Overrated.  Bram Stoker never visited - his novel Dracula was inspired by listening to other peoples' tales.  The legend is that Vlad the Impaler did stay here for a short time, but it's not certain.  I tried to go to Peles Castle, as I heard that was more exciting, but it was closed on the day I tried to go, and I was anxious to move on to Moldova, so I skipped it.  I'll save it for next time.
I did meet some great people on this tour though!  Two software developers living and working in the Netherlands, so I made some connections and we talked about differences and similarities between American and European work culture.  And we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Brasov and drinking wine :-)

From the farm, I spent one night in Sibiu (beautiful town), and then went on to Cluj, where I stayed for a week.  This town isn't quite as picturesque as some of the other areas I've seen in Romania, but it is has a wonderful central square with vibrant cafes, and I got to meet up with a couple of the women from the retreat!  The highlight was the salt mine.  Deep below the ground, in a former salt mine, there is a ferris wheel, boats, ping pong, and it's beautiful because the walls have wave patterns, and they've decorated it to look like an instagram dream.
Several coffee shops here had cold brew and tonic, sometimes with something additional such as rose oil - this was an unexpectedly delightful combination I hope to repeat again.  There was also an interesting museum of Jewish history in Cluj.  In the US, when it comes to Jewish history in Europe, we pretty much focus on the Holocaust.  This museum covered Jewish tradition in Romania, and specifically Cluj, for hundreds of years.  From Cluj, 16,000 Jewish people were sent to Aushwitz.  Of those, 2,000 survived.  Communism started soon after that, and most of the remaining Jewish people left for Israel or the United States, and today there are less than 300 Jewish people left in Cluj.

After my Transfagarasan expedition, I spent a few days on a farm outside of Sibiu.  I found this place by accident while searching for hostels in Sibiu - and I'm so glad I found it!  It was a unique experience to see Romanian farm life, and they served delicious and fresh food and homemade wine from their neighbors.  The landscape was beautiful, and I took some time to hike to the next village and talk with a couple locals who spoke some English.  I also met another woman living on the farm more permanently from Germany, she was volunteering on the farm in exchange for free room and board, and she gave me tips on Romania.

Leaving Bucharest, I rented a car and drove the Transfagarasan Highway.  I think it's only about 60 miles, but you must drive slow with the elevation change and the hairpin turns, and I stopped for pictures several times along the way.  I saw five bears. (I have been to the Smoky Mountains many times - no bears.  I spent last summer hiking and camping in Washington - no bears.  Then I saw FIVE in Romania!!!). The landscape is beautiful, and I saw herds of sheep with their shepherds, and I saw people using horse carts for actual transportation - not just for a fun hayride.  There are many road side stands selling things such as pastries, cheese, and homemade wine.  At the end of the road, I stayed at a guesthouse in a small village, where I really did see the cows come home at the end of the day.  Like the saying - around 8 pm, there was a parade of cows on the main street as they left the pasture to go home to the barns.

I felt like I needed a break to relax a bit, so I rented an Airbnb and stayed here for nine days.  I immediately felt the Parisian vibes walking around the city.  I later learned that after the city burned down, they wanted to rebuild to look like the most beautiful city in the world...  Paris!  I met several Romanians who speak French as a second language, so I got to use a few words I remember from school a long time ago.  I had a local grocery store and a subway card, so I started to feel like I was settling into the city.  The communist tour here was interesting, learning about the fall of Ceausescu and his execution on Christmas Day in 1989.  This book was interesting to learn more.

This was a bit of an adventure - I was worried I was going to lose my passport for a bit.  I took the train from Sofia to Ruse (on the border), and then had to switch trains.  They checked passports before getting on the train by collecting them from people on the platform, taking them to the office, and then coming back to the platform and just calling out names.  Luckily, I got my correct passport back right before I boarded the train.  Once we crossed the border again, we had passport control with a Romanian official who looked at each passport individually.  The officer who checked mine said I would need to quarantine for 10 days unless I was vaccinated...  Yay!  I am vaccinated, so no need to quarantine!  I arrived in Bucharest with no hassle.  My hostel was a five minute walk from the train station, so that was nice and convenient!

I only visited two cities in Bulgaria, but Plovdiv was my favorite.  It is very cute - an old town with cobblestone streets, an entertainment district with restaurants, bars, and cafes, Roman ruins, street art everywhere.  It was the European capital of culture in 2019.  The hostel I stayed in here was the prettiest hostel I've ever stayed in.  I met some good people at the hostel, we stayed up late talking and sharing travel stories.  If you go to Bulgaria, go to Plovdiv.

There was a cafe next door to my hostel.  I ate there twice.  The first time I was at a table by myself.  A guy came by and asked if the other chairs were free.  I said they were, thinking that he would take them to his own table.  Well, he sat down with his two friends.  It was a small table.  They were there to drink coffee and smoke and talk to each other.  They did not interact with me at all.  I ate a full meal while they drank their coffee and then left.  It was unusual to me, but I thought it was a Bulgarian custom.  When I described the situation to other Bulgarian people, they thought it was weird also, so I guess it was just these people....  but it almost  happened the second time I ate here also!  I was alone, again, and three older ladies came in.  They were about to sit with me until one of them found a table that could accommodate all of them.  My whole time in Bulgaria, it only happened at this one cafe.  It was a good memory I will remember.

I ended up spending some extra time in Sofia just to slow down a bit.  It was too long.  I liked the hostel where I stayed - it was nice to socialize with people since most of the places I stayed in Turkey were solitary.  I enjoyed the Sofia walking tour and the communist tour - they were interesting, and I learned a lot.  The communist tour I went on was the same one that John McCain did several years earlier (he did it as a private tour).  Communism is still a controversial topic in Bulgaria.  There is a communist party that has seats in government, and there are people that feel very strongly on both sides.  However, the country tries to hide its communist past.  It is not taught in schools, and the history museum doesn't mention it.  It is only a small non-profit group that is trying to expose the communist past.  It was a dangerous and scary time, with secret police, neighbors who spied on you, and limited options for international travel.  However, I do think it is important not to forget the past, just to make sure those mistakes are not made again in the future.  They have a piece of the Berlin wall in the city, and they have a monument honoring the lives lost during the communist regime.  The problem is that if I tell Americans that I went on a communist tour, they assume that I am promoting communism.  JOHN MCCAIN DID THE SAME TOUR.  I WENT ON THE TOUR ONLY TO LEARN ABOUT THE HISTORY.
Generally, I found Sofia to feel a little dreary.  The people were nice, the city wasn't completely terrible.  It just didn't feel "uplifting".  If it wasn't the middle of a pandemic I would have explored the nightlife a little more.  Maybe that would have been a fun side to the city.

The beach in Bodrum was beautiful.  The water was soooooo blue.  Antalya is a beautiful city with yachts, an old town with cobblestone streets, and ancient roman ruins.  I went to a hamam (Turkish bath) in Antalya.  I'm glad I did it here instead of going in Istanbul.  It wasn't crowded, and it was cheaper.  Supposedly it was a few hundred years old.  It didn't look like it from the outside, but the inside definitely felt like an old place with lots of marble.