Brasov - Day 2

We've noticed that we can read a lot of the signs and things here - they look a lot like Spanish and Italian words. So I did some reading and it turns out that Romania was a Roman outpost and their language is based on Latin, unlike most of their Slavic neighbors. So tonight we wanted a good place to eat, Armando starts trying to talk to the hotel keepers - the older guy turns out speaks Italian and his daughter (?) speaks Spanish so suddenly it was old home week here. They ended up sending us to this really great restaurant - Sergiana (Sergio in Romanian??). It was through a little door, down a staircase, into this HUGE basement restaurant filled with room after room of diners. We had a great meal, one of the best we've had. Unfortunately we forgot the camera.  But of course, everything is on the 'net... so look here for some pictures-
http://sergianagrup.ro/restaurante/restaurantul-sergiana-brasov.aspx

Here's the front of our hotel - our apartment is the 2 windows on the bottom left.

We woke up to snow again today. But it wasn't cold, so we went walking. Lots of people out - families out walking on Sunday after church with their kids with sleds. We didn't see many people who looked like tourists, they probably don't get many of those this time of year. Mostly locals.

The synagogue

A gate to the city

 We walked around by the old city walls on the south side past ice skaters and just followed the path around....

This is supposedly the narrowest street in Europe. It reminds me of the kissing balcony in Guanajuato, Mexico, where the street gets so narrow that lovers on balconies on opposite sides of the street can lean over and kiss.

 Later we walked on the north side next to a little stream. Those are still the city walls on the right.

 More photos of the town

 Michael Weiss Street looking north toward the Catholic Church....

 ....and south toward our hotel.

 This is the Schei district, where for centuries Romanians were forced  to live, since only Saxons were allowed to live inside the city walls.

 This is St. Nicolas church. The sign said cathedral.

It snowed most of the day, but wasn't really cold. This is really a neat little town. Actually not that little, but the old town is small. I think being here in the spring or fall and renting a car so we could go to many little medieval towns that are scattered all over this area, and visiting the castles including Dracula's, would be really fun. Originally we were going to spend several days here and rent a car, but with the snow we decided not such a good idea. This town is way more interesting that Bratislava where we were last weekend. In fact, wherever we've been on this trip, the cities have been clean, except for Bratislava.

Not a lion in sight anywhere in Brasov, but the guide book does say that bears (real ones) occasionally come down from the hills.