Another hour or so of driving through already harvested farmland plus a brief comfort stop and we finally arrive in Brasov for the evening. While Yuntz takes our luggage to the hotel, we embark upon a walking tour of this gorgeous medieval town. One of the seven fortified cities, Brasov has a population of over 300,000 and was once an important crossroads for East and West trade routes. Under the Saxon rule, Romanians didn’t even live inside the fortifications, but settled separately outside the town walls. After the wars, the Romanians took back the city and for a while, during the communist period, it was even called Stalin City after Joseph Stalin.
The architecture here, is once again, very Bavarian, which relates to the fact that the Saxons ruled here for so long. Everywhere you look, the buildings are colorful and have ornate facade features, like intricately carved balconies or window trimming. Incredibly picturesque!
We begin our tour at the First Romanian school where we are met by the animated priest who runs the museum and possibly the St. Nicholas church next door as well, but I’m a little hazy on that detail. At any rate, he launches into a very entertaining presentation on the school (started in the 11th C), the classroom, and quizzing us on our Romanian history knowledge (the Romans, the Germans, the Austrians) . It’s all quite fun, and he and Cristina obviously get along famously, laughing at each other over shared Romanian conversations. We know they do this frequently, but it really doesn’t seem rehearsed – the presentation is much more spontaneous, and so still sweet and funny.
While in the “classroom” we learn all about the rare books and documents that are housed here. At the start of WWII, the church priest took all the books and hid them in the church tower to protect them from the invading armies. He died and no one ever knew that the books were hidden, they just assumed they were destroyed in the war. The priest giving us the presentation somehow stumbled upon them 50 years ago and has been studying them ever since. There are over 6,000 books and some 30,000 documents in Greek, Latin and Romanian – and he’s plowing his way through them (I can’t recall how far he has gotten, but I seem to think he’s finished the books and is a ways through the documents). The books are so rare because many of them were printed right here in Brasov on the first printing press in Romania.
Which is a perfect segue for us to move into the next room where the printing press is located. Here, the priest shows us how to use the press, how each press sheet is carved from wood and that the press has been used to print 39 books, each of which takes 2 years to complete. Phew! That’s a lot of dedication right there. He shows us one of the wood blocks that has been engraved, then shows us the sheets that have been printed from it – of course they are for sale – and of course we buy the sample sheet and a booklet about the school. How could we not? We are happy to support the museum and this wonderful man in his endeavors to keep the museum and printing history alive and well into the future.
Moving on to our walking tour, we pass through the outer courtyard of the church and notice fabulous “murals” that have been painted inside alcoves on the church wall. Each drawing features a scene of Brasov, almost a pencil sketch, which is a terribly creative way to showcase the town and the artwork, and we can’t believe we missed them when we arrived (aren’t we attentive to detail!). Moving on into the city, we pass brilliantly colored buildings, lovely little cottages with the brown “shake” roofs (just like my pottery houses!) and stumble across some military recruitment fair at a school that has an experimental plane revving up on the huge playground. Pretty cool.
Approaching the entrance to the old town, we reach the Schei gate, built in the classical arch style in the early 1800’s to accommodate tall trader’s carts that couldn’t fit through St. Catherine’s Gate, one of the original gates to the city. It currently still handles all the traffic in and out of the old town from this section of town. It stands to reason that our next stop is St. Catherine’s Gate, sitting side by side with the Schei Gate. Built in 1559 by the Tailor’s Guild, it is the only gate to survive since the medieval period. It is was the only gate Romanian citizens could enter, and it is here that they were forced to pay a toll that enabled them to enter the city to sell their goods.
Moving into the old town proper, we pass by the only synagogue in Brasov, a colorful and ornate building set back in an alcove type lane and built in 1901. There was a large and active Jewish community here in the late 1800s/early 1900s, numbering as high as 4,000 in population. WWII saw many Jews leave for Israel, and there is now a population of about 200 Jews who continue to maintain the synagogue. Next to the synagogue is Strada Sforii which means String Street and is the narrowest street in the city (and possibly one of the narrowest streets in all of Europe). At only 44 to 53” wide, it was built as a way for firemen to reach different parts of the city and can be traced back to the 17th C. Now it’s a tourist attraction, but fortunately, because we are on a schedule and following Cristina, I don’t have show everyone my claustrophobic cowardness by actively not walking down that teeny weeny alley.
