Villa Hermani Gets the Paws Up

It was nearly midnight when we reached Villa Hermani; the last part of the journey was on dirt roads in the national park. We'd got the impression we were in an exciting location, but we had to wait until morning, and the arrival of daylight, to find out more. On arrival it was just a case of enjoying a glass of home made schnapps left out by the owners and then finding our rooms and bed.

It was a thrill to wake up in the morning and have a wander out onto our balcony to look out the view across rolling pastureland with the distinctive yeti like haystacks.

Sorry our picture doesn't do it justice and the sun hadn't come out yet .. and the power lines got in the way ... but it was nice! And Villa Hermani was a lovely chalet style lodge with lots of wood ...

... and some wonderful natural additions. Outside were a huge bear and a wolf, and yes, we quickly made friends ...

... while inside were some real (but sadly not alive) creatures of the stuffed variety. By this we don't mean they had indulged in too much of the excellent Villa Hermani cuisine, rather that they had been for a visit to the local taxidermist.

On the way up the stairs to our room was a beautiful owl, but even more special was the splendid badger which was located right outside our room ....

... that's our room with the sun streaming in. The story of the badger is an interesting one. He had apparently fallen dead at the feet of Katerina, our hostess, while she was out walking with a party. She hadn't looked a gift horse in the mouth and had she couldn't have had a fresher corpse to get stuffed. We did feel very small in relation to Brock. We hadn't realised badgers are so big and I'm sure   we'd be quite scared if we met one out in the wild.

Villa Hermani didn't just look good, it was good. It was very comfortable and Katerina and Hermann our hosts looked after us wonderfully along with their hardworking team. The stage was set for a wonderful holiday. 

Lots of love

George, Yorkie and Chelmer xxx

Bucharest Beckons

We can hardly believe it, it's October already. In that case we'd better get our skates on and start reporting on our recent adventure which took us, last month, to one of Europe's last wilderness areas. We're talking about the beautiful country of Romania.

We'd booked on a walking and wildlife holiday with one of the 2 adventure travel companies we like to use, Exodus. We arranged our own flights though, which had several advantages, one of which was that we got into Bucharest several hours ahead of the group flight, so had time for a bit of exploration and research for the Friendly Planet Guide.

We hit a bit of a snag trying to catch the bus from the airport to the train station where we would be able to leave our luggage. We'd just been to an ATM to get some Romanian leus and ended up with no small change as a result, only fairly big notes. This freaked the lady at the bus ticket kiosk out no end, and we had to work hard, smiling or most disarming bear smiles, to get the tickets we needed (or thought we needed - see later).

Having deposited our luggage at the gare du nord (felt very French) we set off on paw into the city feeling like a weight had been lifted off our shoulders (it had - our luggage). Yorkie had done some research on where we should go before we left home and, being Yorkie, it had to involve food. All credit to Yorkie, it was lunchtime, and he took us to a truly wonderful restaurant.

What a gem it was, we had no idea we were going to be in for such a great treat. We're talking about Beca's kitchen which is a small bistro style restaurant where the food is cooked by the charming and talented Beca. There are no menus as fresh seasonal produce is used and the dishes change regularly. There was plenty of choice though as you can see from the blackboard behind us ...

... we were relieved to be given the English version as our Romanian is not too good. Beca herself came out to take our order and to explain the dishes. She also talked to us about her concept of serving food which is to make it an experience for her diners as if they were coming to her home to have a meal with her.  Her dishes are very carefully thought through and nutritionally balanced and, what more can we say, other than it all works and comes together beautifully.

Beca brought out the dishes herself and we loved every one. We drank raspberry iced tea then started with fresh pea and mint and pumpkin, ginger and chilli soups.  For our main courses we enjoyed chicken skewers with roast beetroot and carrot and basil and courgettes stuffed with cheese, basil and garlic served on salad leaves. We finished up with chocolate and chilli ice cream and a fruits of the forest cheesecake which was so beautifully light it was more of a cheese mousse!

The food, the ambience and the welcome was so good we stayed a good couple of hours. We did leave some time for a bit of sightseeing on the way back to the station. We had a city map so planned a walking route taking in some churches, parks and other historic buildings. It was a lovely sunny day so we took our time.

There is some great architecture in Bucharest and some interesting contrasts between Communism and Capitalism.  We think we'd like to spend a weekend there some time. 

We were a bit worried on our return bus trip to the airport, as although our ticket seller had told us there were 2 journeys on our travel cards, the cards showed up as used when we went to validate them. Fortunately you validate your card away from the driver and no inspectors got on! We were quite pleased nonetheless to get off the bus at the airport and await the arrival of our tour group and our 3 hour transfer to Villa Hermani which was to be our home for the week. 

More next time. 

Lots of love

George, Yorkie and Chelmer xxx