sibiu

The ever helpful julian lent us a map and pointed out where we could park close to the centre and where we could shop later on for essentials like batteries and a tin opener! The cindrel mountains were a hazy blue in the distance as we drove back into sibui and past the airport (wizz-air from hungary, love the name!).

Walking into pieta mare, the big square, the immensity of the place and the grandeur of the buildings is overwhelming. Every surface is spick and span and you need to remind yourself that this is an old town, one of the seven saxon citadels along with sighisoara but on a much grander scale.

I dragged lou around the brukenthal museum and art gallery but we found it disappointing. Gloomy still lifes and pompous portraits by the dozen. The first two rooms were incredibly ornate and I found myself preferring the painted furniture and the enormous room heaters. Plus the interesting things mentioned by rough guide were not to be found.

I should have gone instead to the ethnographic museum but was confused by the differing names displayed outside and so missed the examples of romanian crafts. Once we found the liars bridge I began to get my bearings and a sense of the scale of the place. Having found the 'passage of stairs' down to the lower town where the buildings are smaller and more antique I began to like it better. We had lunch by the stairs and then explored the lower town, ending up in a shady park to rest our feet! Back to pieta mare for souvenirs and cold drinks. So hot and unseasonably so according to julian's delightful wife, alexandre. She chatted to us when we got back and told us 'drum bun' which we had seen all over the place is the romanian equivalent to bonne route!