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Published: December 18th 2008
So close, but still not visited. Romania was always interesting to me and seemed like worth visiting. Similar culture, recent history and other facts make the mentality of people living there similar to the one over here. Beside this, my dad’s parents and family were originally from Banat, so I wanted to visit some of it as well.
Not all roads lead to, by all my roads start from Belgrade, as the starting point for all my trips, so far. Not only because of trains departure from there, but also because of visas. Such a familiar situation: arriving in the morning to finish up visa issues and taking a train in the afternoon or evening. This time my train Belgrade - Bucuresti has departured at 15.55, just on time, with barely anyone on it (at least in sitting compartments).
Passengers in my wagon were mostly smugglers, smuggling huge amount of goods across the border. It was interesting watching how professionally they fill up the space between a wagon roof and compartments and taking it out afterwards and throwing out in fields where a van was waiting for them ready. The trip to my first destination was longer than
it should be because of the bad railway structure and time difference. Around 21h I arrived to Timişoara, capitol of Romanian Banat. Anca was waiting for me and soon we were at her place having a dinner and nice talk with her flat mate, Almea.
Next morning Anca prepared me mamaliga, traditional Romanian breakfast made of corn flower, that is eaten with various types of cheese. That day Anca offered me a walk around the city, so it was a great time spent with her. We headed to the city centre and square, passing on our way a Roman Catholic church, old Synagogue and some parks on Bega river that are big but not taken care of properly. In one of the parks is situated the monument to the people who started the revolution in December of 1989. The revolution started in Timişoara and was led by László Tőkés, Hungarian protestant pastor.Timişoara is situated on Bega river that flows through Vojvodina, as well. In one of these parks there is a huge rose garden, very nice, with an open air stage for concerts and plays. Not far from there is the main orthodox church in Timişoara built in Moldovan
style, that wasn’t familiar to me before. The church looks at main square where an Opera house dominates. The Opera house is situated on other side of the square that is wide, surrounded with old buildings, residential mostly. The scene is very lively with a lot of people, kids, trees and flower arrangements. Just behind the corner is the Museum of Banat history, flora, fauna and minerals. The museum was in the middle of restoration, so some halls were closed for visitors. After some time spent there, we sat in a newly opened café, actually tea house, for drinks. We continued our walk around heading to Piata Unirii (Union square). Its quite big, with another roman catholic church dominating over the place. There was still a huge screen that was used for watching the Euro Cup 2008 and a stage where a concert was held that night. Instead of that concert we decided to visit Timişoreana beer fest next to Poli Timişoara FC stadium. Before we went there, Almea joined us at the Union square so they could buy tickets for Massive Attack concert in Bucharest that weekend. We spent some time at the main square with some cocalars sitting
opposite to us and commenting on us, they were @$$&*!#$ 😊. Afterwards we headed to the stadium. We arrived just on time to see Viţa de Vie concert from the beginning. It’s a band famous after the lead singer who participated in one of those stupid “Idol” shows in Romania. Anyway the atmosphere (and the beer) was great. After Vita de Vie, a band named Cargo played, but we moved to a nearby lawn and had some more beer before leaving the festival that was over, by that time. On our way home we stopped at campus area to meet up with a friend of my hosts, Maimut (Monkey). Apparently he was there with two German girls, looking for a place to sleep after meeting up at the railway station. We had some fun while we were looking for an accommodation at student dormitories but without any success. In the end, they ended up sleeping at Maimut’s sister. Anca stayed downtown at some party while me and Almea headed home to sleep. My train next day to Cluj was leaving at 15.10, so I could have a decent sleep and rest before next day’s 6 hour trip.
