Southeastern Europe Travel Diary Part Eight

29.11. 21:34
Another day done and dusted. I enjoyed another slow morning as it is my last day off for this week. For the first time of this road trip I took public transport to the city centre. I walked through the old town to my first stop: The National Museum of Romanian History.

I was really looking forward to this one. It was in a huge building, but unfortunately, the 20th century exhibition was being renovated, so I could only see previous history. That was a big disappointment because, in my opinion, World War 1 and 2 are THE most interesting parts of history. What was surprising was that they only accepted cash at the ticket office, and they did not accept Euros, although they are in the European Union. Lucky enough, I was able to buy tickets online, but in my opinion, it should be mandatory to accept the currency of the union you’re in, especially public places like museums. Anyway, I continued to wander through the streets and a lovely park until I reached the next museum, the National Military Museum. This one had a lot more to offer but unfortunately no English translations. LOL. At least the entrance fee at both museums wasn’t too high, it was less than 5 Euros each.

I started to get very hungry so I went for a small snack. It was pretty cold, and I still didn’t put on a lot of clothes in order to prepare my body for Iceland. Still, I made my way to the third museum, the “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum. This one was also very interesting. It was outside and built like a small old village. The only disappointing thing was that you could only enter and look inside two or three of the houses when, in fact, there were about 100. In Austria, we have something similar, and you can enter every single house there.

It was getting late, and I had enough of the cold, so I made my way back to my accommodation. I also stopped at a supermarket, because the kitchen in the hostel is outside and I really didn’t want to spend any more time in the cold. For the rest of the night, I just rested, and tomorrow, I’ll have to work again.


30.11. 21:12
Today is the very first day of my trip, where I did absolutely nothing. And you know what? I enjoyed it. I deserved it. With the busy world we’re living in, we need to remind ourselves to slow down a bit. Overcome our FOMO (for the older generation, it means ‘fear of missing out’), which is very present in my generation. One thing I started organising today was my stay in Belarus. I didn’t think about preparing anything back home, so I just looked it up yesterday and was a little surprised at how complicated things will be. It looked like I wouldn’t be able to travel there. For visiting, you need travel insurance and a visa, but the latter can only be obtained with one of the following options:

• You fly in and get it at Minsk airport
• The Belarusian embassy in your country issues one

The problem with the latter is that they only do that in person. I continued to research and found out that Grodno belongs to a so-called visafree travel zone. What a coincidence that I chose exactly this city to go to. But then I read that it’s only visafree for 73 countries, and Austria was not amongst them. I decided to text the Austria embassy in Belarus, and they weren’t really helpful. They just referred me to the links I already checked. So, I texted the Belarusian embassy in Vienna, and they were more helpful. They told me that I would need to buy a visafree travel voucher from a Belarusian travel agency. But I still didn’t know if that was also possible for Austrians. So I called them and they told me that it is. I started reaching out to about 10 different Belarusian travel agencies (there was a list on the Belarusian website), and one of them replied very quickly. They told me what they needed to start the process, and one of them was to know at which address I would be staying. Obviously, I didn’t book anything yet, as I didn’t know if I would even be able to enter the country. I started researching hotels because, on Booking it is currently not possible to book any accommodation in Belarus. There was a website with some hotels, but the request form didn’t work. So I turned to Google Maps, but many of the hotels didn’t have a website, and many of the ones who did weren’t available in English. Still, I used the websites in Russian because it was pretty logical, where to put in the dates and how many people were coming. Plus, a handful of websites were available in English. I’m gonna be honest, there were many out of my price range. I did find cheap ones, but

• one of them didn’t look too inviting,
• one of them was outside the centre, and I didn’t know how difficult the parking process in Grodno would be
• and the other one was an apartment, and I wasn’t sure how the checkin would work and I wouldn’t have mobile data in Belarus.

Meanwhile, one of the hotels where I sent an online request sent me an email with the price and asked me if I wanted to make a reservation. I checked it out. It was more expensive than I would usually go for, but not ridiculously high, and it was in the city centre, plus it included breakfast. After they confirmed, that I would be able to park my car, pay with credit card and still be able to cancel in case my visa process wouldn’t go through, I decided to make the reservation. If a country is so complicated, I would rather be safe than sorry. So that was my adventure for today, and hopefully, I will soon know if the visa process is confirmed. Fingers crossed! 🤞


1.12. 20:09
I can’t believe it’s already December! The good news is that my visafree travel voucher came through today. The bad news is. that I’ll have to print all the documents. So I’ll have to see if the hotel I’ll be staying in tomorrow will have a printer and hopefully br able to print it. After work today, I started driving to my next stop, Brasov. On the way, I made a stop at Peles Castle because a coworker recommended it. It was a very beautiful castle and the first time I saw hundreds of tourists on this trip. It was clear that this city is making its living of the castle, if so many people are visiting in winter. It was hard to find a parking spot, but eventually, I did and visited the castle.

Then, I continued the drive to my accommodation in Brasov. It’s the first time (and hopefully only time except Iceland) I’ll sleep in a hostel dormitory. When I arrived, I was positively surprised, how clean and beautiful the hostel was. I really appreciated the big and well-equipped kitchen after my hostel in Bucharest. After having lunch/dinner, I walked around the city a bit to reach my goal of 10.000 steps. Now I’m relaxing and looking forward to visiting Bran castle (or Dracula castle, as many people call it) tomorrow. I once more want to summarise things I’ve noticed:

• The gas prices are the same on and off the freeway. In Austria, petrol at the Autobahn is much more expensive.
• In almost every supermarket and shopping centre (though I haven’t been in many of the latter), there are security guards at the entrances and exits.
• There are many booths where locals sell fruits, honey, or juices in the middle of nowhere. I swear at the least likely places are the most.
• It’s normal to park cars on sidewalks. Even if there’s a big height difference between the curb and the street, locals still park there. I’d be way too worried for my tires to do that.