Iași (yash)
We arrived in the intellectual city of Iași in the early afternoon. We caught a cab to the city centre and immediately realised how much further our money would go than in England. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Trajan and I enjoyed feeling really posh and like I was in a Wes Anderson film at the same time. Iași is a pretty place to spend time; it has some modern buildings but many gothic buildings, and a town-hall that looks like it is out of Disney. We found people to be very courteous in this university-town.
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| Riding old school trams |
The following day our hosts (my London house-mates) came to pick us up and we began the long drive to Vicovu. We passed many horse and cart pairs harvesting hay. In rural Romania people are very self-sufficient. Most families have reclaimed land since communism and use it to produce the freshest of produce. Whilst we were there we ate fresh tomatoes, quails eggs, local chicken, aubergines, even ice-cream. I watched Dad visibly relax in the Romanian world; people still believe in fixing broken machines there, and respecting their elders. We were really touched to meet the parents of our friends who were also our neighbours; we overcame language barriers partly through a book about trains, and the common purpose of fixing a chicken-feeder.
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| Dads fixing the chicken feeder |
Heritage Rail, Salt Mine and local heritage
If you like industrial history there is oceans to get stuck into in the area. Dad's motivation on coming to Romania was to visit the Mocanita la Moldovita - it is famous with his friends even in England. Dad helped the guys fuel the engine, lapped up the ride too and from and even got a cab ride on the way home.The guys were so impressed by Dad's enthusiasm and help they even gave him the mobile number of the Austrian who set it all up! I mainly took in all the views including these slightly risky looking bridges.
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| Bucovina Rail |
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| Bridge |
There are other adventures to have. We spent a morning down the salt mine at Mina Cacita-Suceava; the caves have been used to store cheese and mushrooms, play football matches and even as an underground ballroom!
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| Underground ballroom |
Suceava has some gems to visit too. We went to the Bucovina Village Museum - where they have brought 30 houses from across the region and centuries to one place. You can tour them and learn more about the history of the region. I learned lots, but remain terrifying of the mourning house complete with wailing statues. My personal highlight of the trip was a late night trip to the Castle of Stefan - we had it all to ourselves and there was minimal interruption from little plaques explaining what everything us. Castles at night-time can be magical!
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| so much magic |
The area of Suceava is famed for its UNESCO protected monasteries, we visited a few. It is certainly true that some of them have beautiful painted walls but the experience of these spaces was possibly the most alien of all our time in Romania. Neither Dad nor I have had much exposure to Eastern Orthodox practice and it felt unfamiliar. That said, I bought a beautiful hand-painted icon of Jesus at one of the monasteries, he is installed above my bed and was the inspiration for a lot of my bedroom design.
A first class rail journey?
There are not many opportunities to experience first class rail travel in my English life. So when the opportunity arose to cross Romania in a first class sleeper coach we jumped at the chance. The majority of the trip felt like a really luxurious trip into the past. That is until about 7am the following morning when the train came to a halt. After 2 hours of sitting still there was a bang on the door and the guard said 'You English need to leave'. We were so scared of what was going on; descending the carriage Dad fell to the track and I watched our whole trip flash before my eyes, we eventually boarded a standard class train, via absolutely everywhere, and Dad stood for 45 mins til a seat became available. We eventually learned where we were through my GPS and what the problem was, localised flooding as evident from the window. We did get to Bucharest eventually but we did also reward ourselves with a McDonalds.
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| Our impressive cabin |
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| Flooding the railways |
Bucharest
We spent our last 48 hours before the journey home in Bucharest. To be honest I think we were spoiled by Iași and Suceava, in that we found Bucharest to be noisy and a bit too 'lively' for us. For dinner we went to Caru cu bere - the inside is a finely painted beer hall with live musicians and everything, but we were happy to cut the queues and sit outside. With full bellies we fell asleep and the next day flew home.
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| Gara de Nord |
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