Trip to Romania ( TTA ) - Few of my impressions
from Ro-Mania :)
I just came home from a short 4 days trip to Romania. I'm truly
impressed by the beauty, the people goodness and their piety.
Over the last few years, I've visited Romania numerous times, most
of the times I just crossed by car while traveling to Holland. My
impressions the previous years were quite good already but I didn't
have the opportunity until now to see how the country looks "from
within" - I mean how the life flows there etc.
I've heard quite a lot of BAD thinks about corruption (from
european parliament critics in new) and gipsy like people and
plenty of bad stuff over the years.
This is all lies, the country people are not corrupt, they're just
smart and find plenty of ways to earn money. For instance while I
was traveling there were Romanians people selling raspberries
brought by the nearby woods, the raspberry selling is not entering
the treasury of the country and this is considered by the European
Union corruption and a crime :)
Well talking about police, they're a bit corrupt and stopping you
for no reason sometimes to ask if you can give them some coffee or
cigarettes but i wouldn't put this police act as corruption it is
rather an act the patrol police do in order to find some extra cash
near the low sallaries received for serving in police :)
Well anyways my trip to Romania here are few of my travel notes.
The whole travel Route was Bulgaria - Romania, the aim of my travel
can be classified as business trip, since I was travelling with a
relative's husband who was their to transfer some physical goods (a
kind of logistics). The wohle trip started from my hometown
Dobrich; we went through Silistra and Ruse and then the so famous
Danube bridge. The roads in Bulgaria are not perfect and some
regions were full of road holes, but this is normal since we have a
harsh winter here and now a road recovery works are in progress on
the roads. Crossing the Danube bridge, there is a custom police and
they charge something like 23 BGN (Bulgarian levs) for crossing it.
Then there is a border police check which as most people who
travelled by bus or car over borders (out of Schengen) knows pretty
well. You have to hand in your ID and it is checked by a policeman
and if you're not in the list of WANTED CRIMINALS
they let you
go. Some 500 meters or a 1 kilometer after that is the Romanian
border police which (since not part of Schengen yet checks your
traveller ID again).
In Romania we travelled through Gurgevo which is one of the closest
cities to Danube river bridgeroad and one of nearest romanian
cities to Bulgaria.
Our first destination was a place in Romania called
Targo
Mures, to go their our route passed through the side road of
Bucuresht - Bururesti as Domneles (misters) calls it.
As I'm trying to live an Orthodox Christian life the most striking
think from the moment we entered Romania to the one we went off it
was the number of Churches, Crucifix and religious references one
can see by just crossing the country roads.
Many villages in Romania had 2 or 3 Churches a small chapels a
Cross on the road sidewalks etc. Even many Romanian houses almost
everywhere had a Christian Cross on top of the house or on the
house door. Putting a Christian cross on top of your home is
something I myself has thought of and wondered why Christians did
not put here in Bulgaria and other Christian countries seeing this
being a reality in RO-MANIA
was
unexpected.
Other from my impression is that Romanian people work hard and a
lot of them live in the village, owning a small land to grow
vegetables and animals (sheeps and cows) mostly. While driving we
saw on many places shepherds with large herds of sheeps, people
mowing and generally many people who seemed to be working hard to
grow their own food. This really made sense since here in Bulgaria
grievously animals are rarely grown by country people and most
people are living in cities (our rural population is very
small).
Growing myself vegetables and having sheeps and living a village
life is one of my dreams so seeing so many people growing big
portion (if not all of their food on their own) especially in this
crazy super-market times is really something that gives me hope,
we're not completely doomed yet.
Biggest part of Romania is Orthodox Christian, while the deep
central part and the western part is Roman Catholic. Nomatter the
differences between the two the people in both parts seemed to live
in piece. The western part was visibly more developed than the
eastern.
In my observations the western part of Romania is highly influenced
by Hungarian culture and architecture, while a lot of Hungarians
live their today. We went through Sigishuara which seemed to be
mostly Roman Catholic though I saw some Orthodox Church too on the
city center.
Sigishuara is amazingly beautiful. The people
we met all throughout the trip was extremely friendly and always
wanted to help and threated us like true Christians, something one
can rarely see happening nowdays ...
Most of Romania we travelled is mountain covered and the air was
extremely clean, so when you're even breathing you feel very
different and alive if compared to whether in my hometown.
Brasov is one of the big cities in Romania but its
construction is not too much concentrated, the city is quite
scattered consisting of neap houses up to few stages per hight.
Generally in Romania I haven't seen too high buildings almost
anywhere, in Bucurest there are some but still they're not so tall
as the blocks in Bulgaria or some other ex-communist
countries.
Something interesting about
Brasov is that near it is
Transilvania and a castle in a small village (or town)
called
Bran, the castle is dating back from the 12 century
and is told to be the original castle where
Count Dracula
lived. Perhaps the region is filled with Vampire stories but
unfortunately my knowledge in Romanesco was so poor so I couldn't
get into contact to locals to ask for that (neither I had the time
to).
Bran castle was restored a couple of times and has been a host for
the royal family of Romania (many Romanian kings, princesses)
through the middle ages in Communistic time it was abandoned and
just recently it was turned to a cultural museum (probably part of
UNESCO).
The castle is located on a high rock and near it is a beatiful
garden and an old times mention. In the castle there are plenty of
objects left and traditional princess dresses, pictures, a cinema
room, an ancient torture room and plenty of other medievel
furniture.
The price was normal 25 LEU (the romanian currency), this equals to
something like 6,5 EURO.
During our way back from Bran we travelled through another mountain
region -
Sinaia.
The prices of food in the super-markets in Romania are quite almost
same like in Bulgaria and if compared to western europe many
products can be considered even cheap. The quality of food I found
to be quite satisfying. A lot of people in Romania are still
selling home made yellow cheese and natural grown products in
villages as well as I've seen plenty of this street old fashioned
tradesman which I like so much on the streets. The country roads
especially the central ones and highways were quite good too. Well
there is a lot to be said but unfortunately I don't have the time
to prolonge this post anymore. In the mountain areas there were
some sinaguture for monasteries according to what I've heard from
some priests here in Bulgaria in Romania currently they have 7000
Orthodox Christian MONKS! ! ! The number is amazing high just for a
comparison in Bulgaria as of time of writting we have not more than
300 monks.
Our trip thanksfully was safe and every romanian we met or ask
anything was more than welcome to us and tried his best to help us.
Finally it was time and we hit the road back to Bulgaria through
Danube riverbridge - the bridge road is a bit better than before
some holes are filled in but still there are plenty of holes.
We had to pass through the Romanian Customs and pay a fee for
passing by and later were checked by Bulgarian border police -
thanksfully with no problems. We had to deliver some cargo to
Karnobat in Bulgaria so we passed by there and then through Burgas
headed back through
Stara Planina (Old Mountain) which is
amazingly beautiful mountain and is a must visit place for any keen
on mountain tourism.
Thanks God I came back home alive and well and here I am writting
this post. To sum it up if I have to grade America and being asked
if it is worthy as a tourist destination I would say not only
worthy but it is a real pearl you must see!