays. It's also sad, because many, many Romanian women are seriously beautiful. We're happy sitting in the sun drinking our beers and watching the scenery. A young woman with flattened hair (and bad teeth), pushes a pram with a tiny baby into the bar, sits down and lights the first of 3 cigarettes. She drinks a coke and is served a huge burger with a Danish flag stuck in it. 

Why is she alone on a Saturday afternoon - later we see two other young mothers alone with their babies - and what's with the Danish flag? We amble home, satisfied but not too full to stop briefly at a Hungarian bakery for coffee and a shared pastry. 

Then we return to our room. We hadn't realized how exhausted we are from days of traveling and climbing hills and stairs and doing things all the time, and we both conk out for a long time. 

Oswaldo is still sleeping as I write this. Tomorrow we go to the O3zone spa - I hope they have massages. http://www.flickr.com/photos/siric/sets/72157631597516233/