Day 8 prompt is here: What’s the worst travel experience you’ve ever had?

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While I try to always remember the good parts of the trips, there’s one trip which wins this unwanted title of “worst travel experience”. In February 2013 I won a “romantic weekend in a Romanian ski resort”. Great. I’ve never been to Straja so figured a weekend away would be nice. Errr. Wait a minute. Not really.

Straja is a “big” resort by Romanian standards but it ONLY caters to sports enthusiasts. I have read about it and talked to non-winter sport fans like myself who have been there …and figured it won’t be a bad experience. It was.

We changed the double room to triple as we also traveled with a friend (we had to travel by car to get there). Going by train wasn’t gonna happen due to non existent connections for the last leg of the journey. The triple room was a double with an armchair which turned into a bed. Peachy.

The b&b had such an awful connection to the main road that it took us minutes to tackle the slope. And I fell couple of times. And the rude proprietor asked if I had ever been to a mountain resort. Yes, I’ve been , but those people have discovered the STAIRS to get to the door.

In the resort per-se, there wasn’t much to do. A cable car ride to a city which doesn’t offer anything for the tourists and a church to visit. That’s it. Of course the slopes if you are skier, but we weren’t.

Sure , it was my fault for going because I never liked winter sports. But I’ve been to mountain resorts during winter and there were things to do. Just not at Straja. This resort is just horrible and ugly. I would say on a nice sunny day with fluffy snow the photo opportunities are better, but we weren’t that lucky.

The good thing was though that I got to visit Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa on the way to Straja , as well as Corvinilor Castle and Deva Citadel on the way back.