Onward we march! To the courtyard of the Black Church, once the largest church in Romania, but now 2nd largest since they are building the new cathedral in Bucharest to be the biggest and best in all of the country. This church was built in the late 1300s, was looted and damaged by Turkish raids in the early 1400s, then received its current name, the “Black Church,” after a fire in 1689 that almost razed the entire town and blackened the walls of the church (which withstood the flames). It is a beautiful example of Gothic architecture with huge walls and equally huge Palladian stained glass windows soaring above us. There are smaller turret type stone structures affixed to the sides, which I want to call crenelated towers, but those are typically defensive towers, so I’m not sure that is correct – but its what I think of when I see them – and with this churches history of attacks and looting, maybe the priests did take to bearing arms out of the little lookouts! At any rate, it is one gorgeous structure, topped off by the clock tower with colorful tile accents.
And, since we came upon the church from the back, we get the surprise reveal of the Piata Sfatului opening up in front of us at the foot of the church. This is the huge main square of the old town, anchored by the House of Council (Casa Sfatului) at one end, the Black Church at the other, ringed with shops, cafes and restaurants, and filled with people. It is here, according to legend, that the Pied Piper led the children of Hamelin after the city refused to pay him for ridding the town of vermin (not a bad place to end up, if you have to be kidnapped and led away from your family that is). On the sides of the square, peering down on the town buildings from up high are Mt. Tampa, with a picture perfect view of the Brasov sign (like the Hollywood sign, complete with night time lighting), and the White Tower (Turnul Alb), which once was used to guard the city, but now can be accessed and climbed for what has been described as fantastic views over the city – but what also has been described as something for the very fit and active. We’re passing on the mountain climbing for this trip!
Once in the main square, we are set loose for 15 minutes to wander and take photos. We are actually set loose because the ladies want to shop and have been harrassing Cristina no end, particularly about this wonder anti-aging cream that can only be bought here in Romania (it may be illegal – or at least not FTC approved – in the states). There is a store here on the square that Cristina says is the best place to buy it, so most of the ladies crowd into the store, while the rest of us meander. We use the time to circle the square, take some great photos of the very active fountain, with the White Tower in the background, more pictures of cool Romanian houses and buildings I intend to turn into pottery houses and the facade of the Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary, squeezed in between KFC (of all things) and a Western Union office. If you can overlook those annoying details, the building itself is eye catching with its black and white horizontal brickwork on the ground level topped with tan and what appears to be faded red horizontal brickwork towering up the rest of the stories. Moorish looking brown wooden windows, a mosaic of Jesus and an octagonal tower complete the look of this orthodox cathedral in the middle of the market square.
Completing our circuit, we find a bench to relax upon while the ladies finish up their shopping. Eventually Cristina shoos them out of the store and, being the very smart girl that she is, we detour off the main pedestrian shopping street (to avoid losing anymore ladies to shopping temptations) and finish our tour on the major thoroughfare through Brasov. This makes walking to the hotel quick and painless! Checking in, is of course, a breeze. Cristina hands out the keys and we head off to our rooms – in elevators that are pleasantly large and far faster than our previous residences. As happily surprised as we are with the elevators, the room overjoys us! First of all it is huge with a monstrous king sized bed, large desk area and a raised seating area, complete with love seat, by the full length picture windows that leads to a little Juliet balcony. And while, no, there is still no a/c, its cold enough now we don’t need it and we are luck enough to be facing the back of the hotel with a peaceful little pedestrian square right below us. Heaven!
We organize quickly, navigate our way to the grocery store, freshen up then meet in the lobby for our walk back to the Luther Brasserie, a beautiful little restaurant with gold trim, elegant chandeliers, high backed velvet booths and arched ceilings painted sky blue with white puffy clouds, located on the square for our group dinner. What appears to be a surprising choice for a group dinner with smaller tables of 4 and a few larger 6 or 8 tops, ends up being a sumptuous meal starting with an excellent bruschetta for me (because I traded the cheese starter for it), the aforementioned cheese appetizer for Ed and then pork ribs for both of us that were fall off the bone, melt in your mouth delicious. We sat with Ray and Jimmy, who did not order anything vegetarian tonight and was more than pleased with his main meal, and all groaned at the sight of the sumptuous apple kuchen-like dessert topped with ice cream. We made a valiant effort to clean our plates, but I for one was far too full to even make a good showing of it!
Afterward, we strolled our way down Strada Republicii, the main shopping street (where Cristina has told us the best shoe shopping can be found) and circle back to the hotel – effectively taking the long way home (don’t sing!), and easily walking off a wonderful dinner.
Back at the hotel, we luxuriate in our hotel room, stretching out, enjoying the peacefulness and looking forward to a wonderful cool evening in that comfy bed!
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