Trip Report – Romania 2007

August 6, 2007 to August 12, 2007 (Page 2)

© Mary Deorksen updated October 2007 (email contact)

August 6, 2007

Breakfast in the hotel dining room .. today we roll – it’s a tossup whether the pavement will be wet or dry …

Walking past the Evangelical church yesterday en route to the market we saw our young girls standing at the entrance to the steeple. I had my chance to ask my question: was she “Roma” as in Romanian or “Rroma” as in gypsy? Her eyes widened in shock at the suggestion of being a gypsy.

Sibiu was the focus of an uproar in 2003 when Florin Cioaba, a self-styled “king” of the Roma or gypsies, married off his 12 year-old daughter Ana-Maria. She stormed out of the ceremony declaring she wanted nothing to do with it. Romania was negotiating entry into the European Union at the time and the incident focused international attention on the protection of human rights in Romania; Ana-Maria became an overnight cause celebre. Florin Cioaba defended his decision to marry off his daughter – after all, who else would know better what was good for his daughter than her father? The fact that the marriage had been pre-arranged five years earlier in exchange for 500 gold coins, an apartment and a second-hand car was a minor detail. Ultimately Ana-Maria changed her mind and married 2 days later; the following morning the family of the bridegroom proudly displayed the wedding sheets to prove the marriage had been consummated.

What became of Ana-Maria, I wondered? By tradition, she would have joined the household of her husband, helped with the cooking and cleaning, and borne children as and when required. The girls however were circumspect: there had been various radio reports but nobody really knew what had happened to her.

We saw the Passage of Stairs, the market, the Liar’s bridge – all standard fare of gorgeous lines and peeling paint. The Brukenthal Museum was worth a couple of hours – the paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had darkened (because of varnish?) whereas earlier works were incredibly vibrant and detailed; the Brughel paintings were outstanding (it’s the first time I have seen a real one).

We made our way to Pivnita se Vinuri “Weinkeller” for supper – the rooms were tiny, made of flat red brick with vaulted ceilings and low arches; it is the first dining room that had a feeling of intimacy and the best selection of Romanian wines we have discovered so far: an expensive (by Romanian standards) Prince Stirby cabernet sauvignon was the first we have tasted that comes close to international standards. It has the herbs and earth of a cabernet, although the aroma and finish were unexceptional. Food is extremely good value here (my Transylvanian stew was excellent) – our food total (excluding wine) was 42 lei (about $20), including a dessert that combined the best qualities of a donut, a beavertail, and an éclair.

Agnita

A good day of cross-country riding although the wind came up and strengthened against us in the afternoon.

A German cycling couple we met on our way out of Sibiu were just finishing their bike trip and gave us their cycling map of Romania. It was of course published in Germany and had colour-coded routes for both touring and cross-country riding.

Literally dozens of horse-drawn carts passed us in the other direction all the way to Nocrich, where there appeared to be af market or fair underway. A brightly dressed gypsy family was walking along the street – “pot fotographie?´I asked the husband. The wife immediately demanded money (starting at 50 euros!); by the time she was finished with me I had been talked out of all our chocolate and never did get a photo – next time Mary will handle negotiations.

In Altina Mary outran a pack of dogs, blowing hard on her whistle all the way; a group of Slovenian cyclists had earlier forewarned us about them – one of the women had a substantial dressing on her leg as proof of their encounter. Apparently a Japanese tourist was killed in Bucharest last week by a dog that bit a vital artery in her thigh.

Our hotel is straight out of the communist era – concrete, drab, with 18 steps to climb just to reach the entrance. When we arrived the receptionist was sitting on the front balcony with her small son – there’s not much demand for rooms in Agnita. She wanted to keep my passport but I refused – it was too much trouble for her to copy down the information on the standard form.

The shower head in our room is multi-directional: a cracked O-ring ensures water sprays in a 360 degree arc. We don’t know yet if we have hot water.

