In an attempt to combat the January blues, I travelled to Romania for a Transylvania tour (yes, it’s a real place!) which took me to castles, an ice hotel, Dracula’s home and a stunning city. Find out all that I got up to on this amazing tour of Transylvania.
A Transylvania Tour
Monica and I booked this trip back in September 2018, largely due to the fact that it was happening in January. A January adventure must mean no January blues, right? I really, really hoped this theory was correct.
But there was another reason, too: one of the key features of the tour was a night in an ice hotel, something that had been on my bucket list for years.
I’d read about ice hotels. I’d written about them, too. And I always thought that sleeping in an ice hotel seemed like an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable experience…with a price tag to match! Every ice hotel I’d ever seen was hundreds of pounds (some even edging towards the thousand pound mark) per night. I figured maybe one day…maybe…I’d treat myself.
And then this tour with Untravelled Paths came up on Travelzoo, and it was £299 for four nights…including a night in an ice hotel! It seemed too good to be true, but after a bit of research, it appeared to be legit. We booked it, booked our flights, and waited for the day to arrive.
What to pack for a Transylvania tour
I am pretty proud of my packing skills. I’m pretty good at packing hand-luggage only, and planning my outfits so I never have unnecessary clothes in my case. I mean, I’ve even written for the Sunday Times and been on BBC Radio because of my packing expertise.
But this trip was my biggest packing challenge yet.
My flight was with British Airways (not included in the cost of the tour), so I had a fairly generous hand luggage allowance…but still. It was hand luggage only, for a five day trip that included exploring cities and an adventure on snow-topped mountains, with temperatures ranging from about 2 to -10 or colder.
I was stumped. I don’t go to the snow very often so I don’t have a lot of heavy-duty cold weather gear. And I definitely didn’t have any appropriate footwear. After much umming and ahhhing I decided that my wellies would be the best option, coupled with a lot of thermal layers, thick socks and warm insoles. I didn’t want to wear them on the plane, nor did I want to wear them for five days straight (they’re comfy, but not that comfy), so I had to try to fit them into my carry-on case.
To my amazement, they fit into my The Travel Hack Pro Cabin Case with ease. I stuffed all my thermals and socks inside them and shoved the few clothes I could fit in the spaces between and I was good to go. There was no way I was going to be stylish, but that was the least of my worries. I just prayed I’d be warm. And I’ll admit, I was nervous. Like, really nervous, about my night in the ice hotel.
Would I be warm enough? I’d only find out when I got there…
Arriving in Bucharest
I arrived into Bucharest (not Transylvania, but a good starting point for the tour) and met Monica at our hotel, the Z Hotel, which was well located but kind of…well, pretty grim (and noisy), to be perfectly honest.
Anyway, we had a welcome drink with our guide Cristina, met a few other people on the tour, then went out for dinner to Caru’ cu Bere; probably the most touristy restaurant in town, but almost certainly the most spectacular! The art nouveau interior is breathtaking, and throughout dinner we were entertained by traditional dancers.
I tried a local dish, sarmale, which is minced meat rolled in cabbage leaves and served with polenta and sour cream. It was delicious, and cost under £10 including a glass of wine. I love Romanian prices!
The next morning we met our guide at 8am in the hotel lobby and hopped on the bus with the rest of our tour group – 16 of us in total. We didn’t chat much at first, but over the next few days we had some great conversations with the people in our group, all of whom were lovely and fascinating. I don’t usually go for group tours, but I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed this one!
Peleș Castle
We were soon in the Carpathian mountains, and just a few hours after leaving Bucharest we’d reached Peleș Castle, a Neo-Renaissance royal residence dating back to 1873.
The castle is jaw-droppingly beautiful, like something swiped straight from a Disney fairytale. The interior, which you can only view as part of a guided group tour (this was included in the total cost of the Transylvania tour), is sumptuous and filled with room after room of stunning furniture, opulent decor and fascinating objects.
Our tour wasn’t great, as we could barely hear the guide and she didn’t really attempt to bring the history to life, but I didn’t mind as I hung back to take pictures (you need to purchase a photo pass for 35 lei, which is around £7) and soak in all the beauty.
We had a short amount of free time to wander around the grounds, take photos, or warm up with a cup of coffee. And then it was time to head back to the bus and continue our journey to Brașov, where we were to spend the night.
A night in Brașov
We checked into Casa Wagner, a gorgeous hotel right on the town square (it genuinely couldn’t have been a better location) that was cute and cosy and home-like. A definite upgrade from the previous night!
I didn’t really know anything about Brașov before we arrived, but I fell head over heels in love with it at first sight. Surrounded by mountains, this pretty town in Transylvania features a candy-coloured town square, narrow streets and beautiful architecture.
