Szekely Land

On the day Romanians celebrate Easter, I packed my bags and headed off to Hungary. Well, actually just the Hungarian stronghold in Romania. But the point is, it wasn't Easter there.

First stop was Sfantu Gheorghe, a city just half an hour or so from Brasov. We jumped off the train because the Lonely Planet claimed that the town would be in the midst of a festival on that very day. Walking out of the train station, we discovered the difficulty of navigating a town that doesn't have a map in the LP. Soon, though, we were on our way to the town centre, passing by the circus that was in town for the week. In the centre, we found the Szekely National Museum, which is basically the national museum for ethnic Hungarians in Romania. Highlights included the animal room...

At the museum in Sfantu Gheorghe

A local informed us that the festival would start during the week, so we had some lunch and made our way back to the train station (on the way we tried to sneak into the circus, but the last of three guards caught us...alas, no circus).

Our destination for the night was Miercurea Ciuc (something like "Wednesday Market"). This is another majority Hungarian town, and considered to be one of the "hearts" of Hungarian Romania. It's also known for the beer Ciuc, so of course we found the castle that inspired the Ciuc beer logo. We also found an infamous hockey statue—ice hockey is huge in the area. We tried to make our way to the Franciscan monastery that (according to our LP) was supposed to be 2 km south of the city. But we couldn't find it, and the only person we asked didn't know about it.

Miercurea Ciuc loves hockey.

The plan was to take a bus the next day, so we went by the train station at night, hoping to find the schedule. We had to take flash pictures through the station windows in order to see what the sign said. With the times noted, we felt pretty confident about our bus the next day. However, given that Monday was also a holiday (Easter Monday, which apparently Hungarians celebrate even though they don't celebrate the Orthodox Easter Sunday), there was no bus that day.

So we had a few hours to kill before our train north, and hopped in a taxi with hopes that he could take us to the Franciscan monastery. To our surprise, he took off to the north rather than the south, and we found the monastery! We got a quick tour (in limba franceza) from a sweet old nun, and some help from the lady selling coffee before heading back to the train station for the train north to Gheorgheni.

At Gheorgheni, we again were told there were no buses because of the holiday. Our next plan was to hitchhike. So we walked down the strada spre Lacu Rosu, with thumbs up and hopes high.

These birds make their nests on poles.

Church in Miercurea Ciuc.

Sfantu Gheroghe. It's blue.