Sue's Travels: Danube Trip - 8 September 2011 (Brasov, Romania)

This morning after breakfast at the hotel we toured Brasov. We were driven to the St Nickolai Romanian Orthodox Church, which was built in 1495. Adjacent to the church is the first Romanian school in the area. The treasures of the church were hidden by the priest during the Ceauşescu reign.

The city was originally built by Germans who were brought to the area in the 12^th Century to build churches and fortifications. The original German name of Brasov was Kronstadt. There was a gate that separated the German part of the city from the Romanian part of the city.

Under Ceauşescu, Germany bought out the people of German ancestry just as the Jewish community bought out the Jews of Romania.

There is a synagogue in Brasov completed in 1901. It is beautiful. It is Neolog, which exists in Hungary as well. It appears to be closer to Orthodox than Conservative is in the United States. The synagogue has an upstairs balcony for woman, but the community is so small and old that men sit on one side and woman on the other. In 1940 Brasov had a Jewish population of about 6,000. Now it is about 180 and the average age of the membership is 75. The synagogue follows the Sephardic rite. It was restored in 2001 and really looks beautiful.

The Jews of Romania were not sent to the concentration camps, but there were serious pograms.

Our next stop was the “black” church, which was built between 1385 and 1477 by the German Guilds. The organ is one of the largest in Romania and the service is conducted in German. The church owns the largest collection of Turkish carpets outside of Istanbul. Merchants would give the church a carpet in gratitude for the safe return from a trading trip. There is an old city hall which has been converted to a museum.

We next headed to the town of Bran to see “Dracula’s Castle”. It had been converted to a summer residence for the Romanian royal family. With the return of private property, descendents of the Romanian Royal family now own the castle. Furniture similar to what had been in the castle has been brought to the castle. Some of the staircases are quite difficult to climb. It was interesting to see, but how it is connected to Vlad Tepes known as Vlad the impaler is open to question.

Our guide, Sylvia, took us to a ski resort where we had lunch. It was a very pleasant location. We ate on the porch with the woods surrounding us. It was a climb up the mountain to get there with constant switch backs. After lunch we came down the mountain and stopped to take pictures. We returned to the hotel for a rest before we go out on our own to the concert in the town square.

After resting, Bette and I headed into the main square for the concert. We were late, but I enjoyed the part that we heard. We had cheese cake and coffee at a sidewalk café and then walked back to the hotel.