We've met some lovely people, and some interesting people, watched the World Cup, eaten AMAZING food, tried to speak Romanian and drunk some national beers and wines.
Chris has run through most of what we have done so far but here are some of the highlights for me so far:
Romania
-For me Bucharest was a city of two halves. In one sense the traffic, noise, fifth and the few natives happy to rip you off where they can, was exhausting. In another, on the second day we went to Parcul Herastrau in the North which has a large beautiful lake, hammocks in bars and doggy parks. We visited the Village Museum, a collection of 100+ houses from the last two Centuries built in different areas of Romania and this was lovely.
-Food- Same- Some good and some really challenging. We are determined to try as much native food as possible wherever we go. We tried Sarmale (spiced pork wrapped in grape-leaves), eggplants stuffed with mincemeat, spinach and beef stew, Romanian stew AND we went to one of the best restaurants we have ever been to about 20m from our hotel.
However I left Romania still wanting to try Branza ( sour cheese), Mamaliga (like polenta), Covrigi (oven baked pretzels served from ATM like windows all around town), Tuica (plum brandy) and Ciorba ( sour soup)!
Moldova
-fields and fields of sunflowers all over the Moldovan countryside (very picturesque)
-Cricova wine cellars - this is like nothing I have ever seen before. It is 120 km of limestone tunnels dating back to he 15th Century. 60km of the tunnels are covered in huge barrels of wine. They make red wine, white wine and fizzy wines here and we had a great tour that walked us through the production of each of the above. One of the best parts was seeing Cricova's wine collection. Housed in a wine-glass shaped room they have collections that belong to Merkel, John Kerry and Putin. Apparently Merkel was gifted hers after a visit to Moldova and Kerry bought his. To keep one bottle in the collection per month it costs £2 so quite expensive as Kerry especially had quite a bit of wine there...! There is also a collection that belonged to Gerring, that the Russians confiscated at the end of the war and somehow ended up in Cricova...
-Food-The food in Moldova has been fantastic. Tried Branza ( in volumes), Mamalega, Covrigi on the night train, and tried so many brandy's in the cellar of the countryside house where we stayed!
So check on all of the food ambitions except Ciorba. We also tried Moldovan street food including a Moldovan pie (like a dry omelette calzone) and fish that you eat the whole of...
In summary Moldova has been great and really enjoyed it and can't wait for next stop -Brasov.
Jane
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