Home At Last

And home I am, just long enough to start packing for the next adventure.

In summing up my trip, especially Romania, I have to start by admitting that I expected to see caravans of Gypsies in swirling, brightly colored skirts, dancing around campfires while the men played lively Gypsy music. Talk about racial profiling! I really got it all wrong yet was not disappointed in what I did find.

The lot of the Gypsies, better known as Roms or Roma, is not so pretty. Sure, some of the men play some pretty wonderful, lively music but many of the woman and children resort to begging to earn a living. That's not to say all those panhandling in Romania and Bulgaria are Roms. The women do tend to wear skirts and headscarves but it is not as colorful as I'd imagined.

Most of the people in these countries live just as we do. Their obvious customs are not much different from ours here in the states. many of the younger generation speak a little English and are more than glad to help. After all the warnings about theft and pickpockets, especially in Romania, I am a little disappointed not to have had anyone attempt such a feat. So much for expectation. For the most part, these people are honest...and the fact that their stray animal population is so well cared for attests to the fact that they are kind, too..

Would I live in Eastern Europe? You bet. I'd love to hang my hat in Romania, preferably Suceava or Brasov.

My next adventure begins in early July when a friend and I fly to Istanbul. Stay tuned.

Budapest Again

Last stop, Budapest, Hungary. We arrived late at night, missed the last train by a nose but found a taxi to our hostel. This hostel is located about a block from the central market and one of the bridges over the Danube. The good stuff is only a short walk away. Just across the bridge is an uphill walk to a variety of statues and a really great view. You can end up at the castle from there if you have the time and energy. We didn't do that route this trip because we saw it on the last visit in 2008. Speaking of walking, we are doing much less of it now, opting out for more subway and bus travel.

The first day we went to a park with Communist era statues and a training film from the era when Russia was Big Brother. It was interesting but not as complete as Stalin World in southern Lithuania.

The next day we went to an underground hospital that was built in the 1940sinto an already existing network of natural caves in the limestone beneath the castle. A guided tour was mandatory but quite informative. They have the old equipment, beds, OR, Xray stuff and wax figures who represent all their mangled patients. The hospital was active during World War II during which time they had the water supply interrupted for an extended period. It was so full of patients they put them in bunks, then lined the halls. Bandages were in such short supply they had to take them off dead patients and reuse them which caused infection, and on and on. One woman asked they guide how many survived and he answered that most of them died. It was also very active during the 1956 failed uprising against communist rule. During the cold war the old hospital was outfitted to be a bomb shelter and bunker in case of nuclear attack. That period is also represented in the displays. I highly recommend this museum if anyone is going to Budapest.

In fact, I highly recommend Budapest. The architecture is pretty fantastic. I could do nothing more than wander the streets there forever and ever. If you ask me about my favorite cities in the world, Budapest ranks pretty high.



Castle tower



Parliament building from the castle.

For all you dog lovers



Communist theme park statue

More Kiev Photographs

The world needs more of these guys



A tie the knot wedding tradition



Monument to starvation victims



Painted egg sculpture



Wish I could remember the name...

Kyiv, Ukraine

Our flight arrived very late. The directions given by the hostel gave the wrong bus number, then neglected to tell us that they were located behind a big apartment building. Right off the bat we found out how willing Ukrainians are to come to the rescue and the first person Adam used his Russian on answered him in English. It must have been midnight before we were settled in and the showers were barely lukewarm. Not a good start.

Ukraine and Poland are the hosts of the Europe Cup soccer tournaments. Sweden played and the Kyiv was expecting 100,000 Swedes to invade. There probably haven't been that many here since Sweden occupied Russia centuries ago. It was an exciting time, especially when Ukraine won. I didn't hear fireworks but heard horns till the wee small hours.

