ROMANIA - The Eyes of Sibiu are Watching You

The train that brought me to Alba Iulia was Hungarian so today was my first ever experience of a train operated by Romanian State operator "CFR Calitori" Frequency is not one of their strong points - indeed today there was only one train to take me to Sibiu, a local stopper leaving at 0625 in the morning. I was in two minds whether or not to bother getting up that early, but now I'm glad I made the effort. 

The train by the way, not the bone shaker you might be expecting but a fairly modern Siemens Desiero diesel unit.

Today I have visited the beautiful city of Sibiu where the buildings have eyes and are constantly watching you - seriously, its quite spooky!

Most of the buildings in the old town have eye shaped dormers in the roof. Whilst people would like to convince you that the buildings never sleep and are constantly watching you so you behave, the real reason for the 'eyes' is to provide a venilation system for the attics so they could be used for storage. Of course, today, they are symbol of the city and a tourist attraction - after all I've come to see them.

The city is centred around three squares put basically small, medium and large, and there are some very grand buildings. There are also three churches of cathedral proportions - Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant (Lutheran). The latter being due the the fact that a large part of the population can trace their heritage back to the Saxons in Germany - the city is also known by its German name Hermannstadt.

Catholic cathedral in the main square

Lutheran Cathedral

Part of the old city wall

There is a local legend that if you tell a lie on the bridge pictured below then it will collapse consquently couples visit the bridge to tell each other how much they love them.

Lastly today a word of warning - Beware of the cheese!

Some of the cheese in Romania is strong and frankly quite weird. The first meal I had here had a cheese sauce which I found inedible and the cheese on the buffet at breakfast is not the sliced Dutch stuff you usually get. I had a very nice Smoked Salmon Salad in an outdoor restaurant for lunch but I did overhear a guy saying to his partner "This cheese is strong" - So there you go, you have been warned.

There may not be a post for a couple of days now as tomorrow is a travel day and then I am in Brasov for 5 nights so I probably won't post every day.