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Summer in Romania

Chasing vampires in Transylvania

By Where's Herr Gruber?

May 27^th, 2022

Hi there!

Long time no hear! Quite a lot has happened since we last posted a story… We got our vaccinations, drove to Georgia, spend almost three months in Turkey, celebrated Christmas in Greece with our friends, took a ferry to Italy, came home, got jobs and are now living at Emy’s parents back in the Netherlands… All experiences we needed to update you on for a while now. However, we didn’t. Partly because we were enjoying our trip so much, being offline and just living in the moment (millennial crap bleh). And partly because I (read: Emy) have been just putting off looking at the photographs of the trip, knowing it will make me sad that we are not living in our campervan Herr Gruber anymore and being just free with no commitments.

But I fear that I will forget parts of my memories of our trip if I do not write them down fast. And we can also not leave you hanging… So here it is, the long overdue story about our time in Romania.

Summer in Romania

Entering Romania

The first thing we saw when we entered Romania (via a tiny border crossing in the middle of nowhere) were a lot of colored houses, unpaved roads and horse-drawn carriages. Before entering we excepted the country to be not very clean, or safe, or friendly, or beautiful. Well, we could have not been more wrong, because it was exactly that.

Honestly, it was not our plan to visit Romania, we just google-mapped the fastest route to Istanbul and this led us through Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria. So with that plan we set off, only to discover that Serbia didn’t accept our vaccine yellow boekje and our EU QR-codes. We needed to do a PCR test. And needing a PRC test means lots of researching where to get it, how to get it, and basically a lot of waiting. So we opted for a route through Romania. Thinking we would just pass the country on the way to Bulgaria in two days tops. Well that turned out differently than expected, we spend more than a week in this really unexpectedly cool country.

Summer in Romania

We spend the first night at a Dutch campsite in a tiny village close to the border. Where Jenny quickly gained star-status during her daily walk out. All the cool kids wanted to hold her leash and a photo-op, after all she really is a cool dog without tail. Needless to say she felt quite sad when we moved on, leaving her fame behind, to visit the city of Sibiu.

Summer in Romania

Sibiu

Sibiu was our first city we visited in Romania, it was the European Cultural Capital in 2007 and a super beautiful town with lots of history. We were thinking that Romania was traditional… Sibiu however had solar benches which charge your phone wirelessly. Emy thought that was pretty cool. But Simon’s engineering mind found it not to make much sense to make a bench out of solar panels to charge a phone, while also having the purpose is to sit on it and in doing so blocking the sun with your big butt… Anyways, we ate fried dough with cheese and ham in it, so everyone left Sibiu happy, full and content. It was a great introduction to Romania and Transylvania.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Lavenland

And so we entered Transylvania, the region home to Count Dracula, pretty fairytale like villages, with fortified churches, lots of colorful houses and crazy castles. I don't know if any of you non-Dutchies know the Efteling, and then especially the part where 'het volk van Laaf ' (read: the people of Laaf) live, but for the most part Transylvania looked just like that. Like stepping into a fairytale, only the 'Slakken' monorail was missing.

Summer in Romania

Fortified Churches

Next to colorful houses and beautiful castles Transylvania also had quite some fortified churches, like the one below. We found this in the village of Carta, where we stayed at a campsite owned by yet another Dutch family: Camping De Oude Wilg. The second Dutch campsite we found in Romania, I guess the Dutch like it here, we cannot blame them.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Remedy for Divorce?

We also visited the tiny village of Biertan with its fortified church, this was a rather special one. This village only had one divorce in the last 300 years... Not because all marriage were so great, but because the bishop of Biertan had a rather special practice to cure marriage issues. He would imprison couples on the edge of divorce for 6 weeks together in a tiny cel where they would have to work on their issues. After that most couples decided not to go through with the divorce... We guess it was kind of effective then?

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Sighișoara

Next up was Sighișoara, the most well-known town in Transylvania. For one, because Vlad Ţepeş the inspiration for Count Dracula was presumingly born here. Second, because it has a pretty cool covered stairs up the hill. And third, because it is just a very dreamy colorful town.

Summer in Romania

House of Count Dracula

In this yellow house below Vlad Ţepeş (read: Vlad the Impaler ) was born in 1431, probably one of the most famous persons of Romania. Although Dracula is a fictional character in Bram Stoker's novel, his character was inspired on the real life Vlad and the folklore around him. Vlad was the ruler of the region in the 15th century, and apparently liked torture, mass murder, impalement and blood. Real nice dude. Anyways, to this day his legend lives on as the most famous vampire we know.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

The Scholars' Stairs

To reach the top of the hill of Sighișoara, and therefore the church and school, these stairs were built. They count 300 steps by the time they were build and were used by students and churchgoers to get up the hill fast and dry in wintertime. The people of Sighișoara to date still use these steps for the same reasons. Today the stairs only count 176 steps, Emy was still out of breath when reaching the top so that actually made little difference.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Colorful Little Town

We walked around the citadel of Sighișoara for a little bit, had fried dough (again), tried to get a good photo of Emy and Jenny and Emy took some pictures of funny windows. Please enjoy ;-).

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Viscri

Next up was the traditional village of Viscri, where we got a glimpse of the real Romanian village life and saw a fortified church yet again.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Brasov

After driving through the pretty countryside, we parked Herr Gruber within the walls of a monastery of a really cool monk. Chilling between the apple trees we met a Dutch family with a little boy and a very cool van. Some drinks were had and some travel stories were shared. The next day we each drove off in different ways, but they are still traveling today. Last we saw they crossed the border into Iran. You can read their (often very funny) travel tales here. The last city we visited in Romania was Brasov, with its Hollywood sign on the hills behind the town and its Black Church, which was not super black anymore actually.

Summer in Romania

Summer in Romania

Off to Georgia

And just like that, we crossed the Danube River and entered Bulgaria... Romania surprised us in many ways, the towns, nature and people, we will be back for sure and can recommend anyone with a van or caravan to visit this cool and beautiful country!

We visited Bulgaria a couple of months earlier, so we drove quite fast to the Turkish border and then began our trip along the very very very long Black Sea coastal route to Georgia.

More on that later, for now enjoy this photo of Dracula's Castle in Bran and:

Stay safe and healthy people!

Emy & Simon

Summer in Romania

© 2026 Where's Herr Gruber?

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