Romania – A Quick Trip

I had the opportunity to ride along with a friend to Romania last week. He had meetings in Bucharest and I went along for the ride. It was going to be about 40 hours in the car and one day looking around Bucharest on my own. As most of you know, my schedule is rather flexible so I jumped at the chance. We left on a bright and clear Monday morning and headed east to Szeged and the border. My friend, Gyozo, and I engaged in easy and interesting conversation. He had grown up while the Communists regime was still in power here in Hungary but his family made travel a very high priority. Every summer, he and his parents would travel to a different part of Europe and his knowledge of the different countries, their histories, their national parks and their geography is amazing. He prepared me for a vast difference in the development of Romania compared with the development of Hungary. I must admit, that before our trip here, I considered most of these countries of the former Eastern European area to be about the same. Boy, was I ever wrong!

The 25 years of Ceausescu regime and the 15 or so of his predecessor really took a toll on the country. In village after village, there were rows of the most atrocious looking cement slab buildings that were built during the 60’s and 70’s. They have had little or no attention to upkeep and they had to have been really ugly to start with.

This building was across from our hotel and thankfully being torn down.

While we were on the road, we saw many horse drawn carts, three funeral processions and tons of “Gypsy Houses.” I learned that many of these houses are unoccupied. The owners work abroad and send money home regularly to be used to built the most ostentatious exterior on the house possible. The family will likely live elsewhere but will be able to show their wealth by the scale of the family home.

These are a little dark but I hope you get a sense of the elaborate and ornate style.

We stopped for the night in Sibiu which was the Cultural Capitol of Europe in 2007. The center of the city has been beautifully restored with a huge town square, churches and government buildings. It was cold and rainy – a little sleet and snow and generally miserable out. We found a nice little restaurant and I sampled some Romanian beer which was very good. Since Gyozo was from this part of the world, I assumed that he would know what to order and what the other patrons were talking about. However, Romanian is completely different from Hungarian and he and I were in the same boat when ordering our food, reading the menu or listening to other conversations. Luckily, most people knew some English so we could both communicate with them.

The next day we traveled through the Karpathian mountains, through Brasov (near Dracula’s castle) and on into Bucharest. We had lots more rain and when we hit the outer areas of the city, traffic stopped dead. It took us about 2 hours to travel 10 kilometers. I have been in traffic jams, even really bad ones, but nothing like this. No accidents, no nothing, just too many cars for the road space available. Gyozo delivered some samples to one customer and then we found our hotel.

Carol and I are going to hire a driver and car for a trip in Romania over Spring break and I was able to meet the guide and have him give me a short driving tour of the city. So much of the city was destroyed by Ceausescu and he then put up buildings for his own use. The large boulevards and grand buildings are striking but the cost to the Romanian people was so great that the potential beauty is diminished in my opinion. Again, row after row of these atrocious cement apartment buildings detract from the overall impression of the city.

On Thursday morning, we set out for home. Our intention was to drive a slightly different route so that I could see more of the country and to stop overnight about 2/3 of the way home. We were both anxious to get home and Gyozo claimed he was not tired so we continued driving, arriving home about 1 AM.

After this trip, I am now shocked that I once thought of Romania and Hungary as “about the same.” Hungary is far, far ahead of Romania in roads, economy, infrastructure and overall development. Once again, I am shocked at how little I know of this part of the world – but I’m learning.