After a simple croissant for breakfast, we walked to the nearest post office in search for pretty Romanian stamp to add to Jason’s collection. Unfortunately, the beautiful castle stamps that we searched online are not sold in the post office; they collaborate with some company to print those collectable stamps and their nearest office is at Bucharest, urg! We went back to our hotel, checked out, and drove around 2.5 hours to our next Romanian city – Sibiu. On our way, we saw an awesome looking church with golden roofs so we made a quick stop to take a photo. I forgot the town we passed by so didn’t have a chance to look up the church’s name.

On our way to Sibiu, we made a stop at Castelul de Lut Valea Zanelor, meaning: Clay Castle of the Valley of Fairies. I found this when I was browsing Instagram and the house looked absolutely fairy-tale like I have to check it out. It was a little detour from the main road to Sibiu and surrounded by snowcapped mountains.

There’s a small entrance fee of 5 Lei (~$1.20 USD) to enter and the place looked like…..I’ll let you see first.

It reminded me of the Hobbits!!! This is actually a hotel that is under construction but they allowed people to visit for a small fee while the work is in progress. Smart business owner 😉

It would be fun to stay in one of those rooms. They haven’t done much work in the interior yet so it was just hay and dirt inside.

That’s their office building I guess which not open for visitors.

It’s quite a popular spot for parents to bring their kids during the weekends. There’s a river down there and a snack truck as well so a perfect place to have a little picnic.

We were there for half an hour, took some pictures, and left. I think it’s worth a visit if you are heading to Sibiu to get some cute photos.

We arrived at our hotel – Continental Forum Sibiu just around lunchtime. There’s a huge parking lot in front of the hotel with spots reserved for hotel guests which is one of the reasons I selected this hotel for the convenience. It was too early for our room to be ready so we stored our luggage and walked into the Old Town for our lunch at Old Lisbon. As the name indicated, Portuguese cuisine!

When we walked in, there was only another table of guests there and surprisingly they are Chinese! Indeed, our Asian taste bud can’t stand those heavy and salty meat dishes for a few meals. We got the menu in English and so glad to see seafood!

We ordered the garlic shrimps and it was pretty good considered Sibiu is nowhere near the coast.

The mussels in tomato sauce were okay too although I think they were frozen. I will take this over the super lean chicken I had the previous day!

For the main course, I had the seafood spaghetti and it was on the salty side but acceptable.

Jason ordered the seafood rice “Arroz de Marisco” that we craved since we first had it in Lisbon. It was good, just a little bit too salty. Of course, it was nowhere near as seafood-taste as the ones we had in Lisbon due to the geographic location.

We were quite full after the meal for 159 Lei (~$37 USD). After lunch, we walked to the center of the Old Town and the architectures along the way are my favorite pastel-colored houses. Look at that color church roof!!! That reminded me of the church in Budapest. That church is Sibiu’s Gothic Lutheran Cathedral.

The cathedral itself is closed for major renovation inside but the clock tower is still open if you can figure out where to purchase the ticket and then the entrance, I will cover in the next post 😉

More beautiful and colorful buildings.

Sibiu is nicknamed as “city of eyes” and can you see why?

I saw houses like this in Prague but there are a lot more in Sibiu…..the windows on the roof looked like eyes watching you! They are for ventilation purpose 😛

The bridge covered with flowers is called Liar’s Bridge which according to legend, the bridge will collapse if you lie. It was very cloudy that day so we didn’t spend much time on photos but we’ll do the next day. We did walk around to scout for photo spots so we can photograph them the next day when the weather is nicer.

We went to climb the Council Tower, which has a small fee of only 2 Lei (~0.50 USD). It offered great views of the Old Town but through glass windows only. I recommend the Gothic Lutheran Cathedral tower instead due to this.

Through the Council Tower, it took us to the Piaţa Mică (The Small Square) with more pastel-colored houses which are mostly hotels and cafes. One thing we noticed is that there aren’t much souvenir shops.

This cute looking building is a bank!

Then, a few steps away is the Piata Mare (The Large Square). It’s definitely larger and there’s a huge open space in the middle where they are building a concert stage.

As like in many main squares, it’s filled with pigeons 🙂

Even though it was cloudy, it was very warm so after walking around, we wanted something cold to drink. Since the amazing gelato at Brasov, I googled gelato around us and found SC Heis Eis SRL, it’s more like ice cream.

I got a cup of vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries, it did the job!

The main shopping street, Strada Nicolae Bălcescu, has a lot more people and tourists. Another thing we noticed is the corn stands where they sell steamed corn.

We headed back to our hotel to check-in and take a rest before heading out or dinner. After our huge room in Brasov, this room looked tiny 🙁

Even the mini-fridge is more than mini!

The bathroom is basically glass walls….it would be awkward if you are traveling with a friend.

Nevertheless, it was clean and adequately sized; I have been to tiny bathrooms.

We took a power nap before heading out to dinner at a traditional cuisine restaurant called Crama Sibiul Vechi. This popular restaurant was nearly fully booked so lucky we got there when they opened so was able to get a table.

The restaurant is located underground to give its cave shape.

First thing caught our eyes are those beautiful porcelain plates and we were puzzled on the holes…wouldn’t food drop from it?

Call us villagers lol, the beautiful plate is just for this purpose….as a stand for other plates LOL !!! I ordered a bowl of vegetable soup to compensate the meaty meal and it just okay. I was hoping for something like the garden vegetable soup.

Jason ordered milk with polenta (boiled cornmeal) and it was like no taste. We didn’t know what is polenta at first but since we saw a lot of dishes has polenta, we gave it a try.

There’s also live entertainment with traditional music so it was a really good atmosphere.

For the main course, I went with schnitzel; I have been craving for chicken rather than pork or beef. It was salty as expected, sigh!!!

Jason ordered the steak and yes that was salty too!

In my opinion, Eastern European cuisine isn’t for our Asian tastebuds. The dinner cost 132 Lei (~31 USD). Their restaurant sign in front of the building looked more interesting 😉

Sibiu’s first impression to me is cute. It’s like a bigger version of Brasov. However, the downside is the diversity of cuisine – mainly Romanian and Italian (even Italian has only a few restaurants). There’s no Asian food but then that tells you, it hasn’t been overrun by tourists yet!