Romania

A couple of days should be plenty for Bucharest. The old bits are OK and it's got its own Arc de Triomphe from back when it was the Paris of the Balkans. Elsewhere Soviet style concrete abounds.

By Dracula's Castle I assume you mean Bran? Yeah, that's very pretty and amidst lovely scenery and well worth a visit. Links to Vlad are tenuous at best but hey... Brasow is a pleasant town too. It's probably as "touristy" as anywhere we went but that's not very. We trundled around Transyllvania generally, taking cancelled trains, overcrowded and occassionally terrifyingly driven buses in our stride. People seemed generally friendly. They will stare but out of fascination rather than malice.

Food. Cheap, very cheap. We found some great-looking places to eat in Bucharest. Service wasn't generally up to much and what was served was average. My friend who lived out there for a year seemed to survive as a veggie, even though it's certainly not "usual". Outside Bucharest we struggled a bit more, foodwise. In one village we found a shop selling just pasta, tinned tomatoes, bread and beer. At least one of us got food poisoning.

The other thing that attracted me was that huge building in Bucharest (second only in size to the Pentagon I think).

I also like Ceaucescu's Palace. If all buildings suddenly came alive, this one would take over the world.

Yeah, I know what you mean Lauren. Poland was vegetarian hell on earth. Don't like peanut butter though. Yuck.

Ceaucescu's Palace is like an iceberg, in that most of it's underground.

Not that surprising, it was one of the centers of German immigration away from the Fatherland -- see also the Volga Germans etc.

"Immigration" would be too soft a word for the Volga Germans relocation, I think.

I think Ceaucescu bull-dozed all the cute mediavel villages.

the Volga Germans - they went there happily enough in the reign of the Czars, I understand.

For some reason lots of Transyllvanians speak German.

my impression is that East Europeans generally speak German as a second language, because Germany is relatively nearby and much richer than they are. They probably get way more German speaking tourists than English speaking ones.

My friend who is an expert on these things claims that you can talk French to Romanians and they kind of understand you, because theirs is also a Romance language.

Hells Yeah! How about accomodation? Recommend any guidebooks?

(Incidentally, was the travel show the one with that chirpy cockney fella, Ian Wright?)

We found accomodation pretty cheap. My friend out there rented us a base flat in Bucharest for a week for next to nothing. In Brasow we ended up staying at a place owned by one of the many obliging locals who stand around the train when it arrives. It was OK. The weirdest place was some village where the local vicarage was used as a hostel for returning ex-pats, now based in Germany, who came back every year to renovate the church. Half a dozen bedrooms all with a dozen beds and we were the only people staying.

We trekked along a road in pitch darkness trying to find the delightfully named Hotel Spack, near Sibiu, I think. Found it, it looked idyllic, but it was full. So back we went and stayed in a hotel where the bedrooms were decorated to look like a London boozer, with a French metal channel on cable in the bar downstairs.

It was a great holiday.

Such a huge generation gap in Romania, the younger people are so stylish and have the flashiest cars / mobiles, while the old people still ride around in horse and carts. That is a sweeping statement, but for Tranyslvania it was pretty much true.

I added, "One houses a bloodthirsty tyrant and the other is in Romania."

There's a new Mikey on ILX. I didn't see you at the annual Mikey convention in Shersbury, Mikeybidness.

http://slim.emporia.edu/romania/assets/images/gallery/040522-MoldovitoMon01.jpg

though i guess they look better close up

Dort tsu voynen iz a fargenign,
vos dos harts glust dir vost kenstu krign:
a mameligele, a pastramele, a karnatsele,
un a gleyzele vayn, aha!

In Roumania iz dokh gut, fun keyn dayges veyst men nit,
Vayn trinkt men iberal, Me farbayst mit a kashtaval -
Hay digge digge dam - digge digge digge dam
Hay digge digge dam - digge digge dam.

In Roumania iz dokh gut, fun keyn zorgn veyst men nit,
vayn trinkt men iberal, me farbayst a kastrovet -
Hay digge digge dam - digge digge digge dam
Hay digge digge dam - digge digge dam.

