Bucharest

I'm in Bucharest for my final few days in Romania and the sun is bright. Friday I go to Copenhagen to visit my friends that I haven't seen since 1987.

But first, Transylvania, which is in the middle part of the country, has castles, mountains, forests, ski resorts. It's very beautiful, but like all over Romania, there is trash everywhere. It was cold while I was in Sinaia; one young woman told me they have 2 weeks of summer, and there already was snow on the mountain tops. I was lucky because there was a festival over the weekend. Lots of blaring music, but also folk dancing and folk music that I really enjoyed watching. There were crowds of people all eating grilled meat - mostly pork and sausages, and drinking beer and hot mulled wine. Pickles were served as was bread and cabbage salad. The main attraction in Sinaia is a magnificent castle called Peles Castle from the turn of the century. It is supposed to have the best wood carving in all of Europe, and impressive it was, also rooms decorated with items from all over the world. One especially lovely room is a small screening room with elegant chairs for the guests to sit on. There are also lovely music rooms where concerts are still held.

The other castle is Bran Castle in Bran, also known as Dracula's Castle, even though the historical person, Vlad Tepes, may only have stayed in the castle for a few nights. Vlad Tepes was a prince born in 1431, a cruel and ruthless ruler. The castle is more of a fortress, built in 1382 by the Saxons (Germans) to defend the pass against the Turks. It's white and has very thick walls.

The area of Transylvania belonged to Hungary up until WWI and the names of some towns are still in both Hungarian and Romanian. Brasnov is a lovely medieval town from the 13th century. I sat in the large cobblestone square and basked in the sun. Interesting enough, many of the churches in the area are German Lutheran.

Bucharest: Today I visited the Village Museum which consists of houses from all over the country. It was very interesting to see the different structures from different periods of time. There was beautiful patterned pottery and woven blankets and rugs inside some of the houses.

Bucharest is a big busy European city. It was built much like Paris and in the 1930's was called "Little Paris". but it was bombed during WWII, and there were earthquakes and then with the changes under Ceausescu much of it doesn't resemble Paris, although there are huge boulevards, plazas, round abouts and beautiful buildings. Unforunately there are also many ugly buildins and ultra modern buildings that interfere with the historic ones. Traffic is horrendous. There are crosswalks, but often the cars dare you to cross. I'm having fun exploring.

Where ever one goes, the coffee and pastries are wonderful, as is the wine. Many people smoke and restaurants are supposed to have nonsmoking areas, but often they are hard to find. People are helpful and friendly. I'm having no problem getting around with the efficient subway.