A birthday, some glass icons, and hydroelectric fun

Days 7 and 8
By Layla

After lunch, we ventured over to the main guesthouse and their swimming pool. It’s a bit of a random, elevated pool, and as there’s so little water in this village they had to have it delivered in a lorry. It seemed wrong not to take advantage. And it was lovely swimming in our own private pool, right next door to a very pretty orthodox church and directly opposite a Lutheran one. Church bells accompanied our splashes and the backdrop to the pool was steeples and hillside. We read books over beer afterwards before retiring home. Roz made us pasta which we ate on our patio in the sun before watching the last ever West Wing episodes. I sobbed like a girl and have since felt bereft – I can’t imagine life without the next series. We went to bed and I had to giggle when Roz told me she was too excited to sleep as the next day was her birthday…

Sure enough, the next day started with the excitement of Mimosas in bed (a la New York) and a huge pile of birthday presents for Roz. I always live in fear that I will have chosen unsatisfactory presents but she seemed happy. Despite her being the birthday girl, in view of my culinary incompetence she made breakfast, which we ate on our patio, and I was smug, though alarmed, to find that one of the most successful presents I gave her was a tiny heart-shaped pot of marmite which she smeared on toast with some glee… At 10:30 we were collected from our house and driven up a hill, where we were deposited, with Jez as our guide, at the edge of the forest. The forest looks just as I had imagined a Transylvanian forest might look, with tall dark trees. I hadn’t expected the open countryside though! We walked through the forest, past WW1 trenches, and over hills and meadows that would have looked appropriate in The Sound of Music, complete with haystacks and church spires glistening in the distance all around as the sun shone vehemently. I had arranged this walk for Roz’s birthday and it was mainly really lovely, walking through three different villages, including a tiny one that only just acquired a dirt track by which to access it last year. No tourists at all. It was fun walking past these wooden, pastel-coloured houses, and people driving past on horse and cart, and open countryside all around. It was only unpleasant at the end when, after 3 ½ hours of walking, we had to climb up a very, very steep hill.

However it was worth it. I had pre-planned with our hosts that they would set out a special romantic birthday picnic for Roz at the top of the hill, and they had done me proud. They had set up a picnic blanket under a canopy, bearing a ‘happy birthday’ banner. Our plates boasted party items, and a lovely array of homemade tomato tart, fresh bread, cheese and grapes and salad were laid out on the blanket. Not to mention the champagne. And the piece de resistance… a lesbian birthday cake! I couldn’t quite believe the glory. Di had asked me to buy icing in London and bring it with me to Transylvania, which I duly did. And she created an amazing cake featuring two female pandas (with matching pink bows) in a double bed with a pink blanket made of icing. There was even a pair of slippers at each side of the bed. It was quite spectacular. And possibly the only lesbian cake either of us has ever seen. Di was very smug when she returned after lunch to see Roz’s appreciative reaction. Then a shepherd passed by with his flock and brought a tiny lamb over for us to stroke. Very cute.

After our lunch the plan of us walking back home ourselves sounded remarkably untempting. We gazed at the sky: possible rain. We gazed at our feet: ouch. We gazed at each other: a plan was psychically formed. Rather than the walk, Roz asked Di to drive us home and, trying not to feel like wusses, we were transported back to our house just in time to feel smug about having escaped the rain that did indeed fall. We had planned to watch a film but both of us were shattered and ill and had to turn it off halfway through. I think we might have had mild sunstroke.