The hotel was likely a result of Ceausescu’s “Systemization” program, under which entire neighbourhoods were evicted and everything bulldozed. New concrete apartment blocks were erected, and former house owners became tenants of the state. “Systemization” was universally despised; even Ceausescu’s son defied orders to raze neighbourhoods. Apparently one of the sparks that ignited the 1989 revolution was the order to “systemize” some of the ancient Hungarian neighbourhoods of Timisoara.

August 7, 2007

I can no longer deny it – a head cold has me firmly in its grip, with a nose that runs perpetually and a cough that is firmly lodged midway in my bronchial passage: curses. I blame it on the hallways of Agnita – the decades of cigarette smoke clinging to the hallway walls could have been peeled with a knife.

We didn’t even bother eating before leaving Agnita, we were so depressed by the place – every colour seemed to be grey. The fellow on the morning shift offered Mary somebody else’s passport when checking out.

In a village bar we stopped for coffee – the TV was tuned into Romanian soaps, and there was an ashtray on every table. Mary asked about the washroom and was directed to the public facility, an outhouse; she got to practice supporting herself on her hands.

Riding through the countryside, it is hard to see how these small country towns will benefit from the great leap forward into the EU – they have no visible industry and no expertise in a service-based economy. From a distance the villages look wonderfully pastoral with church spires and clay-tiled roofs nestled in valleys among the hills; up close they start and end with the roofs and everything below in need of repair (except for the Digi satellite TV dishes on every house). The shepherd in the rain walking with his flock looks happier than the townsfolk – he at least has purpose.

In the meantime, the cars of tourists (mostly German) speed by on the two-hour run from Sibiu to Sighisoara, along with the shiny black Audis and BMWs with Sibiu plates, and the heavy trucks, the Dacias, the local bicycles and the horses …

Sighisoara

“Visually archaic even by Romanian standards”: my favourite quote about Sighisoara …

An old woman in the street asked us if we want a “camera particular”; she saw us coming out of a pension (it was full) and walked us past the expensive hotels. Indicating we should wait she entered a closed gate and found “Doamna” (the lady of the house); “Doamna” showed us a room upstairs (everything was spotless and nothing matched), the toilet downstairs (via the external stairway), the shower (past the dining room); she ensured very carefully that we understood the price (80 lei per night) and emphasized that we should wipe our feet before climbing the stairs (she keeps a very clean house).

It’s interesting how much history is defined in terms of Vlad Tepes: here is the house in which he was born, there is the tower in which he was imprisoned, his son was stabbed here, and that is his tomb … I don’t know whether this is because this period of Romanian history is unambiguous or whether it is catering to the tourist trade. It’s ironic that “Dracula” was virtually unknown in Romania prior to the revolution. However, the laws of supply and demand will prevail: tourists want Dracula and Romania has responded. There was even a plan to build a DraculaLand theme park in Sighisoara, which proves that bad taste knows no limits.

August 8, 2007

Lunch …

We booked train tickets to Baia Mare this morning – I’m surprised we can manage the trip without a connection but won’t complain. We reconnoitred the approach across the tracks and discussed the technique for getting all our gear on board: we will have about three minutes to manage the transaction. Returning from the train station we stop at a 1937 basilica in which every square inch of the interior is painted with icons, all fresh and all gilt – it makes one wonder what a huge basilica like Saint Sophia would have been like in its glory.

I am truly glad we made the effort to learn some rudimentary Romanian: a table of American women sitting next to us at breakfast was a contrast in cultural crossover. We couldn’t help overhearing their conversation – they appeared to be a film crew working on a documentary of the rehabilitation of Sighisoara. The director was commenting, “Think of it from their perspective, from the perspective of the man in the ditch.” All agree, of course; one of them will have a revised script ready for review by tomorrow morning. Another wants to know which breakfast items are milk-free – the poor waiter (a high school student) doesn’t understand and the tone takes a harder edge. Not one of the crew have bothered learning a single word of Romania (not even cafea for heaven’s sake!) and somehow feel the service staff should automatically be fluent in English – “think of it from their perspective” indeed.

Hotel Sighisoara

We split up for the afternoon. I climbed to the church on the hill, the highest point in Sighisoara; it is a gothic, 15^th century church that is surprisingly bright inside. The original frescoes were plastered over in 1771; where the plaster has been removed there are gouges in the frescoes from the original application of the plaster. There are triptychs from various altars which one can walk up to without hindrance. I have never been a big fan of medieval art, but the detail of the expressions is a testament to the skill of the anonymous artists.

