August 17, 2025
Kyle and I drove up to Bună’s house bright and early so we could all start our Transylvanian road trip. After the slight delay in the kids getting to sleep last night, the sleepover went off without a hitch. The boys tried Cheerios with fresh milk for breakfast but both said the milk was “too milky” for them. They instead opted for donuts from yesterday, toast and a few yogurt drinks for Len.
Len chose to drive with Gabby, Hope and Mihai so he could avoid the Harry Potter audio book. Ollie listened intently to another few hours of the 5th Harry Potter book with Kyle and I— still 20 hours to go! Gabby said every time it was Len’s turn to pick a song in their car he chose thunderstruck by AC/DC.
We drove east and made it to Sighișoara in just over 2 hours. Per the UNESCO site: Central Sighișoara has preserved in an exemplary way the features of a small medieval fortified town. It has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
It was nearly noon and starting to feel super hot outside. We walked through the town gates and headed straight to lunch. We were all feeling lethargic from the heat but still all ordered hot food for lunch. The kids got a pizza and I ordered a bean soup that surprisingly came in a huge loaf of bread. We then stopped for post lunch ice cream and slushees to cool off and hype the kids up to hike up the steps of the clock tower. At some point, Len found a stick that he kept referring to as his “hammer” and made sure he kept it with him the entire time we were in the village. Len was asked to please finish his slushee and leave his hammer outside before entering the clock tower. He hid the hammer behind a trash can hoping no one would swipe it. We went up the clock tower and it had maybe the creakiest floors I’ve ever experienced.
Next we made our way to the torture chamber. Len listened as intently as I’ve ever seen as Kyle and Mihai described some of the torture strategies used at the time. One torture method where they stretched the prisoner while burning his armpits was a favorite among the kids.
We kept walking through the village in search of the same cantaloupe soft serve that we had yesterday at Huta Slavia. The walk wasn’t long, but the heat felt intense as we searched for Kyle’s soft serve so we stopped again for gelato and slushees for the kids. Our softserve search was a bust but we did find cantaloupe gelato.
We rode a mini train ride back to the parking lot and drove on to the Airbnb in Viscri.
Viscri is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a living, breathing piece of history where centuries-old traditions still shape everyday life. The famous Viscri-blue houses, the Saxon Fortified Church, and the handcrafted textiles and ceramics aren’t just for show—they’re part of a culture that refuses to be lost to time.
After walking through our accommodation for the night, we all headed out on a short walk to check out Viscri and to make a dinner reservation for the night. The kids were not fans of this plan and made their displeasure known repeatedly. I took them all back to house for snacks and a game of Uno. While playing, we started to hear thunder in the distance and Ollie began counting the seconds between thunder strikes— apparently forgetting that he was meant to count the seconds after seeing the lightning! The other adults soon returned from an unsuccessful restaurant search. One was closed and one ran out of food so Gabby and I drove to the market in a nearby town for dinner ingredients.
While driving to the store, we saw a huge fortress overlooking the grocery store and decided we had to check it out. We learned it was the Rupea Citadel;
Alongside Bran Castle, Rasnov Fortress, and Rasnov Fortress, this is one of the medieval monuments that best survived the passing of time in a region that had its share of Ottoman attacks.
The market we went to was more modern than others we’ve visited but still lacking in variety compared to what we are used to. The ‘foreign foods’ shelf had just heiz ketchup and a few cup-o-noodles. My over confidence and exhaustion from using my Google translate app led me to buy drinkable yogurt instead of whole milk for coffee the next day. The kids were pleased with their simple pasta dinner and I fumbled through preparing a taco-esque bowl dinner for the adults. The only spice available was red pepper flakes and tortillas were not available.
After dinner, Len must have been feeling mischievous and energized and hit Mihai for no reason. He meant it playfully, but was not allowed to watch Ponyo with Hope and Ollie as his punishment.
