We spent the last 7 days on our seventh and last road trip around Romania.

We started in Bucharest where we took a walking tour with Florin, who gave us an honest insight into life in his country. Romania has never recovered from the hardships communism forced onto the people and as a result most people leave the country as soon as they can. Particularly skilled workers who can be paid up to 8 times more in other European countries, which they are free to travel to because of the European Union.

Bucharest was fascinating and was the heart of the Communist movement. We visited the People's Palace, which was built by their last communist leader, Ceaucescu, and is the 2nd largest building in the world behind the Pentagon. It took us an hour and a half to walk through 8 rooms, it is so monumentally huge. Still we saw only 5% of the place. The building cost billions and it's no wonder the people revolted and executed Ceaucescu, literally 5 minutes after his trial ended. At the time it was built they were starving and only allowed to buy anything using coupons, which entitled them to, say, 20 litres of petrol per month. Apparently if you wanted to buy a car you would go on a 7 year waiting list.

He also invested millions into building 25,000 kilometres of railway tracks and absolutely no money on roads, so the roads today are largely single lane roads between all of the major cities. Needless to say it took us hours to travel even short distances.

Our next stop was Brasov, a medieval town nestled in the mountains and one of the three Transylvanian cities we visited on our road trip. On the way we passed stunning medieval fortress towns perched atop hills.

Braşov was beautiful with distinctive Romanian architecture and an ancient wall with stunning gates, built by the Saxon guilds. Each guild was based on a trade and each one built a tower to protect the cities. The towers are still named after the guilds, such as the Tanners, the Goldsmiths, the Ropemakers, etc. Every tower is different and they are all beautiful. We went on a walking tour with Tavi, who was fantastic and showed us all around his town before taking us for a sumptuous lunch at a local Romanian restaurant. The meal was amazing, with all sorts of delicious dips, potato bread, bean soup, goulash and cabbage rolls. Tavi offered to take us up to the mountains after our tour to visit Bran Castle and a few local villages, but it was scorchingly hot and we decided to stay in Brasov and soak in our pool instead.

We then visited Sighisoara, which is supposedly the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracul, who was the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula. This was again a Saxon walled city ruled by guilds who built defensive towers.

Our last stop was Sibiu, another stunning medieval Transylvanian city. Again built by the German Saxons, we saw the same types of defensive walls and towers built by the guilds. Apparently the guilds created all of the laws in the towns and being from German stock, they segregated themselves from the Romanians and lived quite separate lives in their walled cities. During Romania's communist rule, the communists sold many of the Saxons back to Germany and after communism fell, 95% of the remaining Saxons left Romania.

During our walking tour of Sibiu we walked over Liar's Bridge. Apparently this bridge is famous because it is said that if you tell a lie while standing on the bridge, it will collapse. While we stood on the bridge, I turned to Lidia and said "I love you." Obviously the bridge didn't fall down and if anything, I think I felt it grow stronger. Unfortunately, she never said it back. I'm still trying to get over that.

While we were in Sibiu we went for lunch at a small traditional restaurant recommended to us by our guide. We ordered two dishes and since the waiter couldn't speak English, Lidia pointed to the meals we wanted. He obviously misunderstood and brought us the wrong meals. We told him and he threw his hands up in the air and started yelling something in Romanian which I can only assume meant something like "Oh, I'm so sorry Madam. Allow me to rectify the situation immediately.", although based on his reaction it probably was something more like "F'n f'n f, you f'n f's". Anyway, he went away and came back with the meals we actually ordered, which were a goulash and a bean soup served inside hollowed-out loaves of crusty bread. We finished the meal with a traditional Romanian dessert called papanasi, which are donuts filled with sweet cheese and smothered in blueberry compote and cream. They were delicious. Our waiter tried to suck up to Lidia with a sleezy smile, but the damage was done and there was no tip for him.

After Sibiu, we returned the car to Bucharest and spent our last night in Romania. The following morning we ordered a taxi to take us to the airport. We went to the front of the hotel, a taxi pulled up and an old man jumped out and said "airport?" We said yes and he quickly threw our bags into the car and we started driving off. We stopped at the first set of lights when another taxi pulled up beside us. The drivers started yelling at each other and then I realised that our driver was not supposed to pick us up. The other driver had received the order and this guy had stolen the fare. He quickly took off through a red light and started tearing through the streets like a mad man. The other taxi pursued us and we found ourselves in a car chase. I then realised that our meter wasn't on. I asked the driver why and he said "you tell me how much you want to pay. 80 lei?" I said "absolutely not. Stop the cab." He pulled over and the other taxi also stopped. A huge man with a neck like a bull jumped out and started yelling in our drivers face. I thought he was going to thump him when a police car pulled up behind us and two cops jumped out. There was all sorts of yelling going on and we were happy to ditch the dodgy driver and transfer to the driver we should have had in the first place. He turned the meter on and it cost us 40 lei to get to the airport.