Just below the church is a school of music; from an open window I heard a solo violin – a live instrument resonants with a presence that cannot be captured in a recording. Inside, behind every door there was the growl of bowed strings; I opened a door more or less at random and sat on the first chair along the side wall while the master teacher practiced a piece. He is Romanian, lives in Switzerland, and returns each summer for sentimental reasons to teach.

I asked if he played any local music; “You mean gypsy music?”. It wasn’t what I meant. One of our disappointments has been music; we have heard little of the folk music we had read about. However, he had been polite and I didn’t want to monopolize his time.

Sighisoara has two famous native sons: Vlad Tepes (whom everybody knows of) and Hermann Oberth, one of the fathers of space flight. I believe (but am not certain) that he developed the mathematical formulae to calculate the quantity of fuel required for a rocket to reach orbit – it is apparently a very complicated integral equation which balances the thrust produced by the engines with the ever-diminishing quantity of fuel.

Back at the main plaza I ordered an apa plata; did the young woman speak English (“yes, of course”); how has Sighisoara changed (“in what way do you mean?”). There has been a lot of work done in the citadel, particularly for sewers and gas (all badly needed) – as a result much of the cobblestone has been torn up and is yet to be re-laid (people have read on the internet that the citadel has been torn down). A lot of this work is financed with European Union money. She studies economics and when she graduates will have lots of job opportunities in Bucharest (much dirtier than Sighisoara where they clean the streets every night). Are there business opportunities in Sighisoara? Yes (gesturing at the buildings in the citadel) there are hotels all around and they are completely full during spring and summer.

Casa cu Cerb

“The House with the Stag” - I have to write down the name so I don’t forget it. This is by far the best restaurant we have seen so far: roast venison and pork with dumplings, both in excellent sauces. In his Book of Snobs, the Duke of Bedford states that, when inviting someone to dinner, always serve a homemade sauce. On most menus, sauces have been listed as separate menu items; here they are prepared to match the specific dish – full marks.

August 9, 2007

After our stay at “Doamna’s” and our train ride, we headed straight for the most expensive hotel in town …

Doamna let us down with a poor, over-priced breakfast, and then conveniently did not want to give 20 lei change when we paid her. Mary sorted that out fairly quickly; we agreed that we had not enjoyed our stay in her house – next time we will know better when deciding on a room.

At a little alimentare (store) on the way to the station we bought some lunch supplies for the train ride, including “salami Canadian” - how could we resist? Men in fluorescent overalls were sweeping up the cobblestone streets with brooms made of twigs.

The train: we were in position on the correct platform when the train rolled into the station. Mary got up first, I passed her the panniers, then one bike, then the other, then myself and the train started rolling. We soon realized (i.e. were told) that we were in the wrong car: we were in a first class car with second class tickets. The train conductors were sympathetic – how far were we going? Baia Mare: “Baia Mare, oh-h” and they raised their eyebrows, widened their eyes – I could tell from the fast winks how things were going. Come into the compartment and sit down; with a weary sigh the conductor opened the flap of his leather satchel, pulled out pad of paper. a pencil, and a table of distances; the cost of two first class tickets, plus two bicycles as baggage at 20 kg each was scratched out: 125 lei. “Let me consult with Doamna,” and we all walked down to the other end of the car where Mary was getting increasingly nervous. “I don’t think we have much choice.”

We were motioned into a first class compartment; the “fee” for the tickets was exchanged. And the bicycles? Not a problem, said the conductor, and pointed to the luggage racks. The luggage racks were only 12 inches wide and were on either side of the compartment – I didn’t see how this could work. “Nu problem.” I was sceptical but rolled in a bike and hoisted it overhead – the wheels reached rim-to-rim, but the handle bars twisted. Nu problem: down came the curtain rod and off came the curtain; the conductor lashed the front wheel to the luggage rack with the curtain. In a matter of minutes both bikes were “riding high”. “Everything will be taken care of in ten minutes after a call to Bucharest,” he said and we were assured of our own private compartment all the way to Baia Mare.

