Crossing Romania

---

At the Romanian border the queue was not that long. Within some minutes we passed the passport check. When you enter Romania by car you also have to pay for using the roads, like all countries. About the price we cannot complain. 3 Euros for a week. The polite and funny guy behind the desk asked me politely if I could pay 4 Euros instead of 3. The old Balkan methods where you have to pay the police and the border guards are not completely disappeared. But for 1 euro extra I won't cause a lot of noise and beside the guy was quite funny, so we can state that the so called soup money is low enough to negligible.

Time to continue the road. Since my last visit there was a very pleasant surprise! There are motorways built! Within no time we arrived to the largest city of West Romania, Timisoara.

Timisoara is the largest city of west Romania. It was the city where the Romanian revolution against Ceausescu started and the first Romanian city who declared free of communism in Romania.

We didn't have much time so we parked our car and visited the victory square.

Victory Square (Piata Victoriei) represents, along with Union Square (Piata Unirii) true cultural centers of Timisoara. Former Opera Square, Victory Square impresses both through its history and architecture of the great institutions that are found in the area.

This touristic site remained in history as the place where, at December 20, 1989, Timisoara revolutionaries gathered and proclaimed Timisoara the first free city of Romania. Victory Square is very important for the city since the twentieth century when the center of Timisoara is redesigned to allow the development of the European city.

In Victory Square there are important institutions such as the Romanian Opera, the National Theater, the Hungarian State Theater, the German State Theater, the Orthodox Cathedral, Timis, Capitol and Studio Cinemas, the Museum of Banat, art galleries and many shops.

After a nice lunch at the square we continued our journey….

---