Luckily a quick nap and we were as good as new. We dressed up and someone came to give us a lift to Sibiu. Though we had only left two days ago, we were very nostalgic and delighted to be back. We started off with a mohito (or five) at the lovely outdoor Café Wien, to the sounds of live piano, while we people-watched. Then we sauntered across the square to El Turn, a rather lovely outdoor Italian restaurant with delicious food, on the main square. We had prosecco and bruschetta and pizzas and then chose ice cream for dessert at our favourite ice cream seller (who had put their ice cream price up from 50p two days ago to 60p: extortionate!). We walked through the square feeling romantic and, having considered having drinks in a rather pretentious and touristy piano bar, we decided instead to head back to the Orient Express where we had beer and played chess, culminating in the barman taking over Roz’s side of the game and thrashing me on her behalf – Roz’s smugness was massive as I was repeatedly checkmated. Well, it was her birthday… We decided that Orient Express is probably our favourite bar out of every bar we have ever been in. We ran through London, Glasgow, New York, and all the other fantastic places we’ve been, but nowhere beats it. Just before we left the music turned particularly cool and we jumped up to do our ‘wedding dance’, i.e. a Charleston, to the delighted bemusement of the chess-playing barman. As we were driven home we both revelled sleepily in what had been an excellent birthday.

We hadn’t arranged what time we were meeting Di and Jez the next day, but of the nine nights we’re staying in Cisnadioara we paid for five of them to be ‘all inclusive activity days’; Roz’s birthday was the first, and today was to be the second. However we hadn’t actually made plans with them, so poor Jez came knocking at the door at 9:30, only to meet a bleary-eyed Layla who had stumbled from bed (Roz refused to stumble and stayed put). He looked confused, as though he had never encountered the phenomenon of people sleeping in (even if they’d had champagne cocktails for breakfast, champagne for lunch, prosecco for dinner, multiple mohitos, and a few glasses of beer the day before, on top of a demanding hike…). We managed to send him away long enough to get hastily up and for Roz to whip up another tasty breakfast before it was time to embark on our second day of activity.

The sun shone as we sped through an array of picturesque hills, streams, and fairytale mountain villages. At one village we stopped to wander around a pretty church and walk through the village. At the next we went to see the Glass Icon Museum. We had both been rather unconvinced by the likely delights of this attraction. However it turned out to be rather lovely. It seems that in the old days, a glass painting of a religious scene was the proudest possession of many families in Romania. When Communism came, these paintings were banned, but apparently one monk risked his life collecting all the illegal icons and hiding them until after the Communist rule, at which point the museum was established. We were assured that this is the most important collection of glass icons in the world. And they were interesting to see: bright and colourful, almost cartoonish, and lovely to imagine them in family homes. Rather random to find them in this obscure Transylvanian village.

After this excitement, it was on to yet another village, which was having a festival. Apparently said festival had not been advertised, which goes to show the power of word of mouth, as every person from miles around was in attendance, many with fun Romanian folk outfits. You can imagine that if you lived around here, this would be the social event of your whole year! It was a strange combination of sweet little fete, and horrible commercial funfair. We were deposited on the road and walked down into the festival where we acquired lunch of an item that is apparently translated as ‘shepherds’ cheesy balls’. In fact this turns out to be our disguised vegetarian staple of polenta, cheese and sour cream sneakily rolled together into a rather large ball to trick you into thinking it’s something else. We were duly fooled but quickly realised the truth... We wandered around afterwards with sweetcorn and popcorn, had a glance at the stage where people in traditional Romanian garb were doing country dancing and emitting unpleasant folk songs to the delight of most of the festival attendees, and ended up going for a walk along a sunny path to the cascading sheets of water of a nearby hydroelectric water plant. Roz was highly amused at my nerdy excitement about this. I do like a nice hydroelectric water plant…

After the festival we drove back home and found ourselves utterly exhausted again. Di offered us the option of going ‘mushrooming’ to find wild mushrooms for dinner. We were too tired. We picked up some food from the shop and started out on the 10 minute walk to our house. As we set off, the heavens opened and we were absolutely saturated. We made it home, drenched, and are now curled up on the daybed in dry clothes eating birthday cake and reading and typing. Well, in fact I now notice Roz has fallen asleep. I am jealous. I don’t think either of us has ever been so exhausted on holiday. I blame the exhaustion of our pre-holiday lives. I wonder if we’ll manage the 5 hour hike up a mountain tomorrow… much less a return to work in a week’s time…