Salt mines, Ice caves and Dracula (again).

Tonight we are staying in Castle Dracula hotel at the top of Borgo Pass, this is the birthplace of the novel Dracula, and wins the award for most cheesiest Dracula place. Ever. Complete with a fake coffin in the basement. But we gotta, right? And there is quite a cold rainstorm blowing out there right now, how very fitting for a fake castle on top of a pass.

The past couple of days, we've been out of WiFi range traveling through northern Transylvania and stayed in a farmhouse/guesthouse last night. We had a wonderful home cooked meal and plenty of quiet...well, except for the dog and roosters. We've visited the Turda salt mine with gray salt swirled covered walls (that really looks like art) that has been lovingly turned into a tourist trap, complete with a ferris wheel INSIDE THE MINE. Today we crawled down over 200 steps to visit a very cool ice cave and have also seen plenty of curvy roads, rivers and mountains.

I have learned three things in the past few days. (Yes, maybe only three.)
1) Romania has chicken flavored potato chips and these quickly moved to the top of Tom's favorite foods list.
2) If you were to squish Idaho, Vermont and Colorado together somehow, you'd end up with the landscape in Romania.
3) Storks nest on electric poles and eat frogs.

Tomorrow were off to Moldavia. This area of the country borders Moldova and has many painted monasteries to visit, and hopefully some hiking to offer! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for better weather.

Pictures today of those famous chicken chips, the Scarisoara ice cave and Turda salt mine.