1. Everyone outside Romania who heard I was going to Brasov, in actual real life Transylvania, cracked some kind of joke about visiting Dracula. Brilliantly, Brasov itself is well aware of being a tourist destination — as a well-preserved medieval town founded by Germans in a beautiful natural setting, thank you very much. Seriously, the place is tasteful. I think I saw more “let’s go party with vampires!!!!!” tat within 5 minutes of wandering around Bucharest old town than I did in Brasov.

2. The whole well-preserved-medieval thing means that there’s a lot hidden in little alleyways off the main streets. It also meant that my hostel room was a bit of a maze to get to. The guy at the front desk apologized for the chaos (“you go up those stairs, then cross the passageway on that balcony, then through that door…”) but I quite liked the approach of, do what you can with the buildings you have.

3. That said, there are also some very cute more-recently-decorated buildings scattered around.

4. Walking to the old town from the railway station takes about 40 minutes. The highlight of this walk is the point where you meet a busy 4 lane road with no apparent crossing point… I had a real “is google maps actually trying to kill me” moment. I eventually realized that behind a cafe kiosk was a flight of stairs going down to a proper pedestrian underpass: dimly lit, lined with shops selling miscellaneous homewares and smelling distinctly of celery throughout. (The celery smell was legit, there’s a takeaway soup shop near the entrance.) Given how pleasant the old town is, I reckon you have to get the celery-underground-mall experience to balance things out.

5. On the hillside overlooking the town is a sign saying BRASOV, in the style of the Hollywood sign. Look I know I said the place was classy and I realize this seems contradictory, but it’s redeemed by the fact that you can hike (lol no it was way too hot) or get a cable car up the hill and then get a view of the town from behind the sign… Which is actually really cool.

6. Not Brasov itself, but if you’re heading from there to Bucharest, there are a decent number of trains each day and the first half of the journey is prettyyyyy

You get to trundle through those mountains at what feels like about 20 km/h… You can spot the locals on the train because they’re just casually napping or working on their laptops and not staring wide-eyed out the window.

Practical details for future reference: I arrived from Budapest by overnight train, which cost me €20 for a bed in a 4-bed couchette on top of my interrail pass. In April, I booked the spot on the train the day before and had no trouble getting a place, but I imagine the trains are busier in summer.