The second stop after leaving Sighisoara is Copsa Mica – Mary and I gasped at the sight of buildings that are black skeletons and the blighted earth.

Copsa Mica is another of Ceausescu’s legacies. He had one economic strategy, and that was the promotion of heavy industry. Massive factories were established with no thought of environmental consequences; entire villages were uprooted to work in the factories. The only mitigating factor in his favour is that the industrialization was concentrated in specific towns, sparing the broader countryside. Apparently Copsa Mica is the most polluted spot in Romania: life expectancy is 9 years lower than the national average.

The villages seemed to improve when moving north – from the train they appeared to be more well kept and the farms looked more prosperous. I’m not unhappy to have bypassed Cluj – we didn’t need another city right now and already the air up here is fresher.

When approaching Baia Mare I asked the couple in the next compartment on which side we would exit from the train. I admit the question was mangled beyond belief. The fellow shook his head in total bewilderment. They were a young couple from Oregon travelling on their honeymoon to Sighet, and did not speak a word of Romanian – mind you, their glow was the universal language of romance. I hope their trip went well.

Baia Mare

Hotel Mare dining room for supper …

The “systemization” apartment blocks in Baia Mare are almost visually appealing: the architects incorporated traditional clay roofing tiles as part of the facade to very good effect.

The restaurant menu looks good, even interesting, but my meal is served cool, like an airline meal that has not been not heated properly – I wonder if these plates are pre-arranged and frozen? The restaurant chairs are high-backed and draped with satin cloth – they look like wedding dresses. So far every restaurant, whether fancy or common, has had exactly the same stainless steel salt-pepper-vinegar-oil holder.

Our room is very modern and includes a shower with wall-mounted nozzles that give a pin-prick massage; at 100 lei a night it is a bargain. We even have real bottom sheets that tuck in; the blanket in the comforter cover is synthetic.

Bedding in Romania has been a surprise to us: the bottom sheets are laid on top of mattresses and not tucked in; there are no mattress covers. After tossing and turning trying to get to sleep through the barking of a pack of dogs, one can wake up on a bare, unpadded mattress.

August 10, 2007

Sunday morning with a forecast for showers. We are done with cities for a while now – it will be day after day in the saddle from here on, thank heavens. Why does every restaurant have to play easy-listening pop music? Last night some bar seven floors down played European dance music until all hours of the morning – there ought to be a law …

Pensiunea Limpedea

Lunch time just outside Baia Sprie – it has been a steady climb out of Baia Mare and we are just about to hit the pass. We are sitting at a picnic table in the shade of tall trees and mounting foothills – it is a beautiful setting that would be worth an overnight stop (tel: 07 45 311 162). The household puppies let Mary have her puppy fix.

Ocna Sugatag

We climbed Pasul Gutai (Gutai Pass) almost immediately after lunch – 12 km at 7%. A small canteen at the top served mititei or grilled, skinned meat sausages that had a very strange, sponge-like texture – I won’t say what they reminded me of; we would have preferred avoiding them. We could see Cresta Cocosului (the “Cockscomb”), a serrated limestone outcrop that is a national reserve; they are attempting to develop an agrotourism industry in the area. However, the turnoff road looks as bad as the cow path from Avrig – we continued on the paved highway.

Coming down the other side of the pass was like entering another world – it was impossible to stop at every photo op: haystacks, carved wooden gates, impossible vistas with purple mountains as a hazy backdrop. The wooden gates are exceptional – every part of them have been hand carved with decorative patterns.

The turnoff from the main road towards Ocna Sugatag was a shock – the surface was pebbled asphalt and the grades rivalled the Transfagaras. This is the first road on which I notice a factual (but minor) difference with the Dimap Road atlas (scale 1:250,000).

