We flew from London to the city of Timisoara (Timi-shwara) in the western region of Timis in Romania and stayed in a hotelnear the central Old Town area opposite the imposing Huniade Castle. Our first day was chilly and sunny and we spent the morning walking the pretty streets and squares. The beautiful central pedestrian Piata Victoriei (Victory Plaza) is lined withart-deco buildings and is faced at one end by The Romanian National Opera House and at the other end by the Orthodox Cathedral.
The Cathedral is an imposing many spired building which is truly magnificent inside. The only seating is carved wooden pews fixed in a single line to the side walls leaving the vast central area void. The first impression is of an enormous glinting cavern. The huge light fittings hanging overhead dominate the view and then your eyes are drawn to the wall of carved, gilded screen at the far end. The effect is breath-taking as every surface is carved or painted but the overall pallet is lush and reverent. The sheer size allows the ornate interior to shine rather than be over-bearing.
Travelling in Europe you can become a bit blasé about ornate places of worship but we found the Orthodox Cathedral in Timisoara exceptional in scale and splendour.
We walked along the banks of the Bega River which was a bit nondescript on the stretch we found so we headed back into town. We wandered the lovely squares and streets admiring the architecture that ranges from Baroque to Brutalist. Many buildings in the central town area are well maintained but they may sit alongside dilapidated and boarded up places. There is quite a bit of shrouded scaffolding that presumably hides restoration work being undertaken. Certainly one of the most handsome plazas is Unirii Square with four sides of refurbished Baroque style buildings dominated by the Catholic Cathedral on one end and the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral at the other. Colour enhances the view as each building around the square is painted in a different hue which creates a lovely effect.
Later in the afternoon we took a taxi (you cannot buy a bus ticket on a Saturday!) to an outdoor museum of small rural cottages moved to the Banat Village Museum from all over Romania for restoration, preservation and display. It was very interesting and well laid out with room for expansion. Outdoor concerts take place here in the summer. Back in town after an illegal/unticketed bus ride (!) we had an excellent local cuisine meal accompanied by a local ale followed by a local red all for a ridiculously reasonable tariff. Another stroll in the town revealed the buildings in a whole new light as many are floodlit at night plus we stumbled on the best gelato I have ever had the pleasure to consume. Too chilly for ice-cream at 1*C, I hear you say? Never! We had picked up our hire car in the afternoon ready for an early start the next morning.
If you want to know what’s really going on in a country, talk to a taxi driver. They are social barometers in an unrestrained way that is hard to find through other channels. We took several taxis in Romania but one of our drivers was particularly chatty and he revealed more about the country in our 25 minute journey than we could glean from any wiki or Tripadvisor page. From the name of ‘the most beautiful town in all of Romania’ to tales of hiding with four other family members in his bedroom, the only windowless room in their home, for a week during the bloody 1989 revolution. ‘Many people died and their bodies lay in front of the Cathedral,’ he explained. ‘Was a very terrible time.’ Perhaps more revealing was his lament, ‘I don’t know what is wrong with my country that we can’t do very well. We have the gas and the petrol and we are going to be Cultural capital of Europe in 2021, our country is beautiful and we have everything from seaside to mountains but still we have many problems.’ His concern was so genuine and it was hard not to share his bewilderment that a country with so many riches could be so poor but he also stated that ‘there is much corruption’ and he shook his head sadly. Much of his discourse took place with the help of both hands gesturing freely for emphasis. His last wheel alignment must have been a good one for our taxi remained on a steady course throughout the journey with little input from his hands on the steering wheel.
Romania’s
history is certainly chequered but perhaps no period has been so cruel and
bloody as that which remains in the memories of many of those still living.
Through the communist regime post WWII, Romania was driven to an impoverished
state and haunted by arbitrary killings and imprisonments of hundreds of
thousands of its citizens. I remember the blurred footage of the Ceausescus
execution in 1989 and who can forget the subsequent discovery of rooms full of
maltreated orphans that came to light after the regime ended. The evidence of
that relatively recent impoverishment remains in so many of the villages we
passed through on our drive to Transylvania. Many of them took on a homogeneous
appearance of once pretty terrace houses lining the main street, many now boarded
up or falling down with an air of eerie abandonment. We also saw a lot of half-finished
construction of new houses but in some cases it was hard to discern whether the
structures were half constructed or half demolished. In the smaller villages, habitants
were few and far between and those we did see were often elderly. We saw quite
a few carts drawn by a horse or donkey and even one pulled by a pair of cows.
Much of the countryside is very pretty in a nineteenth century sort of way. Hay stacks in fields, handmade around a central stick, every flock of sheep or goats has a shepherd or two watching over them, tractors look like they have come from an agricultural museum, barns and sheds are rough-hewn timber, chickens and pigs scratch in the soil free ranging in farmyards. Most of the road east cut along a plain with snow covered mountains rising sharply to the south. It made for a stunning and unique drive. Dogs, dogs and more dogs. In every town, in every village, even high on a mountain pass, dogs wandering the streets, many with what appears to be wolf ancestry. Also quite a few cats wandering freely in the villages. I did spot one tufty-eared European squirrel but we had to wonder if any small indigenous mammals could survive being surrounded by so many apex predators. We also spotted a magnificent eagle perched on a stump near the road.
