Monday, 07 May

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="044d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <A HREF="id140.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sunday, 06 May"><U><IMG SRC="0450b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>   <A HREF="id142.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tuesday, 08 May"><U><IMG SRC="0460b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>       <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="May"><U><IMG SRC="0480b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div> <IMG SRC="1efaf810.jpg" border=0 width="175" height="129" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> The ancient Princely Court of Wallachia at Targoviste, Romania</div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Gastropod's Trail</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Gastropods Trail"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> Monday, 07 May</div> <div> Toriceni, Romania to Cota 1000 (near Sinaia, Romania)</div> <bR> <div> We had camped only about 30 km from Ploiesti and headed for town early to find a place to upload the web site. Like most Cyber Cafes we had visited to date, the first one we found was on a local network - no good for me. One of the customers offered to guide us to another one - this one was also on a network but Daniel, the in-house techie, told us where to find the local ISP and, as you already know, this time it worked. </div> <bR> <div> We went back to tell Daniel the good news. He spoke very good English and we got to talk about Ploiesti, Romania, and computers. He told us that just around the corner was the National Oil Museum, well worth visiting. Not only did he tell us about it, he came with us and we had a most interesting guided tour. It turned out (pardon my ignorance) that Ploiesti is at the center of the considerable Romanian oil fields since 1857 and the home of a university with Oil and Gas Engineering being the principal faculties. The young lady who explained the most interesting exhibits of the museum to us is also an engineer in nuclear energy (Ploiesti also has an atomic power generating plant with 3 CANDO reactors.) </div> <bR> <div> Thanks to Daniel's advice we changed our original route to visit Targoviste the capital of Wallachia. The first princely court was built in 1396 during the reign of Mircea the Old and over the next 400 years was destroyed and rebuilt several times. It's most notorious occupant was Vlad the Impaler (1456-1462 and again in 1476) who enlarged the court and built the surveillance and defense tower known as the Chindia tower. </div> <bR> <div> Vlad became prince of Wallachia on August 22, 1456. He used his signet emblem, the dragon, on the coins he minted and the Romanians whose word stock is mainly Latin, nicknamed him Dracul - Dracula. The Ottoman historians nicknamed him Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), but he used to sign with his father's name, Dracula. Known as one of the most dreaded enemies of the Ottoman Empire, Vlad Dracula started organising the state, the army, the law, applying death penalty by impaling al those he considered enemies: Highwaymen, robbers, beggars, cunning priests, treacherous noblemen, usurper Saxons, who tried to replace him either by his cousin Dan the Young or by his natural brother Vlad the Monk. "...and he so much hated evil in his country that 15th and 16th Slavo-Romanian chronicles say - if someone did wrong or stole or robbed or lied or was unjust, he wouldn't stay alive. No matter if he were a nobleman, a priest or a monk or an ordinary man, despite his wealth, he couldn't redeem himself from death." </div> <bR> <div> His tumultuous life as well as the harshness of his punishments entered long lasting legends that were immediately spread all over Europe, first in Romanian and Slavonic and then in German, the latter being the most exaggerated. The name of the already well-known Wallachian prince became even more famous after Bram Stoker from Dublin (1847-1912) had published his (fiction) novel "Dracula" in 1897. </div> <bR> <div> From Ploiesti we started the gradual ascent to the Carpatian Mountains through one of the most beautiful areas we have seen so far. If you have read Hergé's 'Tintin in Tansilvania' you may remember: Mysterious, beautiful, enchanting... Long stretches of dense mixed forest where the pale green of the deciduous trees created a patchwork with the dark color of the conifers. We reached the highest point about 20 km before Sinaia and spotted a newly built hotel we could not resist - the prospect of a warm room, a hot shower, and a served meal was just too much to pass by. </div> </td> </tr></table></body>