Days 1-2: Travel Day
We left the house via our private transport provided by Avanti at 3:30pm headed to MIA for a direct flight to London. I've said it when ever we've left via MIA - which we only agree to when the flight schedule is SIGNIFICANT better - I'd never, ever want to make that drive. Part of it is I'm simply unfamiliar with the Miami airport and getting there. We'd received an email about ten days ago that if you were STAYING in the UK you needed the new ETA documentation. But because we were only transferring flights I just saved it for a later trip. Went to check in at the airport and were told the policy had changed just days ago and now simply landing required it. The American Airlines clerk was SO helpful - well obviously, her name was Kimberly - and she worked with us for about 40 minutes until we both were in the system then got checked in.
But even after flown out of there several times I have no interest what so ever trying to navigate the traffic and all the other turns. Our home airport FLL is two turns from home....our condo airport in Orlando even easier, one turn and ten minutes away. The flight from Miami to London is the first time I've ever gone internationally and didn't watch a single thing on the provided entertainment screen. Listened to two chapters of an audio book, had their light dinner and slept for a little over five hours. Woke up with less than an hour to land. SMOOTH sailing. We had a four hour layover and it was a good thing because getting from the one terminal to the other was quite the journey. About an hour into our layover Pam and Bob landed and within an hour they joined us. We waited another 45 minutes for our gate to be named then took the short walk there and boarded a much smaller British Airways plane for the three hour flight to Bucharest. Our luggage came out relatively quickly and we were met by the Viking representative immediately. Once Bob and Pam joined us and the one other couple who were being transferred with us we walked to the van and had about a 40 minute ride to the JWMarriott which was FIRST CLASS! The four of us met for a dinner in the hotel and were back in our rooms adjusting to the travel and time change before passing out after midnight local time.
We set our alarms for 6am so we could be down to breakfast around 6:30....bags out at 7 and we left at 8:15am for Transylvania. We drove for two hours and were largely entertained by our adorable Viking hostess Rodita who had many tales to tell and spun the history and background to the country of Romania in an interesting fashion. Stopped after an hour for a break and arrived at Peles Castle around 1pm. We walked DOWNHILL for about 20 minutes to get into line and then toured from room to room with Rodita providing the narration and story-telling. It was very interesting. As interesting as the castle was the weather was a spectacular clear blue skies and mid-60's with fall colors abound over the grounds of the castle. We then walked UPHILL to where the bus picked us up to take us about ten minutes back into the old town where we had lunch on our own. Rodita recommended three restaurants, two traditional Romanian fare and we picked one of those. As we leafed through the menu - about a dozen pages of options, my eye was caught by something Rodita had mentioned, an apple strudel like dessert. The full page color picture made it too tempting to pass up. So I opted for Romanian chicken soup (with carrots, and yes I ate them) and the strudel as my main course. SO delicious. We were back on the road for an hour before arriving in Transylvania for our second hotel stay at the Raddison. Later that evening we had a walking tour and a traditional Transylvanian dinner.
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