By the time we reached Brasov it was late evening and prior to strolling along the city followed by a brief visit to the Cathedral we were introduced to our new guide Carmen, once our companion/guide Adrian would no longer be travelling with us and thus returning to Bucarest that same evening.
The general feeling was that irrespective of the qualified skills of the next guide we would definitely be missing Adrian, mainly because we had grown fond of him but also because, in all honesty, we felt it would be rather difficult to find someone else with his capacity. Adrian, a former civil engineer was one of the best guides I had ever travelled with.
We would soon find ourselves following our new guide along the Strada Republici, considered to be the hub of the social and and commercial life of this baroque city. It lead us into the strikingly handsome town square, the Piata Sfatului , lined with merchants' houses presenting their shop fronts to the Council House (Casa Sfatului) in the centre of the square.
We visited the famous landmark of he city, the Black Church, so called for its once soot- blackened walls as the result of a great fire started by the Austrian Army, which occupied Brasov in 1689.
In its interior, which we were not allowed to photograph, the seventeenth-century Turkish prayer mats hung along the balconies and walls of the nave were worth being looked at, once they are acknowledged as being part of a superb collection of gifts of local merchants returning from the east.
Christian and I still strolled around the back streets for a while but because it was rather late most edifices were closed already and we also didn't have too much time before gathering at the main square by the Hirsher Haus, where we would be having a folkloric dinner.
I had read that there was quite an interesting Museum, the Ethnographic Museum, displaying regional textiles and local costumes and a fairly neat selection of craftworks for sale hat I was really interested to visit, but I suppose one can't have it all ... so I'll just have to hope I'll be able to visit it if ever I go back.
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