When I met Original Travel Companion (OTC) Helen at Bucharest airport I was fairly surprised that we had got this far, with Helen making her first trip abroad since we went to Greece almost exactly one year ago, and me half expecting to get stopped after listing all of my previous destinations on the passenger locator form and being sent down the ‘Orange’ Covid line instead of ‘Green’ when I got off the plane. But we made it and the first stop of our week in Romania was it’s capital, Bucharest, where our funky hotel room included a welcome glass of fizz but no windows and a thumping bass line from the next door clubs that kept us up all night (Marianne’s snoring didn’t help either – OTC Helen).

We set off for breakfast on Saturday morning and soon heard the three words that would become the theme of our trip – “its not OK!!“. In order to enter a restaurant in Romania, even outside, you need a Covid ‘green pass’, proof of vaccination. Thanks to Brexit (again), our NHS barcodes failed to register, with an ‘signature invalid’ error flashing up on the screen when the surly waiter scanned our phones. Despite it showing our names and vaccination dates, apparently “it’s not OK!”. But after some convincing, he let us sit outside.

Whilst Bucharest old town is pumping at night, it’s a ghost town in the morning. This made for some good sightseeing as we made our way on foot up to Herastrau Lake, wondering where everyone was on Saturday afternoon. We found out where they all were when we had the naive idea that we could have lunch in a lakeside restaurant. After at least three attempts to get into any type of restaurant to eat anything, by now it was clear that our vaccine passport was most definitely “not OK!!” as we were turned away by the manager of an empty Steakhouse. “You’re not OK” said Helen under her breath, as we settled for a coffee and two cookies at the only place that would let our dirty selves through the door, wondering how we would eat for the next week.

Time for some history and a visit to the former home of Nicolae Ceaușescu, communist leader of Romania from 1974 to 1989. We didn’t book in advance for the mandatory guided tour so ended up paying double by booking tickets with ‘GetYourGuide’ where despite the instructions clearly saying a guide would meet us outside, holding a sign, there was nobody in sight. We eventually found a cross looking man hanging around inside with a pair of tickets who told us “I’ve been calling you but your phone is dead!!“. So far Romanians were not proving the friendliest of people.

We both remembered filling shoeboxes for Romanian orphanages as kids, making the decadence of this house even more obscene. The teenage kids had their own lavish apartments, each with bathrooms big enough to house the entire family. The house is stuffed full of gifts from the world leaders, including a chess board presented by the President of Syria, and some crockery from our own Queen Elizabeth. The decor is garish at best.

Helen did some Wikipedia research as the woman who showed us around seemed fairly sympathetic to the Ceaușescu family. In the 1960s the state taxed the childless and encouraged women to give birth to at least 5 children, banning abortion and contraception in an effort to increase the population. As a result over 150,000 children were placed in state orphanages, whose deterioration coincided with the fall in living standards due to Ceaușescu’s obsession with paying off national debt at all costs. Many of the children were not actually orphans, but had parents who could not afford to keep them and who one day intended to get them back. By the time Ceaușescu and his wife were convicted of “economic sabotage and genocide” and immediately executed by firing squad in 1989, over 20,000 children had died in the orphanages with countless cases of neglect and cruelty particularly amongst the disabled.

Back in the Old Town and in the mood for something lighter, we successfully infiltrated the Sky Bar for some games and even found a craft beer pub where a nice man with a beard decided it was OK to give us a table outside and we felt less like outcasts (Marianne is very tolerant of my craft beer habit – OTC Helen).

If you Google ‘is it worth visiting Bucharest?’ the first thing that comes up is ‘don’t bother’ but I always think it’s good to see the capital city of the country you’re in. Maybe excluding Podgerica in Montenegro. One day is definitely enough, so we took the 2.5 hour train north to Brasov, paying just €4 extra for first class seats and an attendant offering ready made cups of coffee.