We went to the St Michael and Ste Sofia churches with all the onionlike spires. I was most impressed with Ste Sophia's because of the restoration process. This church is the first Russian Orthodox church and dates back to roughly 1000AD. It has undergone many changes since then,  surviving a lot of abuse and neglect over the centuries. Graffiti was even found dating back to the 1100s. At some point, a well intentioned restorer decided to repaint the frescoes in oil and it was poorly done. Then, in the 1960s, it was decided that these frescoes were not 'real art' and they were whitewashed over. That was easy enough to remove but not so the oil. The walls are divided in a haphazard way between the original fresco and the oil 'repairs'. That in itself is interesting. Then there are the cut outs, areas where the old was exposed and enclosed in glass so people could see the earliest construction. The old flooring was rough stone but the new is pressed iron tile. Sections of wall are exposed to show what is underneath it all, inside and out. Then there are the usual burials of church officials and the royal quarters upstairs. Some of these old churches have false walls that open into a stairwell where they took the church treasures into hiding when attack was expected. We were not allowed to take photos, as is the case in a lot of these churches, and people were positioned all over the place to make damn sure this rule is not broken.

Our first day out we were caught in the strangest storm I've ever taken shelter from.The sky grew really dark, it rained sheets that came in waves, the thunder was loud and a continuous roll that went on for the duration of the storm. We took shelter with an old couple under an eave. When it started seeming like it might last forever, them man took off his shoes and socks as his wife gave me embarrassed smiles, then they ran for it. We followed them into what I thought was a metro but turned out to be a huge, sleek, modern underground shopping mall.

Ste Sophia Bell Tower

Ste Sophia from the bell tower

A monastery I can't remember the name of.

St Michael's

Iasi, Romania and Chisinau, Moldova

In Iasi, our departure point from Romania, we talked to a travel agent who proudly showed us photos of the new, flashy, ultra modern 'shopping palace', their new mall, when we asked about the old palace of culture. She asked us what we liked most about Romania and couldn't believe it when I told her I loved the countryside and small villages. When she asked about our favorite foods, I said mamaliga and mici, cornmeal mush and mixed meat sausages, she gave me a really disgusted look.That's peasant food.

The memorable experience in Iasi was looking for a cafe. We found a very small one tucked back. It was elegant in its own way, very proper, and only older local people ate there . The waitress, almost matronly, came to the table and told us the menu in rapid fire Romanian. We agreed to it without understanding a word. Soon she brought a soup tureen with the most delicious ciorba, soup, I ever tasted. Then she brought the main course, cabbage rolls and grape leaves stuffed with meat, and mamaliga. Then the check and we left, still not understanding a word she said. Sure was a great meal.

Otherwise, Iasi did not rate high on my list.

We crossed the border into Moldova without incident. Immediately the landscape leveled out. This country is not Romania, that's for sure. We only spent a few hours in Chisinau, the capitol. It isn't in the disrepair that Sophia is but it reeks of the same hard life. Once again, anyone old enough not to be in love has forgotten how to smile. I can't even see traces in the lines on older faces.But I could be wrong. We rested in a little downtown park. Something was going on as there were vendors lined up in the park and a loudspeaker was broadcasting from closeby. There were vendors down the side streets, this time not selling crafts, just selling anything they could. From the bus to the airport I saw vendors all over the place in booths, tables, even blankets.



Iasi's Palace of Culture



Chisinau trolley bus



Chisinau street scen

And so a heartfelt goodbye to Romania.

Suceava.Romania

Suceava (pronounced Suchava) was the last city on my gotta see list in Romania. From here we will visit the painted monasteries. But first, a word about our hostel. Hostel Irene is the first place this trip where I haven't been the aged alien. So many people here are my own age,or close. We were a group made up of a Frenchman, Swede, Scot and Texan. Two of these were train conductors. How small is the world!

It rained yet again. I hear this has been the wettest winter in 30 years. The fellow at the hostel told us it went from being the coldest winter with temperatures in the double digits below zero, to rain, rain, rain. He says the crops were affected,and therefore expensive though you could have fooled me. At every stop we go to the outside market and buy cherries. Either way, the weather is terrible so we went to an inside ethnological museum that had beautiful examples of historic dress. Oh, the needlepoint! And yet there seem to be no artisan markets, a reminder of the lack of disposable income in this country.