Oy vey g'vald ikh ver meshige, Ikh lib nor brinze, mamelige,
Ikh tants un frey zich biz der stelye ven ikh es a pat-lo-zhe-le,
Tzingma! - Tay didl di dam - Tzingma! - Tay didl di dam -
Tzingma! - Tay didl di dam - Tzingma! - Tay didl di dam -

Ay, s'iz a mekhaye, beser ken nit zayn,
Ay, a fargenign iz nor rumeynish vayn.

Yokum purkon min sh'maye - - shteyt un kusht di kechene, Chaye
ongeton in alte shkrabes - - macht a kugel likoved shabes,
Zets! Tai didl di dam,- zets! tai didl di dam, - zets! tai didl di dam,

Ay, s'iz a mekhaye, beser ken nit zayn,
Ay, a fargenign iz nor rumeynish vayn.

Any recommendations for immediate things to do in Bucharest in a single evening with an early bed time?

The Iaşi pogrom; one of the most bloody and terrible of the 20th century in terms of volume of people horribly murdered in one single day of genocide. It is only a 14 minute film and seems a bit semi-pro, but is worthy of attention. That Antonescu period seems a black hole of pure evil, but one that hasn't been written about much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_yBc9QwEXc

in Bucharest for a few days, just realized shortly before leaving that they're not on the Euro. it's super inexpensive here! I love covrigi (simit in Turkey) and they are plentiful here.

So far it reminds me more of Rome than of other European cities, in its ramshackle sprawl. maybe Berlin in the 90s but not really Berlin make 2016. the roads seem very wide. it's hot but there's air conditioning where I'm staying, with the university. the food's been terrific, had sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls) and mamaglia (basically polenta) last night. I saw a Lamborghini parked on the street in my neighborhood, not far from a quite old Trabant.

yeah it definitely feels more italian maybe than what people think of as eastern european. i was there about 2006/2007 and it felt kind of crazy, like a five-star hotel next to a mcdonalds next to a broken down house with people sleeping rough in the ruins, cars parked facing in any direction, spaghetti junctions, but it was really cool. dunno if it's changed since then.

I wasn't particularly taken with Bucharest. Everywhere else I went in Romania was lovely, though.

friends in Paris told me they don't really care for Bucharest, and I can sorta see why: the prevalence of broken buildings everywhere suggests danger, and the heat and traffic add to the sense of chaos. But I lived in Marseille last year (another place Parisians don't go) and I've lived in the American midwest a lot, so environmental decay and heat and traffic seem pretty normal to me.

& it's cool that people I've talked to are happy to be here, want to stay here if they can (the economy is tough). I guess a flip side of that is nationalism and I've seen plenty of posters up calling for the return of Bessarabia, basically Moldavia, which is a central plank of the extreme right here.

yeah the people seem pretty enthused about it ime. i was writing about techno at the time and i did a blog post about going there to cover an event, i put in touch with a hotel, someone collected me from the airport, a promoter emailed to give me a gig, it all felt really good and fun as a scene of people.

*i was put in touch with a hotel, i meant to say

🇹🇩 The map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918) overlapping the results of the 2014 presidential elections in Romania

An example of the long term impact of past institutions. pic.twitter.com/2nzexOd7rX

— Xavi Ruiz 🎗 (@xruiztru) April 20, 2018

Just spent a fascinating couple of days in Bucharest - hard to think of a place in Europe where beauty and decay are so intertwined. Some magnificent art deco palaces, bordering unpaved parking lots. Flying back to Iasi next week.

I guess a flip side of that is nationalism and I've seen plenty of posters up calling for the return of Bessarabia, basically Moldavia, which is a central plank of the extreme right here.

I'm two years too late, but I wouldn't say calls for decolonization are systematically a far-right thing (although they can be in some cases, no doubt about it).

Anyway, I'm glad you like it, baaderonixx. Bucharest is a wonderful city for lovers of aesthetic decadence. It's also infinitely safer than its reputation and appearance suggest.