Plus, it snowed while we were there, which was utterly magical!
We spent the afternoon eating, wandering, checking out the local ‘sights’ (a.k.a. a tiny alleyway that’s somehow considered both a real street and an attraction) and going up the cable car too late to actually reach the lookout point (we didn’t want to miss the last cable car down). But still, the journey up Tampa Mountain was pretty, and the stunning blanket of snow at the top made the cost (16 lei) worthwhile.
In the end, the real appeal of Brașov isn’t its attractions but its quaint beauty. I could have walked around for days just soaking in the charm and the pretty, small streets.
In the evening we met our tour group for drinks at Dr. Jekelius – Pharmacy Cafe, a quirky bar where potent drinks with suspicious-sounding names like Antiseptic are served out of test tubes. We stayed for a couple of drinks (which tasted much better than they sounded), and then a few of us headed to a restaurant that Cristina recommended to us, called Bella Muzica.
Set in tunnels underground, the restaurant had a buzzy atmosphere, good service and traditional food (although some of the dishes, like pork testicles, were traditions I was OK not to experience), and we had a great time eating and drinking and getting to know some of the others who were on the tour with us.
The ice hotel experience
The next morning, we bundled back into the bus and headed deeper into the mountains to our next stop: the ice hotel!
This was the part of the trip I was most excited – and most nervous – about. I was going to try to write this all up in one post but when I realised that I’m actually already at over 1200 words, I decided to write a separate post about the ice hotel experience.
Read about my night in the ice hotel here to find out if I managed to stay warm!
Bran Castle and Bucharest
The next day we had a lot of driving; in fact, we spent most of the day on the bus.
We left the ice hotel at around 10am, took the cable car down the mountain and piled into the bus, excited to have heating and USB charging ports once again (it’s the little things). At about 1pm we arrived in Bran, and went straight to a restaurant for lunch. It was fairly casual and nothing particularly fancy, and as we could all see Bran Castle in the background, we were itching to finish our meals to go explore it.
In the end, we only had an hour to explore the castle and get back to the bus, which definitely wasn’t enough time. We whizzed through the castle (it’s all self-guided, and our entry was included in the cost of the Transylvania tour) as quickly as we could, taking pictures and skimming the information on the walls.
The castle – although it’s known as the setting for Bram Stoker’s Dracula – was actually the Romanian royal family’s summer residence, and the information inside mostly points to that, rather than it being a Dracula-themed attraction (although there are some references here and there). It’s not opulent, like Peleș Castle, but it’s stunning in its simplicity and its layout, which is all centred around a pretty courtyard.
After looking around, we only had about 15 minutes to walk around and take pictures of the castle exterior, and then it was time to meet Cristina again. I do wish we’d had longer to wander around, but we still had a lot of driving ahead of us! It was another four or five hours back to Bucharest, so by the time we arrived it was dinnertime.
We checked into Z Hotel again (the room was much, much nicer this time – I guess we were unlucky on the first night!) and I joined a few people from the tour for dinner at Energiea, a gastropub that serves incredible food and drink. It was much more expensive than most of the other meals I’d had in Romania: for a huge plate of ribs and fries, and two glasses of delicious red wine, it was £20.
The next morning I wandered slipped and slid on the icy pavements as the snow fell around me. I spent some time in Cărturești Carusel, one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world, and I took photos of the grand buildings that seemed to be around every corner.
And then it was time to travel to the airport for my flight home!
Transylvania Tour with Untravelled Paths
I loved this tour! I genuinely had the best time, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for something a little bit different to do in winter.
Our guide Cristina was the right amount of helpful and knowledgeable without being overbearing, the group was fun without being rowdy or needy, the itinerary was packed full of brilliant things to see and do while still allowing us enough free time to do our own exploring, and the value for money was insane.
The cost of the tour (on TravelZoo, so slightly discounted) was £299. My flights cost £138.20 (there are cheaper flights, but I’m so fussy about airlines that I’m usually happy to pay a bit extra for BA), and while I was in Romania I spent £177.33, which included all meals and drinks. I didn’t buy any souvenirs, and the cost of all the attractions (aside from my photography permit at Peleș Castle) was included in the tour price.
So all in, I spent £614.53 for a four night once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable Transylvania tour. Sure, it might be more expensive than your average European city break, but I definitely think it was worth it, considering there are some ice hotels where you’d spend more than that on one night alone!
Would you go on a Transylvania tour? Do you think this is good value?
Book your Transylvania tour with Untravelled Paths here.
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Thanks for the captivating post and great photos.
What a fun tour! And that is such a gorgeous castle.