After I
collected photos Anca took day before, I took a train to Cluj or Kolozsvar as in hungarian. Until Alba Iulia (half way) I had some guys in my compartment who were going to Alba Iulia for military school. We had some talk about football and stuff … what else can guys talk about than football 😊 I arrived to Cluj just on time, where I had Aliz waiting for me. We spent that night at a pub called Corvinium, mostly popular among Hungarian youth in the city. We joined a few friends of Aliz who were already there and had an interesting night talking mostly about Peninsula festival that was over that day and the performers they saw. They were really amazed. We ended up at one of the guys’ place, at Levi’s flat where we filled up our drinking capacities and stayed until 2 or 3 in the evening, I cant remember really! Next day I woke up with a bit of a headache and stomachache, but obviously, it was my fault. Aliz’s boyfriend, Tamas showed me around a bit, gave me some directions what to see, so I had a clear plan how to spend a beautiful day
in Cluj. One thing that even Anca recommended before I went to Cluj was the botanical garden in Cluj. And it was really worth seeing it. It was a nice walk in shades of various plants and trees in different areas of the garden like Japanese garden, the Carpathians and others. Beside open air areas there are few greenhouses with plants more typical for subtropical and tropical areas. At the top of a tower in the garden you have a perfect view over the garden and city as well. Apparently, after this morning walk my stomach and head made some progress, so I felt much better. I went to see the famous Babes-Bolyai university, famous in Romania and former hungarian regions. After I had some snack for lunch at a nearby cafeteria I went to Matyas (Mathias) king square that has a huge statue of Mathias king made in 1902. Unfortunately it was in the middle of a restoration so I couldn’t see much of it. Beside the statue there is a huge roman catholic church in gothic style named after St. Michael. The church and statue with their surrounding make the old “Hungarian” centre of Cluj. Not far from
there, only a block away, is the Orthodox temple with Avram Iancu’s statue in front of it. That square is much newer than the former one, still spreading, getting renewed and arranged. Just across a road is the National theatre and Romanian Opera house building, dating back in 1919. Just behind the corner is a remaining of a wall with a tower, but I totally forgot what was that before! Then I wanted to see some green so I headed to a nearby park. There is a small lake within the park, for paddling and relax. The park is pretty big and there is a stadium just next to it. It is home to Universitatea Cluj FC, but football teams from Cluj are not a big deal, so neither is this, nor CFR 😊 It was about time to meet up with Aliz at the square so I headed back. Along the way I had enough time to visit the birth house of Matyas (Mathias) king. Now it has been rearranged to a museum and is very popular destination for children, families and others from Hungary on their school trips since Mathias king was one of the most powerful and
popular ruler of Hungarian kingdom. Not long after I arrived at the square Aliz showed up with a friend of hers and we joined a CouchSurfing meeting at a local pub. There were a quite enough of us. Several hosts and several guests as well. It was really interesting listening to others stories and plans. There was a guy from the USA, who had a lot in common with me by that moment. First it started with the fact that we both travel to Braşov next day. Then it has turned out that we both take the same train to Braşov. And as the biggest surprise … we both stay at the same host!
Next morning I said goodbye to Aliz and her family, thanked them a lot for hlping me and hosting me. They were very kind! Aliz and Tamas walked with me to the train station where Eoin, my new co-traveler was waiting for us. We had a quite nice local guy who chatted with us all the way to Brasov. We had clear instructions how to reach our our host Jason’s, place. He was waiting for us on his window. By the time we arrived, there
were already two girls, also from the US, also Jason’s guests - Sarah and Gina. Both very crazy and great friends to spend time with! So the five of us sat on a bus and went down to the centre. Braşov has a really huge City council square or Piaţa Sfatului in Romanian with the city council in the centre of it. Along our walk Jason met a guy from the US so they stopped for a talk. By the way, does it seem to anyone that there are lot of Americans in Braşov or its only me?! :P Gina, Sarah, Jason and me continued to look around and found the narrowest street in this part of Europe, old fortification walls next to a playground and other amusements that kept us busy. Building that amazed us the most was the Black Church or Biserica Neagra. It a gothic monument, dating back to 14-15th century. Originally it was a Roman-Catholic church named after St. Mary. Due to the walls blackened by the fire the church became to be known as the Black Church. Just after we reunited with Jason we were in the middle of a rain. We moved to a
nearby café where Eoin had great sandwiches, was it bacon?! That night the girls decided to stay at a local disco, while the three of us headed back home, actually to a internet café.