Supper: pizza by the public pool … we’re listening to Ancuta Anghel and Vasile Barani: it’s good up-tempo Romanian pop-jazz …

Hotel Silva, night … the electrical outlet is in the wall right behind the middle of the bed head; the lamp cords won’t reach from the end tables, so the bedside lamps are perched on the bed posts. We have yet to be given a face cloth in any of our rooms. Lying in bed, I have the sensation of a nerve tingling in my upper right leg; in a matter of minutes all my inner thigh muscles have seized into a powerful cramp. Thankfully Mary is still awake to massage some Myoflex into the muscle; it takes a couple of minutes before I can attempt to stand …

August 11, 2007

It’s amazing what a difference a good breakfast makes for a good day of riding, and breakfast at Hotel Silva wasn’t very good. A good coffee, a bag of paprika chips and a fabulous peach from an alimentare in the village of Budesti helped set things on the right path.

We spent a fair amount of the morning in Budesti with the intention of seeing its wooden church (it was locked). One of our disappointments so far in the Maramures is that the churches are locked. Ten years ago asking for the key may have been a viable alternative, but today too many tourists are coming to the area for this to be realistic.

In Calinesti we finally saw a church that was open – the door was actually open. The church was under construction – well, not actually under construction, but under adornment: a young artist was painting icons and murals on the church walls. It was better than seeing a church that was completed – here we had a living work in progress. Some murals were finished, some were half-sketched on the walls, some walls needed plaster to cover the cracks, and little pots of paints with all their various pigments sat in the usual organized mess of an artist. How did the artist decide which subject to place in which spot on the church wall, I wondered. “Ah!” he said, and thumbed through a book which was an artist’s guide for painting an orthodox church. There on one page was a numbered diagram of all the positions on the wall, each number corresponding to a particular saint. I asked his name but he demurred – churches are painted anonymously, he explained, and we left it at that.

The road from Calinesti to Barsana is a beautiful climb via the village of Valeni, where the road descends in the longest, steepest hill I ever seen. The hill was being resurfaced with Euro money; resurfacing is definitely needed on these roads – some are more pebble than asphalt and the rolling resistance increases by at least two gears.

In Barsana we stopped to look at another (locked) church. The stop was not totally without merit: we discovered Heidi chocolate bars – Mary will ride happier now.

Heading up a side valley, Mary burst ahead at a furious pace (she usually rides behind me). A local called out to a middle-aged man on his bike, probably goading him about being outpaced. He and I both tried to catch up but couldn’t quite manage it – she must have had Shakira playing …

Botiza

I am now sitting is the back garden gazebo waiting for Mary while our hostess prepares supper – it is a beautiful setting on a beautiful evening – we have another good day under our belts.

With little more than a half-hour’s notice our hostess has prepared a superb bowl of mamaliga cu branza (polenta with cheese) – it is mouth-watering. There are little shortbreads with chocolate filling for dessert.

August 12, 2007

Sunday morning in the gazebo – Mary is getting dressed and I’m getting coffee. It appears that our hosts live in separate, wooden houses along the periphery of the yard, and the main house is reserved for tourists. The house is extremely well built; the interior stairs and balustrade are real marble (architecturally, this is a bit of over-kill; the house itself is basically middle-class).

When I came down the marble stairs this morning, a young boy sitting on the couch and watching television said, “It looks like there could be some rain today.” This is unusual – it is not often that we have been casually addressed in English. His name is Den, he is 13 years old and is with his parents on vacation. His English is very, very good, and he seeks us out to practice his conversation; we don’t mind – he is pleasant company.

Our objective today is to get inside a church, specifically the wooden church in the village of Poienile Izei in the next valley; its “nightmarish” scenes of Hell have been noted in a number of reports as well as our Rough Guide. Our hostess says that we can go directly up the road rather than taking the long way on our bikes. On the map this is the cross country route – it could be an adventure.

Afternoon snack on the pensiunea terrace ...

The Rough Guide describes the road to Poienile Izei as “execrable”’, whereas the village sign merely lists it as “drum calamitat”. Either way, I wouldn’t drive a car over it. We walked the 8 kilometres.

The walk was gorgeous. The views reminded Mary of pictures from a children’s story – rolling meadows, forests, hay stacks, houses in the distance. In the village we followed a group of women to the church, all dressed in freshly laundered white blouses, pleated skirts and black shoes (the one on the left wore heels). Their heads were covered with kerchiefs – we had thought of a blouse to cover Mary’s arms, but had never considered a head covering.

