Sibiu
The next stop on our Romania tour was the town of Sibiu, a city once voted by Forbes as being in the top 10 of Europe's most idyllic places to live. We spent two days in the city, just wandering around and seeing the sights.
We arrived in the early afternoon and checked into a hotel that didn't have air conditioning, a bit of a let down seeing at the temperatures were still in the mid to upper 30's (95+ F), but we shrugged it off as just another thing that we need to make sure that we check for when we are booking hotel rooms. We're still learning, and still making small simple mistakes that almost seem like a basic rookie traveler error.
Out to wander through the city, it was a great old city, and in the process of setting up for a medieval festival, we would miss is by just a few nights. The city is on a few levels, lots of stairs and hills for us to walk and complain about, we take breaks as we need at the plethora of small outdoor restaurants and bars where we can enjoy a nice cold drink. As a warning, their lemonade's are made strong, basically pure lemon juice, ice, and a couple of scoops of sugar.
The next day we climbed to the top of the Lutheran Cathedral, luckily we did this shortly after the top of the hour since you climb directly through the bell tower and it would be just a bit loud if you were in there when they were going off. It's a long climb up, but the views once you are up there are definitely worth it.
Then, after climbing back down the tower, we had the general everyday annoyances of long term travel - packing up and heading to a self service laundry to clean our clothes. This time our hotel was right in the city center and the laundry was about 2 kilometers outside, usually it's our hotel that is a kilometer or so walk outside of the city. We get in to the small facility to find all three washers filled with towels, probably a small B&B or spa facility doing their laundry, but it only has 5 minutes left on the timers. We wait, and while contemplating how long we should wait after the cycle ends to pull the wet towels out, a woman arrives and apologizes for delaying us and transfers them to the dryers. They had been stopped for less then a minute, she had her timing down, and luckily we needed her help, since these units were semi-automated and without any instructions in English. We were then able to use that knowledge to help another English speaking couple that came in later and couldn't figure out the system.
Chores done, we were back out and heading through the town and touring along the old city wall.
And from the city walls we stopped by the small square that exits onto the Bridge of Lies, Romania's oldest cast iron bridge. It replaced an old wooded bridge in 1859, but the name Bridge of Lies remained. The legend is that this is where, back in medieval times, virgin women would go to try and meet potential mates. But if they were lying about their virginity then they would be thrown off the bridge. Makes a great story, and the bridge is a pretty nice photo spot for tourists, we stopped and had a drink while relaxing and watching other tourists stroll by and take their photos and selfies.