During day, Eoin and me made a deal and planned to go to Bran next morning. The girls were very interested in joining us, but they were very tired after disco night, so we decided to leave them having proper sleep. There was no intense to leave them on purpose. We took a regular bus line to Bran that morning and we were there in 20 minutes. Bran is just a village but is very famous, actually the most famous place in Romania. Bran castle is situated just above the village. The castle is also knows as Dracula’s castle, although it has nothing to do with Dracula aka Vlad Tepes the impaler, prince of Wallachia. The castle was built by Saxons who were hired by Louis I of Hungary in 14th century. The castle was periodically in hands of Romanians, Ottomans. Back in that period, during Ottoman rule, it is said that Vlad Tepes spent two nights in dungeons of the castle. That’s all that
connects “Dracula” to this castle. After the I World War, when Hungary lost the castle with the rest of Erdely or Transylvania, it became a royal residence. It was primarily the house of Queen Marie (Princess Marie of Edinburgh), King Ferdinand I’s wife. Today the castle is turned into museum with numerous items and furniture used by Queen Marie. Under the castle, in the village is a small market full of Drcula vine, shirts, “blood”, teeth, masks and everything that reminds you that you are at the most popular Romanian touristic site. Just next to the market is a small village museum with replicas of houses and household items from medieval times. On tha half way to Braşov is situated another castle, more of a fortress - Râşnov. It was built in 13th century by Teutonic knights. One myth is related to the fortress and says that two captured Turkish soldiers were supposed to dig a well and claim freedom afterwards. They needed 17 years to dig it and reach water, but they got killed. Until 15h that day me and Eoin were back in Braşov. We had some time before meeting others, so we climbed up the white tower
which is actually a viewpoint, to relax a bit. It’s a great place to have a nice view over the old part of Braşov. We passed an old watchtower on our way down. We met up next to a fountain and waited for new Couchsurfers - from Australia, Italy, Switzerland and the US (I stopped counting them after this). In the end there were 10 of us sleeping on a floor of a 2-room flat. Jason took us all to a good old bar with the cheapest beer in city. After closing that one and kicking us out, we changed the pub and went to some rock music themed one, can’t remember the name. We stayed there quite late in the night as far as I remember. It was good.
Next day the guys went to Bran while Eoin and me continued our journey, together, suddenly … He was supposed to take the earlier train than me but I woke up earlier than I thought, caught him at the station so we took the same one to Bucharest. Anyway we left Jason’s place first that morning. By the way, that guy from US Jason talked to the other day,
was there as well. This time it was really destined to have our ways splitting up, but … Anyway, I took off in Sinaia, popular ski centre in Prahova valley, just on a half way from Brasov to Bucharest. Beside it is a ski centre, there is situated one of the most beautiful castles in Romania - Peleş. It was built during rule of King Carol I in the second half of 19th century as the royal castle and summer residence. After being the royal house to Carol I, Ferdinand I and Mihai I it got confiscated by the communist regime after II World War and got closed down along with the surrounding area. After the revolution the castle got opened for public as a museum. The entrance was fairly cheap and I even had a professional tour guide. And the tour was really awesome I must admit. The weather was really aweful. It rained all day long, so I was just waiting for the train to Bucharest and to get there as soon as possible. I got there with an hour delay maybe and … what a surprise … Eoin was still there, cause his train to Sofia was
late hour and a half or so. This is the moment where my good friend Andrei appears in the story. We “met” at Green Day concert in Budapest in 2005 although we didn’t see eachother. But we started mailing eachother due to the fact that he played on stage with Green Day, blah, blah … He visited me last year in Novi Sad, during Red Hot Chili Peppers show, so it was my turn. He came to pick me up and we went straight to his parents place where I was supposed to sleep over next 3 days. The family is just awesome, we chatted all night long about Yugoslavia, sports, environment and other various themes. Mom Elena made a great dinner. Awesome people. Andrei took everything under control before I arrived as well, so I was fully equipped with maps, city plan and touristic one. So next day I had to choose pants with the most pockets on it. If you are lost in orientation, I arrived to Bucharest on Thursday night.