We hiked in the rain to the castle of  Stefan cel Mare, aka Stephen the Great. More about him later. This castle was built in the 1500s with the usual castle wall, then another one surrounding that. As usual, the castle was built on a high point, good for defense at that time, great for views now. In that era this area was in Moldovia, not a part of Romania as it is now. There is still some feeling from the neighboring country, Moldova, that this area should still be a part of their country. Its sad that so much of the castle is in poor repair, the interior houses now a grid of crumbling walls. One guide commented that people over the centuries used the rock from the castle villages to build their own houses. But the outer walls still stand as do the towers and restoration is in process.

We had an easier time finding cafes that serve real food in Suceava. In a country where incomes don't support much eating out, cafes sometimes serve nothing but drinks. People spend whole evenings over a few beers, coffee, milkshakes, etc. The big rush to eat and leave doesn't exist here which sometimes makes it a challenge just to get your check and go. In one town, we sat in such a cafe so that I could draw the building across the street. Our young waitress recommended a milkshake so I asked for her favorite and what a treat that was! Anyway, Suceava had more eating places. Food is quite cheap, very good and we are tipping outrageously just because we can. A few times the wait staff complained we'd given too much and tried to give it back.

 We took a hostel tour to the painted monasteries and saw so many it came close to overdose. They were built by Stefan cel Mar who, after winning 33 out of 35 battles thus ending the Ottoman grip on Moldavia, was elevated to sainthood in 1992. His battles all took place 400 plus years earlier. I guess the Eastern Orthodox church has a waiting list. For each battle won, Stefan had a church built to commemorate it. There are less than a dozen remaining. One of Stefan's son's was so enamored with the art in the Roman churches that he decided to paint his own. Thanks to him, these churches had frescoes painted within and without but many of those are in disrepair or completely erased.Many of these were Bible stories in pictures for the benefit of a population unable to read. There are also many, many icons. Restoration is a serious and ongoing undertaking.

Between Cities

This trip has been city to city with long train and bus rides between them.  Life here differs from ours somewhat and I found myself captivated. People live in one city very much like those in any other city. They dress like we do, drive cars, live in apartments. The real culture differences seem to lie in the rural areas. It is the Romanian countryside I fell in love with.  

If only the trains stopped just for me to take photographs.We rolled past the most beautiful green valleys, field after field of cultivated land between low hills in central Romania going to steeper mountains in the far north. All along there were older people alone or in very small groups hoeing corn or raking hay with long handled tools. Hay is stacked on a stack pole or draped over wide ladder racks. Wagonloads of hay are being transported and we pass wagon after horse drawn wagon. I notice they also make those poor horses pull logs. These rigs can often be seen in city streets and auto drivers are amazingly patient with them. No horns.

Houses in the rural areas are usually modest. Many are brick or stone plastered over,  red tile roofing and, in some areas, corrugated fiberglass. They all have enclosed yards with the usual flowers and small gardens. Many people grow grapes and have a cherry tree in the yard. Mowing grass is not high on the agenda anywhere in Romania and Bulgaria. I'm told that gates are a status symbol and some get incredibly decorative with iron and carved wood being popular choices. In Maramures, I see small houses with small yards, very simple and plain, yet the shed has the most elaborately carved double doors. Heading to Suceava where the mountains are steeper, log cabins start showing up. I notice that firewood is no longer in three foot lengths but cut more the size of our my own wood stove. I start to notice that wells show up in almost every yard and the same principle applies to them as to gates. Some are so elaborate they could be mistaken for little cathedrals.

The roads up north are rough and mountainous, five hours between Sighet and Suceava. I call these hail Mary highways because they just are. I know so because the monk a few seats in front of me crossed himself several times. I am reminded that there is no stop, drop and roll in the afterlife so a little faith on Romanian highways is a good thing. Worse is how stuffy the ride is on a sunny day. The old folks have a superstition that the draft from an open window invites evil in so the minibuses we ride are hot. When someone sweaty or drunk gets on, it can really get miserable.

