Day 11: Brașov

It was another bright sunny day when we woke up in Brașov this morning

We didn't need to go far from our apartment before we caught sight of the Brașov sign on the hills behind the town.

The glimpse we'd got of Brașov while out getting food last night suggested that it was going to be a really pretty place.

Brașov is the seventh largest city in Romania.

Historically, it was the capital of the Transylvanian Saxons.

The Saxons began to settle in Transylvania from the 12th century. They originally came to help defend the borders of what was, at the time, the Hungarian kingdom, but they soon became involved in mining and trading too, and built fortified settlements all over the region.

Transylvania was unified with Romania after the First World War, and from this point the German population began to decline.

There must also have been a significiant Jewish population in Brașov at some point, because we found a very elaborate synagogue. You can't really see it in the photo, but it had really pretty stained glass.

We caught sight of turrets in the distance and went to investigate.

It turns out that this white turreted building used to be the main gate into the city in medieval times. However, in the 19th century a new (bigger) gate was built in order to allow in more traffic.

From the gate we walked towards the town's main square. We were confronted by an absolutely enormous church.

This is the Biserica Neagră (the Black Church), a Gothic Lutheran church which was built by the German community.

It's so large you have to get quite a long way away from it to fit it all in a photo!

The church sits in Piața Sfatului.

The centre of the square is dominated by this large building, which used to be the town's council house.

Today it houses a history museum.

The entire square is so beautiful that it was difficult to know in which direction to look first

All sides of the squares are lined with colourful buildings.

There were some interesting churches too.

And, of course, we could see up to the Brașov sign above the town.

We left the main square and explored some of the side streets.

There were even more colourful houses here

On the edge of the old town we found a park.

There were some very unusual flower displays here; this one looked like a peacock with a tail of flowers.

There were also some attractive buildings in this more modern part of the town.

And we found what looks like another Romulus and Remus statue.

We'd read in the guidebook that there is a cable car up the mountain behind the town, so we set off to try to find it.

We climbed up a steep road, followed by some staircases, on the edge of the town and into the woods, where we found the cable car station.

It only cost 18 lei each (£3.40) for a return trip.

Admittedly, when we got to the top there wasn't much of a view initially, because everywhere was so forested. We followed a sign which indicated a 10 minute walk to a viewpoint... and before we knew what was happening, we realised we were behind the Brașov sign!

It was really cool to see it from the other side!

Once we walked past the sign, we found there was a small viewpoint jutting out over the trees. It was quite busy so we had to wait our turn for photos.

It was worth it, though; the views of the town were spectacular.

We could see right town to the central square where we'd been this morning

There didn't seem to be a lot further you could walk on the top of the hill, unless you wanted to walk all the way back down to Brașov, so we went back towards the cable car station, where there was a small cafe. Tim decided to sample some of the local beers.

The cable car was quite busy, but we managed to get positioned near the front for the ride back down

From the bottom cable car station, we went for a stroll through the woods on the edge of the town.

There were some lovely views from here as well.

We could see bits of the old town walls...

...as well as back towards the Black Church in the centre of town.

There were some interesting buildings as we came back down into the town too. Even the town's tennis courts seemed to be surrounded by historic buildings.