LAST BLOG: ROMANIA
We disembarked on Wednesday (Nov. 2) and had a lengthy bus ride, mostly through farmland, to Bucharest. Upon arrival we drove through the city to the old quarter where we had a traditional Romanian lunch while being entertained by dancers
Bucharest is a large (over 2 million) but pleasant city with lots of green space and some very elegant buildings.
However, there are always heavy traffic and many derelict buildings. When the Communists took over after WWII they abolished private land ownership. In 1989 the Communists were overthrown and President Ceausecu was executed after a hastily arranged trial. The new government passed a law returning all properties to their original owners. After 44 years it proved difficult to find many of the owners (or their heirs) and buildings have remained vacant until now the present day.
After arrival at our very elegant Bucharest hotel we were very tired so we ate pizza in the hotel Italian restaurant. I asked the waiter to choose a suitable Romanian wine. He chose an indigenous varietal called Feteasca Neagra (Black Maiden). We liked this wine so much that we have ordered it each of the next two nights.
We left early Thursday morning for a lengthy ride over the Carpathian Mountains to Transylvania. We arrived in the late afternoon at the largest city (Brasov).
and after a tour were taken to an “interesting” hotel for the night. The hotel is brand new and upscale, but the designer had some rather odd ideas. Firstly, everything is black, or occasionally dark gray. This includes walls, curtains, urinals in the public washrooms; in fact, everything down to a black pencil sitting on the black desk alongside the black telephone. Also, everything is designed to be square, including door knobs, light switches and even the toilet seat. The only break is to look through the clear glass bathroom walls to one’s roommate’s light skin while showering or sitting on the square toilet seat. (Sorry but there are no pictures.)
On Friday we stopped at Bran to see the Bran Castle (Dracula’s castle). When the Irishman Bram Stoker wrote Dracula he had never visited Transylvania, but chose, from a painting, the Bran Castle as the setting. It is argued that he based Count Dracula on the 14th century ruler Vlad Draculea, best known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad, however, was ruler of Wallachia rather than Transylvania, and may or may not have ever stayed in the Castle. The only downside of our visit was that a woman in our tour group fell or collapsed coming out of the restaurant and was left behind in a Transylvanian hospital. We got back to Bucharest in time for a drink before dinner.
Romania is primarily an agricultural country but they do
manufacture Dacia cars (Dacia was recently bought out by Renault). One sees lots of these cars on the streets
and they are Romania’s largest export, most of the cars going, interestingly
enough, to Germany.
As we must leave the hotel at 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning to
begin our journey home we celebrated a last lingering meal on Friday night at
an American-style steakhouse, also in the hotel (we are back for two nights in
the same hotel as Wednesday). We
discussed with the waiter what steaks to order and he brought a platter with
each cut (uncooked) for us to examine.
As all the steaks were huge and as we wanted to share an appetizer the
waiter suggested very kindly that we just order one steak and split that.
My last picture is of perhaps the most important stop in Romania.
