Exploring Romania: From May 24 through July 5, we visited the historic towns of Transylvania: Cluj-Napoca, Sighişoara, Sibiu, Brasov, and Sinaia. After a week in Bucharest, Romania’s capital city, we returned to Transylvania for a longer visit in Sibiu.
Bucharest, Romania’s capital, is a large city, so there’s much more to explore here, and more to learn about Romania’s history. So Sara scheduled a walking tour for our first full day in town.
While some areas in Bucharest are quite nice, many others have old, abandoned, and uncared for buildings. Our Air BnB was a nice apartment, but the area was dirty and unpleasant. We learned a lot more about why this happened during our Second Walking tour. Thankfully, our place was just a short walk to the Old Town and access to other attractions.
Walking Tour #1 with Diana: Our personal guide met us at our apartment for a walk around the town. She was an enterprising young woman, anxious to help us find things to do and ways to spend our money in Bucharest. She walked us through the Old Town, by the huge fountains of Piata Unirii, past many remarkable architectural buildings (now mostly owned by banks), and up to the massive “Palace of Parliament” built by Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918-1989)
The Carturesti Carusel bookstore is a highlight in the Old Town. It’s quite beautiful and well worth a visit. We love bookstores, and we love cafe stops. So we visited here more than once.
Bucharest’s “Old Town” is not really an old town at all. The city suffered much during the wars of the 20th century, the earthquake of 1977, and communist rule until 1989, so there was not much of an Old Town left to preserve. But tourists in Europe want to see the history. So Bucharest spruced up what little was left and built new in the old styles to create a vibrant and attractive Old Town Center. And now there are tourists, so it’s fun and crowded.
Our guide recommended one of the more popular restaurants in the Old Town, the Caru cu bere (the beer wagon). It’s quite large, with seating inside, upstairs and on the pedestrian street, but it’s so busy that you need a reservation. The building and architecture looked Bavarian to me, but the theme is traditional Romanian food. Waitstaff wear traditional costumes, and every now and then the music starts and costumed dancers entertain the guests. Diana reserved a table for us, and highly recommended the pastrami dinner. So I went for the pastrami while Sara chose a polenta meal instead. She loved her polenta; I could not finish the “pastrami” dish, it was so nasty. The restaurant was fun, but we didn’t return.
Romanian Patriarchal Cathedral: The most important cathedral of the Romanian Orthodox church, this complex is well-preserved and beautiful. Romania is among the most religious countries in the world. Believers make up 99% of the population, with 87-90% in the Romanian Orthodox churches.
Roman Athenaeum: This beautiful concert hall is home to the “George Enescu” Philharmonic. Enescu (1881-1955) is thought to be the most important among Romania’s musicians. The music of George Enescu accompanies the colorful dancing fountains of the Piata Unirii each weekend.
Piata Unirii: Right in the center of town, Piata Unirii, the Union Square, features a number of large fountains. At sunset on Friday and Saturday nights, the fountains come to life for 45 minutes, with lots of color, action, and the beautiful music of George Enescu. Hundreds gather to enjoy this remarkable show. It’s pretty amazing.
Walking Tour #2: Communism & History Walking Tour of Bucharest: While walking us through Bucharest, our guide for this tour explained much of the local history, helping us to understand the city as it stands today.
At the start of WWII, Romania allied with Germany, but they switched sides after the Soviets beat the Nazis in the battle of Stalingrad and then began invading their border, opening the doors to communism in Romania. Elections were held, of course, but the communists, like the Nazis before them, knew how to count votes so they would win.
Why does this city still have so many abandoned and declining buildings? Our guide explained that this goes back to the history of communist rule in Romania.
Nationalization: Under communism, all property was owned by the state. Wealthy homeowners lost their property, which was given to small town villagers brought to the city for work. While properties were always owned by the state, the state never maintained them, so many buildings fell into disuse. In the 1990’s they created new laws hoping to improve things, but the laws were contradictory. The original owners (mostly now long gone) could purchase what had been their own to begin with, or the tenants could buy it from the state. The communist regime fell not long ago, in 1989, so it’s not surprising that Bucharest today is the least developed capital in Europe, largely because of these questions regarding ownership. Many state-owned buildings are still just sitting there.
The Romanian dictator who ruled from 1965 to 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu made things even worse. Taking advantage of the destructive earthquake of 1977, Ceaușescu cleared out a huge area of the city to make room for his own building project. Destroying both ruined properties and intact homes, he cleared the space for a very wide boulevard to run from Piata Unirii in the center of town directly to the foot of his huge Palace of Parliament.
Palace of Parlaiment: It certainly is big and impressive, and it’s known as one of the world’s heaviest buildings at 9.04 billion pounds. It was under construction from 1984-1989 when the communist government fell and Ceaușescu was executed. We skipped the inside tour and saw only the exterior, but it’s certainly beautiful and lavishly decorated. They spared no expense, but even then, it was never fully completed. Today it houses three museums, the two chambers of the Romanian Parliament, and facilities in which the state can hold events and conferences. Nevertheless, the building is still not fully completed and 70% of it remains unused.
Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime was tough on the people of Romania. Initially, Ceaușescu distanced his rule from the Soviets, which some welcomed. Over time, however, he became more oppressive and dictatorial. Romania’s “Securitate” was everywhere, so people learned that even speaking in criticism of the government would risk their lives. The economy fell apart while Ceaușescu spent lavishly to build his mansion and the Palace of Parliament. Meanwhile the people went hungry.
Revolution Square: In December of 1989, protests began soon after it was announced that Ceaușescu was “re-elected” for another five-year term as president. We visited the building which was the headquarters of the Central Committee. Appearing with his wife, Ceaușescu would address the people from the balcony here, as the party had organized a supportive crowd. As Ceaușescu spoke, the crowd turned more against him, so the military stepped in, killing many and arresting hundreds more. On the next day, when he attempted to speak again from this balcony, the protesters forced their way into the building, so the Ceausescu’s flew away in a helicopter. Today this building, and the area before it is known as Revolution Square. Demonstrations against the regime were now so widespread that the military could not control the people. The Ceausescu’s were quickly imprisoned, sentenced in a quick show-trial, and executed on Christmas Day, 1989.
Oddly enough, Ceausescu still has his admirers. They’re usually older people in the rural areas who think Ceausescu did more good than harm. Thus, along with the refrigerator magnets for Dracula, you can also find some with Ceausescu’s smiling face.
We enjoyed our visit to Bucharest, but we liked Transylvania even better. So we decided to return for some more time in one of our favorites, Sibiu.
