Although the distance between Sighisoara and Sibiu is only around 100 km, there is no direct train between the two. I was a bit wary of taking the Personal (the worst type of train around here) and changing trains once on the way, but we couldn’t find any bus at a reasonable hour. We got at the train station in time… and we waited for 10 minutes for the train to appear. Now, I don’t mind waiting a bit, but we only had 15 minutes to make the connection.
Despite my worries, the train was pretty empty, it wasn’t dirty, and a couple of nice people helped us get off at the right stop - where the first thing we saw was the next train. Perfect timing.
In Sibiu, I was very proud to see I still knew the way to Piata Mare (Large Square), so we managed to find our hostel (situated in Piata Mica - Small Square) very easily. It was my first time in a hostel and I didn’t know what to expect. It was awesome. The staff was friendly, our roommates (two girls and one guy, all Romanian) were nice, and the other room was filled with foreigners apparently having a lot of fun. I was tempted to extend my stay for an extra day just to get to talk to all the people, but we had previous plans so we couldn’t.
The first night in Sibiu was very mellow - we just ate and came back to the hostel, where we just played cards and rummy until we went to sleep.
We woke up to snow in air and on the ground. We were almost the first people up, so we got peace and quiet (and no que to shower). We got into tourist mode again and started off.
First stop: the Evangelical Church and its tower. I’d visited the place a year before and I was eager to see it again. You climb a looot of stairs… then you get to the church bells… then you climb a looot more stairs.
We stopped to study the bells closer and Lerri was wondering what happens if you’re under them when they ring. So, of course, the second she finished saying that, the bells rung. We shrieked like little girls. That was one hell of a coincidence.
The view from the top is amazing, so I’ll let the pictures speak. The only downside of the snow was that we couldn’t see the beautiful colorful tiles on the church roof (which you can see in this picture I took in summer 2006).
Next up, we had a bit of fun in the snow (butt sledging rocks… until you hit the bottom of the slope), looked at the old walls of the city plus towers (impressive) and visited the Museum of Natural History (small, but nice). We hadn’t had enough stairs-climbing for a day, so we went up another tower - the Town Council tower this time. The inside is not the interesting, but from the top you get a great view of the center of Sibiu.
And that was it. A trek through a couple of bookstores in the search of the elusive map of the Saxon fortresses (which we managed to find in the end), a visit to a Belgian chocolaterie with a chocolate fountain the thought of which makes me drool (also seen in this entry) and an unplanned round of fun at the tackiest wedding ever (we didn’t take pictures, but the bride’s dress looked exactly like a wedding cake; I hope she didn’t see us laugh our asses off when she came out of the church). Afterwards, on the train and home… Tired but happy. And ready for the next trip.
Jen takes care of BlogofRomania and wants to travel as much as possible. Feel free to invite her to visit.
Post written for BlogofRomania.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Hey, you did not tell me you relaunched the project. I want to contribute, too, when I can.
I used to write as idragosh.