The new Airbus was graced with our presence along with another 23 passengers at the hideous hour of 23:25. The airport was completely deserted with all employees regretting the night ahead.

The in-flight meal was prepared with the enthusiasm of a cook working at midnight. The beef was more akin to chewing gum than meat and I was in doubt whether the rice salad was already digested before being put on the plate. The chicken menu of my travel and life companion was a much better choice.

We arrived at 03:00 and as soon as we entered thie Banasea (Bucharest’s secondary airport) arrival lodge, I looked out of the window to confirm that outside was an aeroplane not a time machine. Everything looked at least 10 years old. The customs check was just 10 meters away from the entrance and the baggage belt another 10 meters away. Through the transparent door you are able to actually see baggage being offloaded and being placed on the convenor belt. Just besides the belt before going out of this multipurpose room three customs policeman were opening and checking each bag, but we had no problems. This is the perfect beginner airport everything placed in one room, not even our ex-secretary would have managed to get lost here.

As we had no hotel to go to we lodged for two hours at a marble covered circular hall just outside the arrival lodge. Along with the numerous vulture taxi drivers there were a couple of other tired people in the same room. To avoid falling asleep in this dubious environment I started reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. My mate was suspiciously eyeing anybody who tried to trespass the 5 meter radius barrier.

At around 04:30 we started getting concerned about how we were going to arrive at the main train station (Gara Nord). As soon as I got up to peep outside, a taxi driver approached me and asked where I want to go. He was not content with Gara Nord and pressed for the actual destination. I told him “Curtea de Arges” and he insisted upon taking us there. When he gave up, he quoted 20Euros for the trip to the train station. No way! I knew that a normal trip should cost no more than 10Euros because I had called the information office a day before. I haggled the price down to $15 and told him to come over at 05:00. After two minutes another taxi driver approached us and told us that he was an authorised taxi driver while the other wasn’t. At this I was all ears and as soon as we settled for 10Euros we left immediately. I had been warned by the Tourist office to use only authorised taxis so I felt bold that I choose the best option.

My enthusiasm didn’t last for long because when we went to the ticket booth of the train station the English illiterate sales girl did not accept Euro or Dollar currency. This was a very serious problem because the train was supposed to leave at 06:40 and it was too early to exchange money legally.

At this golden opportunity somebody approached us accompanied by a train station security member and offered a mini bus service to Curtea de Arges for $5. This was extremely cheap almost too good to be true, but since there was the security guard we accepted. As soon as we got out of the train station a junk car that wouldn’t start greeted us. That’s what they call a mini bus in Bucharest. After some shallow talk I noticed the low fuel indicator was blinking and soon after we drove into the first fuel station. The driver stuck out his hand and expected us to hand over $30 for the fuel. I told him that we had agreed on $5 dollars for the trip and he replied that he had asked us $45 dollars not $5. At this my mate got snappy so we gave him $10 for fuel and insisted on being taken back to the station. Fortunately, he took us back and left us in peace. This was our first and last attempted rip-off experience of the whole holiday.

This fake taxi trip was an original way to spend time in Bucharest in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately we managed to illegally exchange some dollars at a travel agency besides the pharmacy in front of the train station, and brought the train tickets to Curtea de Arges.

The train left exactly on time at 06:40 and arrived at the changing station Pitesti at 09:20. The train was a personal train which is the slowest of Romanian trains; its speed is best compared to a metro train. We changed the train at Pitesti to a horrendous smelly, rusty, noisy 1 carriage junk of a train which arrived at Curtea de Arges at 11:00.

Just outside of the train station we experienced the unforgettable public toilet experience. The toilet was made of piss. This is an excellent solution for blind people as they can easily find the place by smelling around from meters away. The toilet was very interesting – a toilet room with no toilets, just ill dug holes. One can imagine that this will work for the male toilet but there was no difference at the ladies.		Curtea de Arges Train Station
At Curtea de Arges we lodged at Hotel Posada in a 1 star room. The first thing we did upon entering was checking the toilet to put our mind at rest that it exists. The room was pretty basic with all the necessaries it was just lacking that nice finishing touch to keep the price low.

As a village Curtea de Arges is very straight forward with a pleasant main boulevard containing all the shops and activity. Hotel Posada was located at the end of the street within 1km walking distance from the train station.

The reason we travelled to Curtea de Arges was to view the Poienari Castle which is 25km away from Curtea. According to Lonely Planet the best information source was our hotel but the solution offered by the receptionist was defiantly not the best, as she recommended taking a taxi. We walked to the train station to check out other solutions and found out that there is a mini bus service every hour. The mini bus was the perfect solution, driving us exactly at the foot of the long flight of stairs leading to the castle.

This was by far the longest flight of stairs I have ever climbed (over 1400), but since the steps are low and surrounded by the forest it was not that tiring. I think it’s less tiring than work’s stairs, at least you don’t dread going up. We spent about 40 minutes to finish our quest considering frequent breaks.

Poienari Castle Entrance

The reward was worth it. After paying 20,000lei and a camera fee of 10,000lei we could share Dracula’s original castle with a group of light hearted local youths. Unfortunately the castle is more ruins than castle as a landslide destroyed the castle in 1888. It looks like an open air castle. History has it that in 1459 Vlad Tepes built the castle to be able to observe enemies trying to access the Arges valley. Vlad’s wife is also said to have committed suicide from the castle but we didn’t manage to find blood evidence to prove it.

Needless to say the descent was much more pleasant and quick. We had to walk about 2km to get to the bus stop from the castle but we were lucky enough to find the mini bus awaiting us. Our outing ended with a quick pizza at “No Comment” which was barely edible yet satisfied our hunger.

For a first day it was pretty tiring spending 40 hours awake, travelling, avoiding scams, climbing stairs and sightseeing.