We made for the town of Sibiu where we had our accommodation booked. We parked up and had a wander through the town centre where, to our delight we found a Christmas market ready to open. Incidentally, that Timisoaran taxi drive and his proclamation of the most beautiful town in Romania…he named Sibiu and from what we saw he knows his stuff. Apparently a past Prime Minister of Romania has used his influence to restore and renovate the city but the results are outstanding if perhaps sniffing a bit of corrupt influence. We grabbed a sandwich and continued to Bran to check out the literary home of Count Dracula, Bran Castle. It is an imposing bastion perched on a rocky hilltop overlooking a once strategic pass, set amongst snow topped alps. It is a really stunning sight. We wound our way through the many rooms, upstairs and down and of course I did that thing where you come out of a narrow stairway hewn into one of the towers to crack your head on the ridiculously low beam. I always pictured the Count as being tall! He must have spent a lot of his time dodging low door jambs or else he was actually a midget.
Stalls selling all manner of food and souvenirs are gathered at the base of the castle and we enjoyed a delicious barbequed kransky before the drive back to our digs in Sibiu. And what digs they were! Wow! A suite in the most beautifully restored century old building just minutes from the town square. The lovely owner let us have a look in the renovated cellar where breakfast is served, with its vaulted brick ceilings. Our rooms were simply and beautifully decorated. They belonged in Romanian Vogue, if such a thing exists.
We walked up the road to the Christmas Fair which was in full swing. Set in a large town square surrounded on all sides by splendid old buildings which had video projections on them of Christmas scenes and motifs. To top the scene there was a huge living Christmas tree and a central garland of lights that radiated from the centre of the market. The countless huts sold every manner of crafted items and fabulous food. We shared a mandatory half kilo of pork knuckle which was deliciously salty and tender washed down with hot spicy vin fiert or mulled wine to you and me. The video projections and the gorgeous lights made this one of the prettiest Christmas markets we have ever enjoyed. The evening was very cold but the next afternoon there was snow forecast which would have added to the charm. We made do with the video snow falling on one of the buildings.
We had another early start on what was supposed to be our last day in Romania *spoiler alert…it wasn’t.
This time we headed south to visit the exquisite Bigar Cascade Falls. They are not big (even if they are Bigar) especially as we had recently visited one of the homes of spectacular waterfalls, Iceland, but they are extraordinary. We have never seen anything like it. The water cascades over a moss covered protruding rock and fans out into multiple streams. The effect is enchanting. We walked along the track that follows the stream to find a cave part way up a cliff. There is a rudimentary rope bolted to the rock to assist in the precarious climb so we had to do it, YOLO and all that. The cave drops away into a cavern at the back with a flimsy tape preventing visitors from falling to their doom. The climb back down in reverse was even more perilous but we managed it incident free. The drive over the mountain pass took us through the most magnificent snow covered forest. The tall trees have small spindly branches that appeared to be made of glittering ice interspersed with snow covered fir trees. It was magical beyond belief! A light flurry of snow swirled about us as we made our way up and over the mountains.
With a brief stop to grab some lunch we began the dash back to Timisoara for our late afternoon flight. Well that was the plan. But the traffic was snarled in a jam from an earlier bingle which added an unaccounted for 70-80 minutes to our journey. Our planned leisurely wait at the airport turned into a desperate dash. We made our way through customs, passport control and departure lounge with everyone telling us ‘You better hurry!’ Long story short, from an airline that has built its reputation on always running late, our plane left annoyingly on the dot and we were left at the departure gate to peer across the tarmac to the little aircraft hunkered there with the door still flopped open in a tantalising display of the unattainable. Because we had cleared passport control, we had to be escorted along the tarmac to arrivals and I and my non-EU passport had to be stamped back into the country a mere 20 minutes after I had “left” it! I got quite upset and shed a few tears. It was the letdown after our stressful rush I think.
Except for the fact that Ian had some very important meetings the next day which had to be rescheduled or handed over to another party, another day in lovely Timisoara was hardly the end of the world. It did make a bit of a mockery of our original ridiculously cheap fares but in the end, short of storming the barricade (and I reckon Ian and I could have taken the guy down, he didn’t look that tough), we had no choice but to return to town and try again the next day. The day was sunny and bright even if the temp didn’t climb above about 2*C and I did get to sample that amazing gelato again.
So final impressions, Romania – beautiful and so much to explore, and we never got to the capital or the coast. I may have given a bad impression but really even the impoverished countryside is unusually rustic and picturesque. One last thing of note…Romanian drivers are certifiably insane. Chronically incapable of remaining behind a vehicle travelling at anything less than 20 km over the speed limit they overtake ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE and take extraordinary risks diving back onto the correct side of the road. I would go so far as to say that the side of the road they drive on is practically discretionary. Ian actually took to following large trucks as they would provide a barrier for any oncoming traffic that didn’t make it back to their side of the road in time. We did see lots of floral tributes attached to crosses on the sides of the roads so their lack of patience does have harsh consequences. We also saw many highway police patrols and speed limits are enforced but with no radar to assist, speeding and automobile dodgeball seem to be national pastimes.
Our time was limited but we did cover 1,100km by road and about 20 km on foot. The prices for food and accommodation are incredibly cheap, the people are friendly and helpful though English is not widely spoken and the sights that we managed to squeeze into our three (ahem, four) days were superb.
Go visit Romania because vampire bat!
*What else would you buy from Transylvania?! (Yes, it’s real)