The Merry Cemetery in Sapanta

Sighisoara, Romania

Sighisoara (pronounced Sigushwora) is the town where Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, spent his early childhood before his father handed him to the Turks. But that's another story. There is a very nice castle with guild towers. The craft guilds were each required to build, maintain, and man these towers so vital to the defense of every castle. A couple are still standing, the watchmaker's tower being the most elaborate. There is a clock on this tower with little statues that rotate. When the clock strikes midnight, one of those figures comes forward. Being a sound sleeper, I missed that event. I did go up in the tower which has a pretty interesting museum in it. The old village is within the castle walls and many are painted in pastel colors. This town has more colorful houses than most.

After exploring the castle, we had pizza and I ordered one with corn, chicken, artichokes and little red pepper slices. Of course, I had no idea what I was ordering. That's part of the adventure of being here. Once I ordered a pepper and cheese roll thinking I would get bread with pepper and cheese on it. They brought me a beautiful plate with two red peppers stuffed with farmer's cheese, rolled in seasoned crumbs and baked.Yummmm!  Eating  out is so inexpensive here we can eat like kings every day, every meal. We are tipping like kings, too.

When our train to Cluj came, there was a whole  Rom family, if not a whole village, moving their household onto a passenger car. One carried on a rolled and tied mattress, another the slats, someone took the headboard, not to mention other furniture items. I wondered where they put it all but never found out as it wasn't my assigned carriage.

Clock on the Watchmaker's Tower

Brasov to Cluj

Our hostel in Brasov was located in the old town and the weather was nice so we sort of rambled at a leisurely pace. The old buildings are ornate, as usual, the parks green, the coffee strong and the chocolate good. We spent our evenings out on the streets and in the square along with everyone else. I do mean everyone because people here get out in the evenings. Lovers hold hands, elderly folk make their way along the cobblestone walks with the aid of their canes, older men are out on their bicycles and kids are everywhere. Middle age men tend to gather in small groups and argue loudly, waving their arms around and gesturing, yet it seems very friendly. People walk down streets where some settle at cafes for beer and fancy fruit drinks. I noticed a lot of grandparents out with their grandchildren, also children in groups having a fine time just being children. One park has chess tables where men sit around looking serious for long periods of time. In the evening Romanians go public. It is so much fun to observe. 

Near our Brasov hostel, there was a construction crew digging up a sewer pipe. Nothing unusual about that or the methods used to perform that task. What was unusual to our way of doing things was evident when we passed them during their lunch break. They were all seated on the ground around a cloth spread. On it was a loaf of bread and a roll of some kind of luncheon meat cut in really big slabs. There were other things but I couldn't see without standing over them: drinks, probably mayonnaise, maybe mustard. I found it really interesting that they didn't go to a cafe or have the sandwich the wife made. Instead they shared a communal picnic. What a concept. 

Baia Mare is a huge mining town. We arrived in the evening and had a terrible time finding our hostel. Finding food wasn't much easier. I met a fellow with a food stand at the bus station who helped us through the nightmare of Romanian transportation. Actually, I think he adopted us. Not only did he direct us to the right bus in the right lane at the right time, he made sure we were seated at the standing table while we ate the hot dogs he personally dressed for us (mustard, ketchup and lots of mayo). As we were about to get on the bus, he also noticed me dipping the peony I bought in the marketplace into puddles to keep it from wilting and ran over to present me with a plastic bottle of water for it as well as a stalk of wheat from the Catholic ceremony I'd asked about earlier. We gave him one of my magnets, a frog, which really seemed to please him. 

Cluj: I didn't like it and couldn't wait to get out. Just another big city with some nice buildings, I guess.

Gaia Mare Market

Peles Castle, Romania

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The Castle Tour, Romania

The next morning we went on the castle tour with a group from the hostel. The first was just another castle with the usual high stone walls, arrow slits, towers, remnants of a village and the usual spectacular view. It rained.

We then stopped at Bran Castle where Vlad the Impaler lived and ruled. Let me say here and now that Romanians view their past ruler with great pride. After all, he is the one who gets credit for ending  Ottoman rule which was said to be quite brutal. I know he had a cruel and nasty habit of spitting people like roasted pigs but he mostly impaled enemies. Somehow that's okay. Forget about Bram Stoker's Count Dracula. That's a work of fiction. 

