{"id":1129,"date":"2014-10-14T21:56:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T03:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bendreth.com\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2014-10-14T22:00:21","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T04:00:21","slug":"eastern-europe-part-2-sighisoara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/?p=1129","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Europe, part 2: Sighisoara"},"content":{"rendered":"

We left Budapest on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania. I did not sleep well on the train, because it was hot and muggy, and the bunk was too short for me. Sighisoara itself has a small “old city” on a hill, which is surrounded by the larger, more modern, main part of the city.<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

We stayed at the Hotel Sighisoara in the old city.<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the entrances to the old city is through a gate in the base of a clock tower. The clock has figures that are supposed to perform actions on the hour, but the clock has been broken for a long time.<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

One building had an interesting architectural feature. I have no idea what’s going on, other than I presume someone thought it was appropriate.<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

Sighisoara is the birthplace of Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler<\/a>), a name he was given after his death. There is a picture of this bust of him in the Wikipedia article about him. The plaque reads (with a few Romanian letters I haven’t used):<\/p>\n

\nVlad Tepes
\n1431-1476
\nDomnitor al Tarii Romanesti
\nIntre Anni
\n1448;1456 – 1462;1476\n<\/div>\n

It means, “Vlad Tepes, 1431-1476, Ruler of Romania during the years 1448-1456 and 1462-1476.”<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

The name “Dracula” came from his father, who was a member of the chivalric Order of the Dragon (“dragon” being “dracul” in Romanian back then – we were told it has a meaning more like “devil” now). The house he was born in is now a restaurant, which we ate in the first night there.<\/p>\n

\"Sighisoara<\/a><\/p>\n

We took a day trip to see a few old villages and churches. The only photo I’m showing from that trip is of a window – you can see that there is a glass pane that’s been added, but the original window has a wooden block used to “close” it.<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/a><\/p>\n

The afternoon of our second day in Sighisoara, we took a bus to Brasov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left Budapest on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania. I did not sleep well on the train, because it was hot and muggy, and the bunk was too short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities","category-fun-stuff","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bendreth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}