Romania

I first visited Romania twelve years ago and spent several months in the country in the early 2000s, mostly in Bucharest. Wow has it changed. The apartment block on Piata Unirii where my father lived for three and a half years, though structurally the same, housed a fancy European bank on the first floor and looked across to a giant mall full of western stores. The sidewalks leading to the Palace of Parliament were free of the haphazardly parked cars I remember and even had a bike lane!

Palace of Parliament, built by Ceacescu in 1984, is the world’s second largest building, after the Pentagon. 1/6 of Bucharest was bulldozed to build the giant structure. Out front was a tethered hot air balloon with a woman wearing a wedding dress. It was part of a promotion-the train of her dress now hold’s the Guiness record for the longest in the world. (Ceacuscu was Romania’s long serving communist dictator 1965-89)

Romania’s Transylvanian mountains were home to many German settlers, aka Saxons. Seven of their walled citadels are still standing. One of these towns, Sighisoara, built in the 12^th century over a Roman settlement was home to Vlad Tepes (also known as Vlad the Impaler, inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel). Vlad was born in 1431 in a building that now houses a restaurant near the citadel square. Today Sighisoara is a UNESCO heritage site. The 14^th century clock tower in the Sighisoara has been continuously working since the Middle Ages.

 

Regularly inhabited for more than 2,000 years, Sibui, another Saxon town, has a beautiful old town with large squares, cafes, and pastel painted buildings.

 

Peles Castle (1875), near the town of Sinaia, Translylvania, was built as a summer resident for King Carol I, Romania’s longest serving monarch. During Ceaucescu era, the 160 rooms were used to host visiting leaders, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Muamar Gaddafi, and Yasser Arafat were among the guests.

 

Bran Castle (Dracula’s Castle for tourists), located near the Saxon city of Brasov, was first mentioned in documents in 1377. Vlad Tepes, who ruled 1456-62, lived at Bran briefly, but is the source of much tourism. The castle was in use until 1957 (current heirs live in Ohio) and has been restored to display historic art and furniture collections for tourists.

 

In 1623 prisoners housed in Rasnov Fortress were tasked with digging a well for the fort. Upon completion, they would be freed. Digging the 470 foot deep well through solid rock took 17 years. The well enabled the fortress to be entirely self sufficient during attacks and was used for over 220 years. 

 

Copşa Mică earned its reputation as Romania’s “ugliest town” by ranking among the most polluted places in Europe for much of the 1990s despite closure of the offending factories. A carbon dye factory in operation for 60 years, covered the town and its surroundings with black soot while the smelting factory led to CM recording the highest infant mortality rate in Europe, 1000 times acceptable levels of lead in the air, and two thirds of children exhibiting signs of mental illness, and life expectancy that is still 9 years below the national average.

 

The Transfagarasan Highway was constructed in four and a half years in the 1970s as a means to transport Romanian soldiers and equipment in case of a Soviet invasion. We followed the road through small mountain villages to reach the “real” castle of Dracula, Poenari.

 

We were the only visitors to the 13^th century Poenari Castle, the out of the way route and 1,462 steps up to the ruins likely dissuading other potential tourists. In front of the castle, two bloodied mannequins, impaled from anus to mouth, demonstrate the favorite torture method of Vlad Tepes, who used the castle during his reign.

 

Romania has an excellent website with tourism resources:

http://www.romaniatourism.com/