Our group arrived at Bran Castle, climbed some stairs, then came upon a balcony with a nice view where a man was having a wonderful time taking pictures for people. This fellow stood out only because he had a cameraman with him with a big newscam type of outfit who listened to his direction and filmed accordingly. He was destinguished, I could tell that, and had an aura of one highly educated. However, he wore a sort of plain orangish quilted coat and had big teeth that didn't quite go along with the distinguished rich man image. I thought he might be a professor doing a documentary but Adam didn't agree because he wore expensive shoes, He came to Adam and wanted to take our photo for us so we let him. He had a wife with laquered hair who worried about his health and was obviously with a group. End of story, we thought. A little later a little brass band assembled in the courtyard and played a variety of international hits including Satchmo's "Wonderful World".What didn't make sense was the bagpiper in the Scottish plaid kilt. The next day I found mention in our guidebook of a guild formed to help save and restore Romanian monuments and castles. Adam looked up their board of directors and found our man, he said. The first couple photos didn't convince me but the third was exactly the way I remembered this man. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I'm pretty darned sure I had my picture taken by the Prince of Wales and didn't even realize it. 

Our last stop was Peles Castle, some notable's summer palace. And palace it is, not having walls and towers. It was indeed spectacular in the same way Asheville's Biltmore house is. Rather than take the inside tour, Adam and I traipsed a little way into the town of Sinia and I was smitten. Its heyday was obviously the Victorian era but the spires, turrets and gingerbread far surpass anything I've seen in the states or anywhere else. I know I found my dream cottage at least once. Sinia, Romania ranks highly among my favorite cities in the whole wide world. 

Clowning at Rasov Castle

From Rasov Castle

Bran Castle

Onward to Romania

Our next travel adventure had to do with public transportation and the language barrier. We thought we had it all figured out until we got to Ruse, Bulgaria where we hoped to catch a bus that would take us to Brasov, Romania. The buses were booked, every one of them. Punt. So we hiked into the main square where I was adopted by a stray dog. She followed us for a time, waiting outside shops, then trailing us to the next destination.. A very helpful fellow who actually spoke English at a tourist information office directed us to a few sites and good food until a train we booked arrived. We arrived in Brasov very late, fell into bed and, damn, I forgot to charge my camera batteries. Good thing Adam has one.

Lisa would love this!

Ruse, from the square

My canine companion

Teliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

I think Adam and I both agree that Veliko Tarnova, Bulgaria has been one of our best stops. Its a medium sized university town built on a ridge. From the highway you get the most magnificent picture but get splattered on the blacktop if you try to take it. The old town is built starting on top, working its way down a fairly steep slope. Drive through the tunnel and you can see the sheer dropoff that is the other side and the thick layer of solid stone that supports it. Its very picturesque, all those little houses with their red tile roofs tumbling down that hill.

There is a castle, Tsarvets. Every  European town seems to have started inside one. They all are stone with outer walls that are several feet thick and have the usual warnings not to stand on them. There are slots through the walls through which the archers defended the castle. The crumbling walls of past dwellings and businesses are everywhere. As usual, a church is the dominant feature. This one has the most unusual frescoes, almost modernistic, grey-toned, and the altar seemed almost like a collage rather than the usual fantastic gold stuff. One very different feature of this castle is that some of its cornerstones are old Roman tablets of marble and they don't even have signs to call attention to them.

We took a guided walking through the oldest part oftown just below our hostel. The streets are more like narrow, cobbled alleyways. The houses seem tiny though some have more than one story on the lower side. Almost all have red tiled roofing, small enclosed yards full of vegetables and flowers, and traditional Romanian rugs hang with the clothes on the line. Some would call it quaint and it looks like like the dire poverty but our guide told us that this is how the real Bulgarians live and they are very proud of it. I can easily understand why.

We were also taken to the monuments of all the Bulgarian military and revolutionary heroes, all but one having been executed. A monument of warriors on horseback taught us that if the horse had two feet off the ground his rider died in battle, one foot and he died of his wounds, and if all feet were grounded, its rider lived. Interesting.

Veliko Telnovo

the oldest Bulgarian sector

Tsarvets Castle

The centerpiece of the castle

Frescoes inside the castle's church

Which one lived to tell it?