Friday, October 4, Pro Vita to Transylvania

Spent most of the day sitting in the van or sitting at a dining table.  Left Pro Vita after breakfast and drove to Transylvania, stopping for a long lunch at Sinaia and visiting Peles Castle, built for King Carl I. It's over the top gorgeous in the way that San Simeon is.  Each room a different theme, with beautiful woodwork, carpets, furniture, but way, way too much of a good thing.  Very modern for its time (finished at the beginning of the 20th cent.), with central heating, an elevator, and a whole house vacuum cleaner, all still in use.

At Peles Castle

More castle

This was the sum total of our activity today.  Back in the van for a couple more hours through the Carpathian Mountains, a beautiful but treacherous drive.  Paved streets were rutted and potentially icy, but much wasn't paved because they were torn up for laying gas and electric pipes.  Which also means two way traffic was restricted to one lane. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, an early Disneyland attraction came to mind.  Up here the snowfall had been several inches.  We checked in to a lovely inn and reassembled for dinner at 7.  We didn't start to get served until after 9 and then one at a time.  Dinner was excellent and the presentation exquisite, but no meal is worth waiting for that long.  I was served 15th of 15 and numbers one and two were finished by then.  Charlie had two shots of their traditional plum liquor and fell into bed when we finally got upstairs at 10:30.  It's a good thing we're enjoying the company.

3738 steps, really just around the castle, and an intake of at least 3738 calories, so that should balance out just fine don't you think?