So, maybe things were meant to happen this way...

Spent much of yesterday morning on the phone and the internet trying to organize a car rental. Lots of thanks to our couchsurfing host Valentina for all of her translation efforts! Some of the car rental websites have English, but not all.

We ended up with a pretty good deal...162 euros ($233 CAD, $173 USD) for 10 days, but we were going to have to go 100 kms north of here to the city of Cluj by bus to pick up the car. So we made plans to do that this morning.

And then, it turned out all of that effort was for nothing.

Gastronomic Adventures in Southeastern Spain: A Taste of Murcia

Traditionally when someone mentions Spain, the first things that spring to mind are the glorious, soft-sandy beaches, refreshing sangrias, colorful local festivals and of course, the wonderful Spanish cuisines native to its regions. From the popular Spanish Costas, the emerald islands of the Balearics and the Canaries and even to the leading Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid.

Spain has attractions galore which are sure to appeal to the preferences of visitors in Murcia.

We were due for some exercise!

I said yesterday that we were due for a more relaxing day, but I didn't expect it to be yesterday. Still, we did manage to get out for some exercise. We're trying to plan our onward travels but we're having a hard time coming up with something concrete, and part of the problem is that we're enjoying our time here in the village of Oarda de Sus.

We need to rent a car because there are several day trips we want to do from here. But the car rental places here base their daily pricing on how many days you have the car.

Now, this is a civilized way to buy wine!

It was 11:00am by the time we got out the door yesterday morning. It takes a long time to sort the photos of our activities and post the blog. I guess we have to stop doing so much stuff. We are kind of due for a relax day, but I don't see that happening any time soon...there is too much to see and do!

Our couchsurfing host Valentina was going into town, so we went along with her and she dropped us off at one of the entrances to the citadel here in central Alba Iulia.

Travel Day - Sibiu to Alba Iulia, Romania

Our Airbnb host Andrei was off to work yesterday morning at 7:30am, but he left us a key so that we could come and go. Our planned bus to Alba Iulia wasn't leaving until 2:15pm, so we had some time to go wander around the city of Sibiu some more.

So we stayed in until 10:00am or so as it started to warm up a little outside. The entire country of Romania has been experiencing an unusual cold spell, but that is supposed to break tomorrow.

Blizzard...but what an adventure!

Yesterday morning, I got a phone call from the blablacars driver we had booked, saying that he was ahead of schedule and could we meet him a half an hour early. We had to rush a bit, but it was no problem.

There had been some snow flurries early this morning, and it was gradually getting worse. By the time we left at about 11:15am, it was actually snowing quite heavily!

Around the medieval city wall, and a good dinner out!

We relaxed yesterday morning, and planned our travel for the next couple of days. We had been heading to Sibiu for a few days, about 2 1/2 hours west of Brasov. But we received an email from the Mayors office of the nearby city of Alba Iulia asking if we would visit their city, so that's what we're going to do! We're still going to Sibiu first though, but only for one night.

We were going to take the bus to Sibiu but Daniel (our host here at the guesthouse) asked if we had tried blablacars yet. I had heard of it, but no...we hadn't tried it.

Another great day in Romania!

First thing we had to do yesterday morning was to return our rental car. We had picked it up at 10:00am, and so we had to return it at the same time. But, the car rental company had also specified that it was our obligation to return it clean and washed, and of course full of gas...just the way we had picked it up.

So the first thing we did was to go to a Romanian gas station for the first time.

It was slippery and muddy, but we made it!

Okay, so here's the second part of our day yesterday. We did too much exploring (is there such a thing??), so we had to break it into two separate posts. You can go back and check part one here if you missed it...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2016/11/im-king-of-castle.html

When we left you last, we were in the medieval Sighișoara citadel, and about to wander the narrow streets to see some of the houses of the people who still live there.

I'm the king of the castle!

We had a busy day yesterday. And when we sorted through the 100 photos we took, we decided there was no way to show you them all in one blog post. And so even though we have whittled them down to 54 photos after tossing the not so good ones, you're still going to get two blog posts today.

So, here is part 1...

Peles Castle

We woke up to another drizzly day, but this time we hopped in the car and went exploring. We have to try and get out a little earlier, because time seems to go by so quickly when it gets dark around 5:00pm!

We were headed only about an hour south of Brasov to the town of Sinaia, and the magnificent Peles Castle.

Grocery shopping in Romania

We woke up to rain yesterday morning, so we just relaxed at the guest house. There are only four rooms here, and the basement is the common area with a nice living room and kitchen space. We've been the only ones here for two nights, although two more rooms were occupied last night.

This is a popular guesthouse, but it's low season for tourism here in Romania, so it's only been full on weekends.

A couple of funny things happened yesterday...

Yesterday morning we picked up our rental car. Our appointment was at 10:00am, and we were there five minutes ahead of time. They had booked us a 2012 Renault Clio, a small hatchback. But when the girl sat us down to do the paperwork, she apologized that the car was in service, and they were giving us a slightly bigger one, a 2013 Dacia Logan. No problem for us, we just wanted transportation.

Rental cars are priced in euros here in Romania, but when they charge your card, it is in the lei equivalent. It's tough to find anything under 25 euros ($37 CAD, $28 USD) per day, unless you are taking the car for longer than a week.

Busy day with lots of pictures in Brasov, Romania!

Our guesthouse host Daniel picked us up exactly at 10:00am from the studio apartment where we were staying at his parent's place. We drove through the old part of town to the opposite side, with Daniel pointing things out along the way.

Just before we arrived at La Despani Guesthouse, I noticed the car rental place where we have our booking for this morning. I knew it was quite close to the guesthouse, but it's almost right across the street!

Travel day!...Bucharest to Brasov

Travel days in a new country are always interesting!

You just never know exactly how things are going to go, despite planning in advance as much as you can. And of course you don't know what you're going to see along the way. Yesterday, we planned to take the train from Bucharest to Brasov, Romania a distance of about 166 kms (103 miles) by rail.