Surprise on the way out we just met bollock the largest of the bears in the sanctuary 600
kilos is that right 600 kilos if you're new here my name's Emily and this is my partner
Jordan we're currently in the incredible country of Romania and about halfway through an epic
road trip where we've seen some awesome sites eating some delicious food and even explored
the beautiful Apuseni mountains today we're in the Brasov region of Transylvania and plan
on spending the next three days exploring a 13th century Citadel touring Dracula's castle
and hopefully meetting some cute bears at the world's largest brown bear sanctuary
let's go I am genuinely worried for a future budget because renting a car is
incredible we've got to drive all the way here so easily and now we're in a
town that has a 13th century Citadel it's the best there's so much freedom
and comfort in having a car and this town looks so freaking cute
I feel like we're gonna be pretty good Castle Hunters one down and it's been like 20 minutes
can get up there from here it's like straight up a cliff
I don't know really like that they've made all of the bins look like a mini turret or a mini castle
really gets you in the zone that hike really wasn't too bad it was what 500 meters
you can apparently get these tractors up they're running like up and down continuously I don't
know how much that would be but not worth it I reckon we can say that we've successfully
hunted and found this Castle I did read online a couple of times people were saying that it's
completely closed but surely if you can get this close like it's worth it to see the outside
under construction since 2019 and it's not expected to be complete until 2023
as if we were that far down doesn't feel like we hiked up that high apparently built in 13th
century to defend the towns of Romania from the Turks and I don't see how anyone would be able
to take this Castle also I'm Mega sweaty yeah it's so hot today sun is out not bad
for Castle Hunters one I was just thinking that but it makes it sound like the castles
are like eluding us it's not very well signed tourist attractions either way we're winning
thank you
Rasnov was amazing it's such a cute town and a cool castle pity it's shut for renovations but
we're definitely used to that at this point in the trip 17 minutes and we will be at Bran Castle
too
many people for us today luckily we built a day in between our trip here
so we're going to go back to the hotel now and come up really early tomorrow morning
well we're here a bit after 8 A.M and we're the only ones
little tidbit the castle doesn't actually open until nine so we've got about 50 minutes to kill
but we're gonna walk around because there's cafes and it's like park-land and it looks
really cool when it's not flooded with curs we're so early there's no coffee shops open
so we just started wondering Wonder through this like makeshift Market with tents and we've
come to like an old traditional Village right at the foot of the castle which I
really didn't expect it's a traditional style house from the 1840s this is how people lived
there's still 20 minutes to open and look at all the people here
it does make sense because it's the number one thing to do in Romania pretty much
I don't like people
thanks have a good day guys and we're even and there's not
that many people there's a lot of people coming there so let's hurry
so this is marketed as Dracula's castle apparently the guy who Dracula is based
off Vlad the Impaler never actually stepped foot in here but very tourism Focus the one
tenuous connection is that the guy who invented Dracula saw a picture of this
Castle but the description of the castle in the books it's not like this either
coming here first thing in the morning it definitely helped with still lots of people
but it's a lot quieter than we've seen it and a lot quieter than we saw the car park yesterday
the courtyard is amazing and they have all of these depictions of Vlad the Impaler who Dracula
is based off of he was like this really bad guy I'm really into torture and like really messed up
so it's like creepy and cute at the same time
because it was Defensive
oh look how many people there are um
do you have to bend down yeah it's quite a was shorter back in the day I guess
only in some bits
I loved it definitely glad we came first thing in the morning to see the amount of people behind us
is mind-blowing and it doesn't stop the queue is just going and going and going it's really busy
like it's absolutely the number one thing to do in Romania according to the internet Google will
tell you to go there no matter what but it also tells everyone else to go there so it's
full-on it's like a line to get in lines the whole way through really busy like we were there
we were there castled out we got templed out towards the end of our Asia visit and
I really didn't think it would happen with medieval castles but I think it has and
also the quality is all over the place like Corvin Castle the outside looked
incredible inside was like plastered like new it was really weird here the
outside's pretty cool again but the amount of tourists just kind of take away from it
and I know we're tourists too we are part of the problem a difficulty love waking up early
or at least to like a very small group of people yeah whereas this and Corvin