Brasov is at the foot of the Carpathian mountains and has a distinctintly different feel to Bucharest. We didn’t see any Sexy Ladies clubs and our accommodation was a quirky little boutique hotel called Vila Katharina where the woman who seemed to be running the place was dressed in what we assume was traditional style, and poured us a shot of Palinka (local fruit brandy) on arrival. Our bathroom rivalled Ceaușescu’s, with it’s lavish rug and free standing bathtub with entirely more tasteful gold taps. (Confit of duck with a glass of prosecco for breakfast? Why not?! – OTC Helen)

I liked Brasov apart from the real life Mickey Mouse who was hanging around the centre (no idea why). It was also an opportunity to finally see a Brown Bear in the wild. Visiting a bear hide is something we considered the ethics of before signing up to a slightly more expensive and smaller group trip that would take us further up into the mountains. Romania has Europe’s biggest brown bear population (apparently home to over 60% of them) with around 6,000 living in the Carpathians. Sadly until the EU introduced welfare laws, it was common to see dancing bears on street corners and performing in circuses – many of these bears are now in sanctuaries and cannot be released. The problem now is that the wild bear population is not all that far from the more rural villages, and bears do sometimes come into contact with humans when looking for food.

I decided to visit a bear hide, viewing them safely behind a mirrored window, as I felt that generating income for people in these areas is overall a good thing and encourages the protection rather than hunting of bears. However, I was not completely comfortable with the fact that corn is provided at the hides, allegedly to feed the deer population, which a few of the local bears then come to eat. Our guide, who was a total bear enthusiastic, strongly believed this also discourages the bears from looking for food in the villages, although this likely means they can never stop feeding at the hide.

Back in Brasov and tired out, we couldn’t face the rigmarole of politely asking for a table for two, showing our vaccine passes, pretending to be surprised when it inevitably throws an error and hearing ‘its not OK!!’ yet again so we tried the traditional Chimney Cake from a street stand instead. My savoury version with avocado was far better than the ‘veggie burger’ I had the day before where the main ingredient of the veggie burger was missing, the actual veggie burger.

Aside from bears, people come to Romania to see the castles. Unfortunately most things are shut on Monday as I should know by now, so we could not visit Peles castle, or even go up Brasov’s cable car. We could, however, make a trip to Bran Castle after midday. This is where travelling in a pair is great as we could share the cost of a taxi and pay the driver to wait for us (The taxi driver appeared to be watching a DJ set as he drove though… – OTC Helen).

Bran Castle is commonly referred to as Dracula’s Castle, only because it fits the description of the home of Bram Stoker’s fictional Transylvanian Count – a castle perched high up on rock. We really enjoyed exploring the inside of the castle and learning about Queen Marie to whom the castle was gifted in 1920, once described as “the only man in Romania” due to her ballsy approach.

Helen and I like to encorporate the more unusual styles of accommodation into our travels – we did stay in Junkyard in Hawaii after all. So when she mentioned a friend of hers had stayed close to a house belonging to HRH Prince Charles, I knew we had to go. It turns out Prince Charles owns a few properties in Translyvania, including Count Kalnoky’s estate in the Zalán Valley, due to his family links with the area. This is also a guesthouse with proceeds going into community projects via The Princes Trust, offering a rural experience with an all inclusive package of meals served in the dining room, daily guided activities and “discrete staff”.

Our little cottage was very picturesque, the only noise being distant cowbells and red squirrels chomping on nuts up in the tree outside our door. We were again greeted with a glass of Palinka by a housekeeper otherwise known as ‘The Cook Lady’ and a large cartoon character of a man with missing front teeth otherwise known as ‘Mr Circular Saw’, neither of whom spoke more than a few words of English. Mr Circular Saw gained his name as soon after arriving I realised I had locked the key to my bag inside my bag and could no longer open the padlock, which he cheerfully sawed through with no trouble (Wish I’d filmed this but I was slightly terrified as sparks flew… Of all the places for this to happen, this was the most fortuitous – we wouldn’t have found a Mr Circular Saw in Bucharest! Also, I can’t believe Marianne hadn’t made this error sooner… OTC Helen).

We were in agreement that “discrete staff catering to your needs” was a definite oversell as they didn’t even make the bed. This may have been because we were the only guests? Lack of English was also a issue when the guide for our daily activity waited in a different place at a different time for a different activity, and Mr Circular Saw, who was anything but discrete, would come booming in at mealtimes to ask ‘OK?? PROBLEM?!’ to which we would shout back ‘OK!! NO PROBLEM!!”. I think he was quite disappointed there were no more padlocks to saw off, and The Cook Lady would probably have liked to have gone home early instead of hanging around to cook our dinner.

