Romania

We headed to Romania on a whim. We had never been there before and there was a small chance of skiing. Good enough. A day’s drive through Croatia and then we had to make a decision. Car insurance covered Serbia but not Bosnia. It is possible to buy insurance on the border, but we figured it would be easier just to avoid Bosnia. Driving through Serbia was an easy day, and the border checks were painless. Arriving in Romania, the guard was mostly interested in talking about skiing. Our first stop was the city of Timișoara, first European city to be lit by electric streetlamps in 1884. A fact still celebrated by displays of lighting across some of the streets. Timișoara boasts some large public squares surrounded by restaurants and bars. Wonderful to wander around in the evening and we found some good food as well. We were impressed by the magnificently lit city centre and also by a large statue of Atlas in the entrance lobby of our hotel.

Next stop was Castelul Corvinilor (Corvins’ Castle). Romania has an awful lot of castles. We felt obliged to visit a few. It was cold and raining when we arrived. The castle looked good from the outside. Inside it proved to be rather baren and chilly. Renovations were in progress. Areas were roped off. A few workmen were standing around smoking and looking cold. One of them examined a stone in a rather desultory way before putting it down and wandering off. A suit of armour in the corner of one hall caught my interest although, like me, it had a rust problem and probably creaked. We looked around for other interesting things but found little. We paid extra for entrance to the medieval torture display. Gruesome models of people being dismembered, disembowelled and generally filleted in various unhygienic and probably terminal ways. I imagine schoolboys would like this sort of thing. It was still drizzling as we checked out the souvenir shops and then trudged back to the car.

A day later I was standing in the lift queue at the ski area just outside of Lupeni. It was foggy but this time the was no getting above it. Fortunately, as the day progressed, the cloud lifted. At lunchtime two more lifts right at the top of the hill were opened along with several more ski slopes. There had been a bit of fresh snow. The pistes were still a bit thin but I enjoyed the skiing. Just before my last run down there were a few nice views of the valley.

We headed for Brașov in the heart of Transylvania. A rather circuitous route took us through the mountains where we met dogs and a cheese man. The cheese man was selling a selection of local made dairy produce out of the back of his van. Communication was limited but sufficient. He gave us various taster pieces and we indicated the ones we liked. In fact, we needed to restrict ourselves to the cheese that we really liked. It all tasted rather good. Especially the smoked cheeses. The dogs mostly live by the road and often appear to own a layby. They are quite peaceful and will only approach cautiously. We took some food with us for the dogs. They appreciated this and we like to feel we could do a little bit to help them. There are dogs running around all over the place in Romania. Many of them appear to be free spirits but very few look malnourished or mistreated. We have noticed that a lot of dogs are owned but live outside and are not tied up. I quite like this. You can see that the dogs are generally well balanced and happy.

Brașov was busy with tourists. We mingled with them and explored the streets. There are some nice buildings here. The gothic Black Church is possibly the largest of its kind in eastern Europe. Popularly, it became black during the great fire of 1689 but the reality is that the dark colouration comes from much more recent air pollution. The church houses the biggest bell in Romania – all 6.3 tonnes of it. I read that the best way to see Brașov was to take the Tâmpa Cable Car to the top of Tâmpa mountain. Sadly, it was not running so we mooched around in the town which is still not a bad way to see the place.

Time for another castle. This time, Bran Castle, famously marketed as Dracula’s Castle. There is no good reason for this. Bram Stoker, author of the original Dracula story is unlikely to have known the castle. His description of Count Dracula’s lair bears little resemblance to Bran Castle. None the less, this is another of those places made famous through literary fiction. Think Reichenbach Falls (Sherlock Holmes), Kings Cross Station (Harry Potter) and The Pond in Central Park (Catcher in the Rye). Around the castle is a roaring trade in souvenirs and other tat. I hoped to find a Dracula sticker but the only one I saw was rubbish. Plenty of fridge magnets but I do not own a fridge. We paid to go inside the castle. It was more interesting than Corvin’s Castle but also packed with people, many of whom were coughing far more than seemed healthy to me.

A couple of hours later we were looking for somewhere to warm up some soup for lunch and came across the medieval Rupea Fortress. A magnificent fortress on a hill. It has been renovated to some extent and commands terrific views across the town below. There were only a handful of people here and just one, small, souvenir stall. We enjoyed looking around and then had soup and bread in the car park.

Salina Turda sounds like something a bit dubious to English speakers. It is in fact a salt mine near the town of Turda. Mining finished, after nearly 900 years, in 1932. Since then, it has been turned into a tourist attraction. Salina Turda was ranked in 2013 by Business Insider as among the “25 hidden gems around the world that are worth the trek”. It is interesting in places but redevelopment, with a strong focus on tourist attraction, has sent it off into what seems to me a strange direction. The car park is expensive. Entry is expensive. There is a reduction for seniors but only if you are in possession of a Romanian pensioner certificate. Once inside I found the old salt mine bits interesting. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of salt. The main chamber is impressively large. The strata and mining techniques combine to create interesting patterns on the walls. Then things get strange. You can descend in a lift 90m to the bottom of the main chamber. Here you will find the ubiquitous souvenir shop. Also, a miniature golf course, some billiard tables, a Ferris wheel, a small arena and a boating pond. All of which you must pay extra for. Assuming you really want to descend into the depths of the earth to play miniature golf.

Our last stop in Romania was the Scărișoara Ice Cave. We have been into caves in ice before, usually inside a glacier. This is a limestone cave with a glacier inside it. Very strange. The entrance is a steep 50m descent down steps into the main chamber, about 100 m across and full of ice. The public can walk around this on a rather rickety wooden walkway. Here we have stalactites and stalagmites made of ice. They are quite fragile and fall off occasionally. Fortunately, they only take a few weeks to grow back unlike the calcite type which can take hundreds of years.

We liked Romania. Caves and castles. Dogs and a lot of rubbish. I mean, an awful lot of rubbish. And a little bit of skiing. Next stop is Hungary.