May 2026. Transylvania. Mrs RM had refreshed her knowledge on dealing with bear attacks (“Play dead. Oh, too late“) as we planned the next stage of our Transylvanian tour over an “autentic” Romanian buzz bar. No crumbs left for the amarous pigeons at our bus pick-up point to peck. Our transport was the official...

May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. A couple of nights in one of Transylvania’s top tourist towns, which normally means you ensure you can visit all the best pubs. But in this case it meant we left the highly recommended St Andrews Scottish pub till the Monday, only to find it “closed !“, despite that wide open door...

May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. Sadly for my readers keen to read about Wetherspoons breakfasts and suburban Bass houses, the law of the diary-based blog requires I get to the end of this Romanian week, so come back, ooh, next Monday if you’re bored of nasty foreign bars. Sibiu doesn’t have any cask beer, so...

May 2026. Sibiu. Central Romania. Right in the heart of Transylvania, in fact, close to Vlad Dracul’s home in Sighisoara and a string of UNESCO fortified villages. Sibiu isn’t quite as eerily characterful as Sighisoara, it’s busier and a touch more modern (Starbucks next to our hotel), but has gorgeous architecture...

May 2026. Sibiu. Romania. The Untappd check-in map tells a tale of a well-pubbed town. Some doubts I’d been having about the strength of the Romanian economy (Sighisoara and Alba Iulia were very quiet by dusk) were removed that first evening in Sibiu, as hundreds of families and gentlefolk descended on the central...

May 2026. Alba Iulia to Sibiu. Romania. Day 2, City 3 in Romania, catching the 15.29 with what might be “Corofana”, one of the many totally reliable minibuses listed on Autogari.RO Mrs RM’s blog will contain much, much more detail on travelling around Transylvania, which I predict will become the next big craze for...

May 2026. Alba Iulia. Romania. See ! This blog isn’t all closed micros and Singapore rice. Staying overnight within the Alba Iulia fortress gave us a best spot at the changing of the Austrian guard the next morning (Press PLAY). I’ve no idea what they’re guarding, or why they’re Austrian, but I think you’ll agree...

May 2026. Alba Iulia. A night in the fortress city of Alba Iulia, and in the citadel trenches the only craft beer in town. The fortress had received an expensive makeover (some Romanians we met were scathing about the cost) to make it look shiny for an expected flood of tourists that hadn’t quite happened yet, and...

May 2026. Alba Iulia. Romania. Seven days in Romania, five (5) different cities overnight, with the alarm going off at 6am far too frequently for one of us. An hour in Cluj before heading to the station, reminiscent of one of those heritage railways in Essex that host Thomas, Percy and the local CAMRA beer festival....

May 2026. Cluj. Romania. Unexpectedly, we seemed to have a week free between “hosting” (ugh) Americans and Pep Guardiola’s farewell (of which less later). As usual, Mrs RM was on the same wavelength as me. “Week in Cluj ?“. The flights to Romania’s second city cost less the large breakfast at Stansted Spoons, which...

May 2026. Blyth. Nottinghamshire. Off on our latest trip south to see Dad and source blog material from Transylvania. Sis gave me a book of lunch stops off the motorways a while ago, most of them at garden centres and alpaca farms. I missed the turn for the alpacas. A man cannot live on Greggs macaroni cheese and...

May 2026. Sheffield. Joan and Dave reached the end of their world tour of Yorkshire in Sheffield, stopping overnight in Retired Martin Towers to admire the beauty of our “natural” garden. The cultural tour for Americans takes in the cathedral, Millennium Galleries, Town Hall, the former newspaper HQ that now houses...