Castle were just like crazy amounts so many people
but it's good it's like a good tourist attraction it does just make me laugh
that it actually doesn't have anything to do with Dracula yeah but they call it Dracula's
castle tomorrow we are going to the bear Sanctuary here in Brasov region which is
meant to be like the biggest in Romania in the world in Europe biggest somewhere
running a little bit late
60% of Europe's brown bear population and this morning we're going to the largest brown bear
sanctuary in the entire world through this road trip in Romania we kind of expected to see Bears
on the side of the road because they're meant to be ubiquitous they're meant to be everywhere here
and there is a chance we'll see them on the transfagarasan Highway that we're doing soon
but I don't want to run the risk of not seeing the Bear in Romania so we're going to the sanctuary
from being like 10 minutes early to making it by two minutes
I thought we were late but we seem to have made it in good time I haven't shown anyone
our tickets yet we're not really sure how this works it's like a crowd of people we're just
waiting in the crowd in the mob thank you let's do it so this means that we're allowed to use
the camera wherever we want it did cost 50 lei which was more expensive than I thought
it was going to be but I'd rather not have to try and hide it from people so not bad
we just watched a movie and it was about the origin story of the Libearty bear sanctuary
and Maya the bear that started it all she was essentially kept in a cage and the owner of
this place came across her would visit her every single day 60 kilometer Drive eventually Maya
unfortunately passed away but she likes to say that Maya died said that Liberty bear Sanctuary
could live. 118 brown Bears and the first is and the date when they arrived here most of our
bears are rescued from captivity now I'm gonna tell you the stories about those two that are here
so this one closest to us is only and Andy is actually my favorite bear it's not for
captivity like most of our bears and I always tell people about Andy that is
a really foody bear he's also a picky one. when the bears get out of cages and they get in a larger area they don't know what to do
their freedom anymore and when they're stressed out they start walking like
these two steps up to step back exactly the space they used to have in captivity yeah
this is Andy and she just told us his story basically every single bear here has
a heartbreaking story of why they're here Andy was a wild bear he crashed a wedding got into
some trouble and now he's here they look after him really well but he has this stress trauma so he's
walking the length of what his cage used to be because he's a bit stressed so we're moving on
one of our special bears because she's not from captivity she's from the nature she used to live
in azuga a small Mountain City in Romania and one day there was a train passing by a zuga
with a lot of food inside so Sierra got inside the train ate everything she found there and
traveled with the train five kilometers no for five hours sorry until she got to Floyd
City where she got out of the train she started walking around the city during the Christmas Eve
she keeps stopping and telling us stories and they're so good part of this Sanctuary
they have like an adoption program and you could pay five euro a month
to adopt a bear there's also an option that lets you adopt the bear exclusively
it's a lot more expensive but we just saw a bear that has been exclusively
adopted by Luna Lovegood I knew she was a good person you she loved animals yeah
we just learned that the bears hunt in their enclosures and they can find berries and stuff
but also they get food from the shops so when in Romania if there's food that's two days from
expiring they have to throw it out the bear Sanctuary gets it at a discounted price and
that makes up the bulk of their food they give them two tons of food a day two tons
also got to meet a bear whose story was they used to be in the circus they basically started
refusing going into the arena so the owner starved them for days and days and days and
then just gave up on the bear called The Sanctuary was like I don't want it anymore
and they're smart enough that when they feel ill they come to this gate by themselves
cry and they know that the people are going to come help them here not so nice and they don't
have to put them to sleep they just willingly jump in the car and drive to the vet love it
but it's just so heartbreaking knowing that they went through and knowing that
they're being so well looked after now but people who genuinely care about them
we also have wolves at the sanctuary so we just met the only one that is 100% wolf and we're
about to go read the other two weeks in them and we got to see one of the Bears that's in
quarantine which is an area they sort of put the elderly Bears or the thick ones but Bridget just
straight up doesn't like people with so she's out there because she doesn't like anyone I get that
surprise on my way out we just met boek the largest of the Bears in the sanctuary 600
kilos is that right 600 kilos it's so cute he has these two tops of hair I love it and
that's it that's the end of the tour we're heading back to the car now it was great
I have a really sore neck, I think something bit me, oh the sun's so bright