Romania: Bucharest, Transylvania and Maramures

Building facade with Romanian flag in Bucharest

I just got back from a nearly 2 week trip to Romania and it was absolutely an amazing country to visit. Romania is definitely a country in transition - it has one foot in the past, but it's front foot is firmly poised to step into the future as it prepares to join the European Union in only 2 months. More than anything Romania is a country of contrasts. From simple rural farmers in Transylvania and Maramures hauling hay in horse drawn carts, to trendy fashionistas with the latest gelled hairstyles in Cluj Napoca, to the the glue sniffing homeless kids on the streets of Bucharest, Romania represents the full spectrum of Europe over the last 100 years and rich vs poor, east vs west.

Abandoned car in Bucharest

My trip started out in Bucharest, Romania's largest city and rather cosmopolitan capital. My Lonely Planet guide book described Bucharest as the next happening place in Europe. "Forget Prague or Budapest," it proclaims, "Bucharest is where travellers in-the-know are going now..." Naturally I was eager to check it out, not only because I've lived in both Prague and Budapest over the last few months, but because the Lonely Planet Gude says Bucharest "has soul" (something I've found sorely lacking in Prague, and suspect exists in Budapest if I can ever get past the language barrier here). Anyway, it didn't take more than a few minutes of watching the colorful locals in Bucharest's gritty Gara du Nord train station to figure out that yes, this town does have soul. It may be the kind of tattered soul you get in other third world cities like Bogota or Sao Paulo, but it does indeed move to a less pretentious beat that promises subtle treasures for those who scrape below the surface. Life isn't about efficient government and well kept facades, it's about living life despite the calamity around you. Maybe something to do with the Italian influence? You definitely feel it here. Bucharest seems kind of like a run-down Rome and the language even sounds a lot like Italian. Kind of like an archaic Italian spoken with Russian intonations. Romania is also the first post-communist Eastern European country I've been to where I didn't feel like everybody was depressed and grieving the psychological traumas of half a century of Stalinist doctrine. Surprising given the brutal regime of Nicolae Ceausescu that only ended less than 20 years ago. I think Romanians look more towards the future than fret about the past. This is a good thing for an Eastern European country.

Young Girls on the streets of Bucharest

After a few days in Bucharest, I went off to chilly Brasov, in the mountains of southern Transylvania. I rented a car there and drove up to Sighishoara the next day where I met up with a couple of friends I had made at the hostel in Bucharest. We spent a night in Sighishoara, the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler. Sighishoara definitely fits the Translyvanian stereotype: spooky old buildings on craggy mountain tops with endless mist and fog. This is the place to come if you want to experience the Transylvania of legend. It's not hard to imagine where images of werewolves and Draculas roaming about come from. This place is funky and it was also my second favorite town in Romania next to Bucharest.

Sighishoara, Transylvania

After Sighishoara we drove north through Transylvania to the town of Sighetu Marametiei, in the Maramures region just bordering the Ukraine. It was a rather hairy drive, especially at night through the mountains and Transylvanian fog that never seems to let up. Sighet, as the town is also called was nothing special, but we did stay at a great hostel run by a very helpful couple. The real reason for going to Maramures was to visit the Iza Valley, a small valley that is home to one of the most traditional peasant farming cultures left in Europe. The people living here are renowned for their wooden carvings, as well as wooden churches and gates, which adorn almost every house. They still ride horse and buggies and reminded me a lot of the Amish. We spent a whole day touring this area and photographing the people and wonderful churches. I have to say the people themselves were some of the most lovely folks I've ever met - gentle, kind, and warm. They were more than happy for me to take their photos and seem to have a simplicity and joy that was lacking everywhere else in the hustle and bustle of this big country.

Peasants hauling crops in Maramures, Iza Valley

Driving through Maramures though was another story, especially at night where you have to constantly dodge horse drawn carts, bicycles without lights or reflectors and peasants wearing black clothes and walking in the middle of the dark highway since there are no sidewalks along the roads that lead through the small towns. I still can't believe I didn't hit anyone and apparently a lot of pedestrians are killed this way at night. Probably a lot of them end up in the colorful "Merry Cemetary" at Sapanta.

Colorful, Poetic epitaths adorn the graves in Sapanta

The highlight of the otherwise boring town of Sighet was the Sighet prison museum. This notorious communist era prison housed countless "enemies of the state" during the years after WWII and the Ceausescu regime. I wasn't aware of how brutal things were back then. Thousands of political prisons were "reeducated" in prisons like these or died under mysterious circumstances, all of which is chronicled very well in the museum. One of Ceausescu's favorite forms of torture for his "enemies" was to administer moderate levels of forced radiation, not enough to kill, but enough to bring about horrific forms of painful cancer and slow death. There's no doubt that Stalinism and the reign of Ceausescu was a horrible plague for the region.

Map of Communist Romania with prisons and labor camps indicated

After the Iza Valley, the town of Cluj Napoca in western Transylvania was a bit of a shock. Cluj is a university town and home to the most fashion-obsessed people I've seen anywhere in Europe. Everyone is wearing the latest clothes and latest hairstyles, especially the teenagers. People eye you up and down for what you're wearing and although it's a pleasant town with lots of good cafes and bars, I found it a bit pretentious.

Trendy clothing store in Cluj Napoca

The other interesting thing about Transylvania that surprised me is preponderance of the Hungarian language. Transylvania used to be part of the Hungarian empire and many people here still speak Hungarian, often refusing to learn Romanian. Quite a few towns have bilingual road signs and every town has a Romanian name and a Hungarian name (and in quite a few cases a German name too). The Hungarian issue is quite a delicate political controversy here though and the subject of lots of ill feelings on both sides.

Gypsy couple in Sibiu

After Cluj we went on to Sibiu, a charming little town, and then back to Brasov before returning to Budapest via overnight train. One of the great things about Romania was the language. Anyone with a solid grounding in another romance language will understand a lot of things in Romanian, quite a change from Hungary where any other European language won't do you a bit of good. My solid Spanish and basic French got me pretty far. Romanian sounds a lot like Italian and has incorporated quite a few French words as well. It was a nice change to be able to understand restaurant menus!


I took quite a lot of photos while I was in Romania, 3 different galleries worth! Check them out:
Maramures/Iza Valley
Sapanta Cemetary
Miscellaneous

Halle-fucking-lujah!!!!

These truths shall be held self-evident...