Day trip to Sinaia

Sinaia is about a  30 minute drive  north from Breaza on the main road from Bucharest to Brasov. It is named after the monastary there, named after Mount Sinai. It is in a National park where wildlife & natural areas of interest are protected. E.g., if you find any Eidelwiess & sing the lovely song from the Sound of Music; no matter how well you sing it, you still can't pick the flowers under pain of death. (It might be a fine, but I can't speak Romanian).

It was a warm, sunny day when we went, & we had to park on the edge of town near a park . We walked all around the town which caters for tourists Summer and Winter (there is excellent skiing and a cable car) and we saw  families sightseeing on a brightly coloured little train tootling around.

We went in an Irish Bar, just for the craic, but there wasn't any, so we came out again. Seriously, what started as Irish tunes turned into shmaltzy love songs, not even Irish ones which we would have turned off if they were on the radio, and, nobody came to serve us in 15 minutes so it was more or less compulsorary to leave.

We found a cafe in the shade which turned out to be a bonus later and I had a Tournados steak without the Rossini, but with chicken liver cubes on top. The steak was well done (they don't ask how you like it; medium if you are interested) and the mystery 'Mexican vegetables' turned out to be mixed veg, probably frozen by the taste of the carrots. It was OK as I was v hungry.

After our meal, we had a little adventure, finding the location of a jazz concert at 5 PM which had the name of a building on the poster, but not the street. We walked quite a way out of town & found the Arts Centre and followed the sound of music (get it!) upstairs. We had to wait in a v grand vestibule while the singer finished the Billie Holiday song. We felt like we were at the Victoria (Gt George St) on a Thursday night except for it being Romania on a Saturday afternoon, so when we were allowed in and told to sit on the front seat, we were surprized to see a young lady singing to a backing tape. However, she was a very good singer who also sang some Spanish and pop songs so we stayed 'til the end. When we left, we discovered that the audience were mainly children who probably wondered why we'd wandered in off the street.

I am sure we will visit Sinaia again as the famous Peles castle is there. We have a calendar and a jigsaw of Peles at home which are gifts from Romanian colleagues.

I am told that Sinaia is v beautiful in the snow and has great skiing, but I will probably give it a miss with these knees!

Bye bye   Anne-Marie