Romania Part 1: Overview

Romania is a land of contrasts: mountains and plains, large cities and tiny villages, modern, large-scale agriculture and industrialisation alongside horses and wagons.  Wooden village houses, medieval old towns, grey communist era housing blocks, Orthodox churches stand alongside Roman Catholic cathedrals and even the occasional Lutheran church. No mosques. In the next pages we share our experiences (and just some of our 1,000 photos) under various sections.

 

In each of the countries in which we travel, we quickly realize that in order to understand what we see, we need to understand some of its history. A Google crash course in Romanian history helped us.

 

Early Roman rule extended to Romania (those Romans were everywhere!) followed by waves of occupation by other races or nations, including Bulgaria. Over the centuries, parts of current Romania were under the Turkish Ottoman rule, while others were under the Hungarian Empire, at whose encouragement Saxons (from Germany) also settled.

 

Romania’s borders as we know them now are a result of treaties made after WW1. After WW2 Romania became a communist state, for much of the time lead by Nicolae Ceausescu.  Although he seemed respected by outside nations, Ceausescu's spending put Romania on the brink of bankruptcy and to counteract this Romanians experienced severe shortages in food, fuel and other essentials. Now seen as a dictatorial megalomaniac who built his monuments on the blood of the people, he was overthrown in 1989 (and executed) and the country is now a democratic republic and a member of the EU and NATO. 

 

The lavish parliament building built under Ceausescu (above) with the adjoining buildings to the left and right (below) . We toured the parliament and gained a glimpse why it is said that it is "built on the blood of the people"

 

 

The title for this museum says a lot. At the same time, people can cite positive things from a communist regime, e.g. no unemployment.  

 

With this historic background, we could better understand why it was that there are regions having differing architecture, where Hungarian and German where spoken, and where the 'monuments' of Ceausescu's reign impose themselves on the landscape.  Romania is still one of the poorer countries of the EU and this is evident in much of the infrastructure, as well as its low cost structure.  It is another country where we can live very cheaply, but where the minimum wage is equivalent to 200 Euro ($300 Australian dollars) a month, so costs are still high for the local people. 

 

Where is Romania?

 

Romania and its neighbouring countries: Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldova

  

 

Romania is about the size of the state of Victoria, and has a population of some 20 million people. Bucharest, the capital, is a large, modern city with wide roads and grand buildings. There are many large towns throughout the country, with populations of several hundred thousand and busy  industrial areas.  

About 2% of the population is Gypsy (Romani). Eighty six percent of the population is Romanian Orthodox, while Lutherans are in a grab-bag of Protestants comprising a total of 5%.

The Carpathian Mountains dominate the central/northern parts where we spent most of our time.

 

We entered Romania from the Bulgarian city of Ruse, driving first into Bucharest in the south, and then north to Cluj-Napoca in the Transylvania region. From there, we drove in a large arc (1,000 km) through the regions of Maramures, Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania, returning to Cluj after two weeks. We next plan to drive to Budapest, the capital of Hungary.

It is fair to say that we had been somewhat tentative about travelling in Romania. However, we have been delighted with what we have experienced. The majority of our travels were done in conjunction with Green Mountain tours, a company that has regional and rural tourism at its heart.  We undertook a 15 day self-guided driving and hiking tour which took us to some of the less frequented tourist places.  Accommodation was prearranged for us and the hikes helped walk off the very generous meals we enjoyed. We had unlimited internet in all places, and were often amused to see the driver of horse and wagon talking on his mobile phone. Everywhere we went we found only friendliness and helpfulness, with people expressing surprise that we had come from so far away.

Guest houses typical of those where we stayed