Romania

Close your eyes and imagine Romania. Does the image that comes to mind explode with incredible bookstores? Well, it should! Get vampires out of your head! Romania for me was the land of amazing bookstores, both well-known chains as well as independent ones. Every Romanian city and town I went to surprised me with its multitude of bookstores, each with its own creative look or theme which made it distinctive and stand out from its competitors. Take for example this new bookstore in Bucharest called “Carturesti Carusel” or “Carusel of Lights”, aptly named considering the incredibly airy feeling of the refurbished 19^th century building with its six floors stocked full of books, albums, Romanian products, an art gallery, café, designated reading floor, etc. Basically Romanian bookstore heaven.

Another interesting site in Romania’s capital is its Palace of Parliament-still a controversial building. Construction began on the building in 1983, designed and overseen by Ceaușescu, who wanted to place every Romanian political institution in the building. As the building was only completed in 1997, years after the fall of communism and the execution of Ceaușescu, it was never used for its original purpose.

 A few numbers attached to this building:

- It is the largest building in Europe and second largest in the world (the Pentagon is first).

- Inside one can find 220,000 square meters of carpet and 3,500 tons of crystal

-30,000 people were displaced for the construction of the building

-19 Orthodox churches, 3 Protestant churches, and 6 Jewish Synagogues were demolished for its construction

-200 architects and roughly 20,000 workers on site worked around the clock for the project

-the carpet in the ballroom weights over 1.5 tons

-the stairs were redone twice since Ceaușescu, a man of short stature, wanted to be able to walk down them to greet guests without having to glance down.

one of the many huge rooms

There is a rumor that Donald Trump wanted to purchase the building and turn it into the world’s largest casino. The tour guide would neither confirm nor deny this…

Leaving Bucharest, I hopped on a train to Brasov, a city in Transylvania surrounded by the Carpathian mountains. I sat across from a Romanian teenager who heard me fumble my way through my awful Romanian with the conductor, and I saw his eyes widen as he realized I was American. Twenty minutes later as I sat reading my book, he passed me his phone which said “hello, my name is Alexander. I am too embarrassed by my English to speak. But could we write messages?”. Alexander and I spent the next three hours writing back and forth, and I learned a lot about his life in Romania, his joys, his struggles, his favorite Romanian foods. Every message was perfectly punctuated and spelled. I’m not quite convinced his English was that poor.

I snapped a quick picture of Alex typing out a message on the way.

In Brasov I was met on the platform by three lovely Romanian ladies who dedicated the following few days to showing me around the city. They showered me with incredible hospitality as they introduced me to Romanian food, the best views of the city, and even more cool bookstores.

They made sure to send me off to Sinaia with Romanian tea and gifts and promises of meeting again soon.

Upon arrival in Sinaia I made my way through town, past the peaceful Sinaia monastery, up a path through the woods to Peles Castle, one of the most interesting places I have ever been. 

Construction begun in 1874 by order of King Carol I of Romania. Each of the 160 rooms of the palace is inspired by a different theme-Florentine, Moorish, Turkish, Venetian, Chinese, Indian, French- the list goes on and on. Each room had specialty items and décor from these exotic places- Turkish izmir rugs from Anatolia for the “Turkish saloon”, paintings signed by various artists, bronze doors in the Florentine room from Rome, Murano crystal chandeliers, Cordoba leather, etc. On our tour we went through two armory rooms that hold a total of 4,000 pieces of weaponry. The palace has had central heating and electricity since 1883. A feat indeed! Our guide pointed out secret passageways, including a secret door in the library (which was stocked full of beautiful books in multiple languages) so that the king could disappear at any moment. I normally opt out of paying for a ticket to take photographs and take mental pictures if need be, but here I went back and spent my dinner money on taking pictures of this spectacular unusual building.

My last destination in Romania was Sibiu, a quaint Transylvanian city where the sun finally decided to come out of hiding for me.

Here is a view of Sibiu from one of the main churches in the city.

I spent my last day in Romania exploring the underground bookstore scene, sampling delicious Romanian street food, and learning about Romanian artists in the Brunkenthal National Museum.

The only downside to this otherwise charming country is that Romania still permits smoking in public places and restaurants. It was nearly impossible to find a café that did not suffocate you with smoke upon entering. Thankfully, most of the aforementioned bookstores had lovely smoke-free cafes. So my advice if you venture to Romania (which you definitely should)- find the bookstores. And the castles.