Next morning Andrei left me just in front of the Romanian Athenaeum which is considered to be the symbol of Romanian culture. He works as an
architect just behind the corner, so this was the place where I had to continue on my own. Before we splitted up there was one thing we wanted to check. Last night there was a TV report about the first rent-a-bike in Bucharest, placed just there, in front of Athenaeum but don’t believe the media always. First I visited Museum of the peasant with a big collection of traditional houshold items, ethno clothings and tools. I arrived there even before opening and there were already few visitors. Afterwards I continued to Village museum passing Arcul de Triumf. I was really unfortunate, because this monument, just like St. Mathias statue was in the middle of restauration all covered up! Bucharest doesn’t lie on some big river, but is intersected by two smaller tributaries of Danube - Colentina and Dâmboviţa river. Dâmboviţa flows through the centre going underground at Piaţa Unirii (Union Square) while Coletina makes several alkes in the north of Bucharest where I ended up looking for illage museum. Around the lakes is situated large park called Herăstrău Park after one of the lakes. The lake is surrounded by many cottages, well decorated parks, has few islands and is really
relaxing and nice! On the west bank lies the Village museum I was looking forward to see. It is spreaded along the bank divided in several zones according to regions in Romania showing typical and traditional architecture, household items, gates and fences and all the houses and gardens are full of children doing traditional crafts and painting. The park in general is a great place to be during weekend and hot days like this was! After spending some time there I wend back to the centre by metro. Metro is pretty good in Bucharest with 4 major lines well intersected and linked. I was about to visit some of the main squares Andrei has mentioned be the other day. Being in the core of Bucharest, walking on the main boulevards and visiting main squares left me the worst impression on Bucharest. The traffic and culture/behaviour that comes with it is aweful. Fortunately it is not any better than in Belgrade so I wasn’t that much surprised. Cars are parked on the pathways, zebras, drivers doesn’t let you cross the streets on marked crossings without traffic light. What dissapointed me as well were the squares I mentioned earlier. There are several
main squares in Bucharest like Piaţa Unirii (Union Square), Piaţa Romana, Piaţa Victorii (Victory Square), Piaţa Revoluţiei (Revolution Square) and few others. The fact that dissapointed me is that these are apsolutely not the type of squares I was expecting. They are actually circular interesctions with no pedestrian zones at all. You can even reach the middle of a square because it has 4 straps around, although the middle area is green and decorated. I wanted to save the biggest square for the end so the last one I visited was the Union Square, one of the products of communistic era. I was expecting to see Casa Popului (People’s House) or Palace of the Parliament novadays. The square is really huge but also with massive traffic. It lies on Union Boulevard and is decrated with numerous fountains that can not be reached as well! When I got there I couldn’t find the Palace. While I was crossing the boulevard I reached the pedestrian island and had to wait for green go. By that moment I had no idea that I was actually standing just in line with the Palace. I looked left and right like everyone should while crossing a
street and whoa! On my right side a huge buiding was standing and althoug I was a kilometre away it looked huge! I had to miss one green go and wait for another one just to look at that monstruous building. I was thinking to continue towards it, but I just sat near the square and looked at the fountains that looked quite nice, actually. It was about time to go home too meet up with Andrei and his parents. We had another night chatting, watching Romanian footy, having great time and relaxing my legs as well. Not long after we went to Andrei’s place where he introduced me to his wife Cristina. It’s just 2 buildings away. The main reason why he invited me over his place was to see THE guitar. The guitar belonged to Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong before he gave ti to Andrei as a gift after Budapest show.
