Day 3 was easy, so it seemed. We slept-in a little more before heading for another sumptuous breakfast at the Kronwell Hotel. As we began to enjoy the various food choices, we can not help reminisce our much earlier past travels on a shoe string budget. Breakfast was not just breakfast but it was actually for lunch and could even be for dinner. We brought along our ziplocs and surreptitiously filled them with eggs, fruits and whatever we could sneak into them. We would also bring small rice cooker and with some canned goods, our food costs were minimal. We would not even sit on a restaurant as they would charge you an extra $5 dollars for the table so we ate our pizza outside sitting on the sidewalk. Unlike before where we found ourselves in a new city the next day, we have planned our recent trips now to be less hectic. At one time we travelled Europe with the family on a Eurail pass for 30 days. We must have covered about 25 cities in 16 countries. We took the night train and woke up the following morning in a new city. Those were the days, nonetheless even with some physical constraints, we still like to travel so we have shifted to cruising. Today, on Day 3, we left at 10 am for Peles Castle on our way back to Bucharest. The castle is located near Sinaia in Romania and was built for King Carol 1 of Romania. It was known to be one of Romania's most beautiful castles and palaces. Now it is a museum. For an avid connoisseur of castles and palaces, this is a must see when in Romania.
The walk to the castle was another challenge for aching knees and tired legs from the previous day's visit to Dracula's castle. And so we were already happy to be within its surroundings and decided to put health first. A nice warm cup of coffee, at a fine restaurant was good enough. We waited at the restaurant for the whole group to come back. The next stop was lunch at the Sinaia town. The place is typical of the European countryside where beautiful houses lined the hillsides. Lunch was at the Arcade restaurant and we again tried a traditional Romanian food, this time, a sweet dessert called “papanash”. Papanash looks like a decorated donut, but it’s not. The dough was made of cheese and sour dough and deep-fried. It was as delicious as it was decorated. After lunch, we had a brief encounter with the sun…it was so shy it just gave us a sneak preview of how it can be beautiful when it is not competing with the clouds. The trip back to the JW Marriott Hotel was again a run-through of another Bucharest city tour as we passed by the landmarks that make Romania’s beautiful culture and rich history. We had such a talented young tour guide that gave colorful description of Bucharest. Back at the hotel, we were just happy with our new room on the 5th floor facing the main streets of Bucharest. The room was elegantly decorated and lighted. We decided to stay at the hotel for our free day tomorrow to catch up on sleep, and rest getting ready for the actual river cruise beginning on Thursday.
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