We had walked here to see the old wooden church built in the 1400’s, but it was locked (again!), so instead we attended the service in the “new” basilica built in the 1700’s. Here we were uncertain what to do and made a few false starts entering the church, not wanting to offend. Eventually we were helped upstairs to the gallery where the choir was singing and the teenagers hung out. The adolescent boys on one side of the gallery were goofy; the young girls opposite looked like little ladies-in-waiting lounging at the railing and watching the activity below; the hormones were bouncing off the walls – it was a good thing the choir was in the middle.

Watching the service was like observing a community in motion. People arrived throughout the service, standing in reverence before entering and then greeting neighbours inside – it had a more casual aspect than what we are accustomed to seeing. Women (with their heads covered) sat at the rear of the church and the men (bareheaded) sat at the front. The men’s hats were neatly stacked at the end of the benches on which rugs had been thrown for comfort. The priest conducted the service at the altar with his back to the congregation.

There were no musical instruments; in the purest of voices the choir leader would softly sing the opening note to each section of the choir just as the priest was finishing his intonation, and the choir would all sing on cue when the priest finished. The service alternated back and forth continuously between priest and choir for more than an hour. For the blessing of the bread and wine the entire congregation came forward, placing their right hands on the shoulder of the person in front of them.

After the service we waited at the front door; the priest hardly took notice of us – he looked like a politician tending his flock. We asked the doorkeeper if we could see the small wooden church – “Da,” he said and he motioned for us to come. We waited while he went for the key (and a shot of palinca). The inside of the church was very dark and we could barely pick out the frescoes on the wall. He pointed out Adam and Eve, and in the porch we saw the famous scenes of hell – the glutton being ploughed open, the church snoozer tormented by a fiendish fiddler, the careless woman who had singed the priest’s cloth being flat-ironed, the church farter being inflated with bellows, the sodomite being split with an axe-head … below, a pope was being led into the jaws of a demonic hell. We may see no other church interiors in the Maramures but it will not matter, we have seen the church of Poienile Izei.

Evening, sitting on the front porch …

The afternoon was spent in Botiza in search of another open church which we did not find – the churches are locked after service. The wooden church in Botiza was originally built in a village some 30 km distant, possibly Visue de Jos, from which it was moved; they must have disassembled it, moved it in horse drawn carts like those we see on the side of the road today and then reassembled it. The wood all fits perfectly – there was no chinking that I could see.

We did however find the craft shop of Victoria Berbecaru, a local teacher and weaver. It was she who had directed us yesterday to our excellent pension. We purchased one of her carpets which tells a local Christmas story, which (if I understood correctly) goes as follows:

There are three shepherds: Moldavian, Transylvanian, and Wallachian. The Moldavian shepherd is younger and more beautiful but poorer than the others; the Transylvanian and Wallachian shepherd plot to kill the Moldavian but the Moldavian’s sheep overhears the plot and warns his master. The Moldavian ignores the warning and is killed and then there is some bit about the Moldavian’s sheep causing a flute to be played that I didn’t quite understand. When the Moldavian’s mother comes looking for him she is told he has gone to marry a foreign princess; finally there is a falling star that is indicative of a man who has died. All this in a carpet of one-by-two feet. Victoria also gives us the names of two artists who have recorded local music: Ionut Sidau and Angela Buciu.

Mary asks our hostess for the recipe of the (mouth-watering) shortbread cookies she served last night. She obliges; there is one ingredient we can’t make out; our hostess goes to her kitchen and returns with a jar of pure, white pork lard …

Supper tonight was stupendous (as all our hostess’ meals have been) – apples kept falling onto the roof of the gazebo with a bang. There is something about eating soup with pork meatballs (ciorba perisoara) and french fries cooked in pork fat while two pigs are grunting in the sty 15 feet away – we are loving those pigs more and more with each bite. Dessert was German pancakes filled with homemade jam and folded in quarters. It’s enough to make one’s teeth water …

Next ... August 13, 2007