Next day was Saturday, but Andrei had some stuff to do so I had “free time” until lunch. So I finally went to face Palace of the Parliament aka Ceausescu’s Palace. The Palace is something that Bucharest can’t be much proud of. It is a
product of Ceauşima, period of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s communist presidency when he demolished significant portions of the historic centre of Bucharest to accommodate standardized apartment blocks and government buildings. Constructing the Palace and Centrul Civic (residental buildings) required demolishing much of Bucharest's historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30.000 residences. It is the home to Romanian Presidency, Parliament, Government and Supreme Court. A huge square is in front of the palace, turned into parking. Not far from there are the remainings of the historic centre of Bucharest. The most significant are remains of the royal court in Bucharest during the Middle Ages with well preserved columns and statues. The whole area and streets that make the pedestrian zone were in the middle of reconstructing so it wasn’t much pleasant walking on scows. I spent some time on visiting the National Museum, but guess what, most of the exibitons were closed due to reconstruction. Then I decided to visit Botanical garden, so I took a metro there. It is a bit outside the centre, just next to Presidental residence. Speaking of the garden I must admit that the one in
Cluj is much better! This one is a bit abandoned. While I was walking around Andrei informed me that he was done with his obligations and lunch was ready if I was interested in. Oh, was I? After great lunch it was about time to see Andrei’s Bucharest! First we went to see the stadium, Ghencea stadium, home to Romanian FC Steaua. Unfortunately it was forbidden to reach the stadium itself, because the first team had training on the training pitch, but bribe is something that is welcome everywhere. After visiting the stadium, we made few crazy photos in Hajduk and Steaua shirts and left the place. Having an idea made me ask Andrei to pull over by the Palace (photo attached). We continued our way to the centre to visit Fire Club, pub where E.M.I.L. band had it’s first notable appereance. We went downstairs to see the place after Andrei pulled out EMIL card, since he plays guitar for that band. The pub itself was really interesting and pretty big. So we started from pubs and small-sized concert venues and ended up at Iolanda Balas stadium watching Massive Attack! Andrei knows some people, who know some people, who have
tickets and that’s how we got in. There I met Handrei, guy I met in Novi Sad year before. Almea and Anca from the beginning of this story were supposed to be there as well but Anca got ill and Almea … I couldn’t find her! We actually didn’t stayed that long, just half an hour maybe, because Cristina was waiting for us at the rooftop of national theatre. It’s not strange since there is one of the most famous bars in Bucharest - Laptaria Enache. And it is really awesome! Huge open air place, very relaxing, good atmophere, very artistic, I really felt great there.
Next, Sunday morning I was supposed to wake up real early to pack my stuff and have Andrei drop me off to the train station. That’s where my trip to Ukraine begins, after hour and a half delay. More about it HERE.
On my way home from Ukraine I spent one more day and night in Bucharest before taking a train to Belgrade. I had some stuff to do, actually some people to visit. They are fellow volunteers from SCI Romania and I was very happy to see them and tell Mihai
hardcore Dinamo fan, one of the vols, that I support Steaua! Hehe … Good old football … Anyway, I surprised them actually, so I added the surprise effect to the visit and I assume they were happy to see me as well. I had just enough time to cruise around the city a bit before going home. And there, reverse surprise effect. As souvenirs from Bucharest I will not take home some stupid figure or something but a Steaua scarf and badge!
So I left Romania with a Steaua badge in my hat and a lot of new friends in my heart. Rich history that still makes me think of people all over the world who suffer different difficulties, threats and pity under various regimes on one side and great experience, beautiful landscape, countryside, friendly people on the other are things that I will always remember and that made my summer unforgetable and ready to archive it along with a lot of beautiful memories. And there is one song by Gogol Bordello that I like to find myself in. Oh, how I miss Carpaty!
P.S. Did I mention that I hold Billie Joe Armstron’g guitar? No. Well, i did!
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Sarah
non-member comment
Still a little bitter...
about the whole Bran thing, that is. I'll survive though. Oh Ernest! Your blog makes me wish I had a chance to see way more of Romania than I did. We skipped out on Bucharest so we could spend more time in Serbia, which I can't really say I regret. I'll be returning to Eastern Europe this summer, but this time to stay! I insist that we take some time to travel together, or at the very least you'll come visit me. Your crazy American friend, Sarah SK