We stayed for one night at Casa Domneasca in Curtea de Argeş, whilst travelling between Sibiu and Romania’s capital Bucharest.
The guest house, built in 2007, had 11 rooms. All formalities had been done in advance, and an ornate wrought iron staircase with 20 marble steps, led us to the first floor. They weren’t the easiest of stairs to negotiate even without suitcases, and fortunately, our guide was on hand. We were given the option of a double or twin room, and we chose for the double, room three. We walked into the protruding wooden bedframe several times and whilst there were two bedside tables and lamps, only one had a spare plug point. We never like the combination of a polished floor and bedside mats, and these were quickly rolled up. The style of the two easy chairs with coffee table, dressing table and wardrobe made the room appear a little old fashioned. There was also a TV and slippers, but no robe. The fridge had three bottles of water for sale at 8 Lei each (£1.20). Both WiFi and the AC were good.
The reasonable sized bathroom had a shower over the bath. The water was fine, but the bath was a little hard to get in and out of. However, the worst feature was a shower curtain which stuck to your body with the water pressure. There was little space for our toiletries, but complimentary ones were provided and there was a wall mounted hairdryer near the mirror.
We had a shared balcony, overlooking attractive gardens, with comfortable chairs, but it wasn’t warm enough to sit out.
The Rough Guide suggested it was ‘the most enjoyable spot in town for a bite’ and we booked a table on the restaurant terrace for 6.30pm. However, on arrival, we found the place swarming with high school graduates in gowns and mortar boards, some of whom were just ordering food. Having ordered a bottle of wine, we suspected we would not enjoy dinner surrounded by noise and commotion, so our guide helpfully suggested dinner in the town. We cancelled the wine without feeling guilty, bearing in mind the event had not been mentioned, and later heard it should have been held on the previous night, but had been postponed due to heavy rain.
Having had an enjoyable, and more importantly peaceful meal at La Costica we returned to the hotel at 8.30pm. As a vehicle had just arrived to pick up the remaining high school stragglers, we sat on the terrace and re-ordered the wine.
Breakfast was served 8am to 10am and as there were only a couple of other guests, there was an à la carte menu. As well as juice, and tea or coffee, we were presented with a whole apple which as we only had an ordinary knife wasn’t easy to cut. The menu had six options with some sounding more substantial than others, so we ordered two to share. Number three was a feast of ‘country style ham, pressed cheese, tomato, melted cheese, butter, jam and honey, and bread’ whilst number six was simply ‘breadcrumbed cheese with tomatoes’. They made an ideal combination.