Now looking to be in his 60s, our Hungarian Super Guide was an ex-competitive mountain climber, a mountain rescue and real life Bear Grylls who has travelled the world leading expeditions. HRH must be paying him over the odds to be taking two British tourists on a sedate walk through the forest in the pouring rain where the only wildlife we saw were three brightly coloured salamanders. He didn’t even need to use the chilli spray he carries everywhere in case of Romanian sheep dog attacks (Helen is still scared of dogs after her Sri Lankan chase). I have never met anyone who knows as much about everything as the Hungarian Super Guide, with his multiple degrees, who explained that Translyvania used to be part of Hungary.

Mushrooms are everywhere and formed the vegan option at every meal.

We spent a lazy, rainy afternoon playing games and drinking wine by the fire and enjoying having the farmhouse to our ourselves. Until it got dark and The Cook Lady went home and we realised that a) as the only guests we were now probably completely alone on what could easily be the setting for a horror movie and b) we could not get any more wine as she had locked the kitchen door.

Our activities included a Horse and Cart ride driven by our favourite Mr Circular Saw, who is also known as the Horse Whisperer. We spent a fun two hours trying not to fall out of the cart as he whistled and made various strange noises, including shouting ‘OH MY GOD!!!’. As I’m writing this on the plane home, Helen has just raised the question as to whether or not he even worked at the estate.

The final leg of our Romania tour was meant to be the beach, until the weather had other ideas. We stayed in a beautiful Airbnb apartment in the Black Sea resort of Mamaia, sandwiched between the lake and the sea. Our Superhost picked us up for free from the train station after a five hour journey, and insisted on waiting while we popped into a supermarket as apparently all of the restaurants were closed. As we left all of our stuff in his car I realised either he was about to rob us blind or he was the nicest Romanian we had met so far.

He was just a nice guy and he was also correct in that all of the restaurants were indeed shut aside from one biker hangout which looked like a cool place to play some games. When we heard those three little words ‘It’s not OK!‘ from the manager I was not about to accept that we would have nowhere to eat for the next three days – eventually she gave in and seated us in the far corner so we could not spread our germs to anyone else in the empty restaurant.

Whilst it didn’t offer sunbathing, Constanta did provide the opportunity for one more New Activity – Uber Scooters! We saw them lying around and decided to ride them down to Constanta Old Town. I thought it was a bit strange that the speed didn’t go over 1kmph – we could walk faster – but we had fun riding up and down the coastal path until all of a sudden I heard a shriek. Helen had shot off into the distance, as though, in her words, she had picked up a speed boost mushroom in Mario Kart. My own scooter gained a life of its own a few seconds later. Unable to control them alongside traffic and pedestrians we gave up, puzzled by what had happened until we learned we had been in a restricted speed area, presumably crossing an invisible line.

The last couple of days were spent enjoying our lake view apartment, watching the sunsets, going for walks as well as our first Romanian Face Massage, a slightly scary but satisfying experience.

All of a sudden, Romania concluded my ten weeks ten countries tour. Ironically it was getting home to the UK that caused me the most hassle as after examining my Passenger Locator Form, Vaccine Passport and negative Covid Test, the Wizz Air checkin woman told me to step aside as her supervisor was calling the British police. This is not what you want to hear at an airport. I was relieved to find out I was not actually being arrested on return as Helen wondered, but incredulous to find out it was “not OK‘” that my Covid test was not verified by a Romanian company. This was complete BS, as the UK entry requirements displayed on a huge poster right in front of her stated and as was eventually confirmed a tense ten minutes later by whoever her supervisor had called. A jobsworth at security followed by “random” swabbing of hands and feet were the final obstacles – despite not wanting my summer travels to end it’s safe to say I have never been so happy to board a flight home.

When I took 3 months off work in July, people said don’t bother as you won’t be able to go anywhere, don’t you know there is a pandemic?! Actually it provided the opportunity to visit a totally new part of the world, starting with a one way ticket to Montenegro. The Balkans are unlike the rest of Europe, definitely not the easiest place to travel and it takes time to get around but that is part of the charm. Ten weeks and ten countries later, I have visited Wales, Scotland, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Greece and Romania – my advice is to just go!