Sinaia

The Biblical Mount Sinai was where Moses received the Ten Commandments. But the Romanian mountain of the same name (sin-EYE-ah in Romanian) is a popular ski resort in the Carpathian Mountains.

A hundred and fifty years ago, in the 1870s, the first modern king of Romania, Carol I, wasn't ski-ing, but he was interested in having a summer home in the mountains where he could escape the heat of Bucharest.

Carol built a modest little cabin in the woods -- by royal standards. The Peles (pronounced PEL-esh) Castle only has about 160 rooms and was built at a cost that would equal approximately $120 million U.S. dollars today.

Born as the second son of a German prince, he had a distinguished career as a Prussian military officer. But after his predecessor -- an Ottoman puppet ruler -- was deposed in a coup, the Romanians turned toward Germany to find an otherwise unoccupied royal who could be recruited to rule.

Karl had commanded Romanian troops in the Russo-Turkish war that had brought about Romanian independence. This earned him the respect of the Romanians, so he was invited to be the prince of the two provinces of Moldova and Wallachia.

In 1881, however, Transylvanian joined the union and Karl (Carol in Romanian) was crowned king of the united country. That's when he really got busy with his summer home project.

Most of the "castle" (it really isn't a fortress in the medieval sense) is lavishly decorated the German Renaissance style. But some rooms are done in French Rococo.

And amazingly, given the recently hard-won independence from the Turks, a couple rooms are in Moorish and Turkish style.

Carol died in 1914 without a direct heir. His wife, Elizabeth, also a German princess, suffered 18 miscarriages and gave birth to only one child -- a daughter who died before her fourth birthday.

The crown passed to Carol's brother. But in the chaos of World War I, in which Romania played a pivotal role against Germany and Austria and as an ally of Britain and France, there was also chaos in the ruling family.

Nevertheless, Romanian royalty continued to use Peles until driven into exile by the communists. For their part, the communists refrained from destroying the castle to use it as a propaganda museum to display the evil, opulent lifestyle of the monarchy.

The communist dictator, Ceaușescu, hated the place and closed it down, but it was restored and reopened as a museum once again after the revolution of 1989.

Back in Bucharest, we enjoyed our farewell dinner with the group. We have to leave for the airport at 3:30 a.m. and we're not looking forward to it.

Bran Castle

Cristian, our tour leader, took us for a walk this morning along a trail on the opposite side of the old town from where we walked yesterday.

The trail was not as wooded, but still very pleasant. There were more sections of the old city wall still intact on this side.

We also passed some of the city's sports facilities: an outdoor ice hockey rink (now drained for the summer, of course), courts for European handball, a large tennis facility, and a high school track oval with soccer fields in the center, rather than the American football field we're used to seeing.

On the way back to the hotel, we searched for and located the old Jewish synagogue in the city. But like most in this part of the world, it no longer functions and stands as a museum. There was a fee to enter, so we passed. We've already visited enough of these.

Because the housekeeping staff at this hotel is incredibly inefficient, our room was still not serviced after most of the morning (in fact, they didn't get to it until about 3 p.m. -- still earlier than the previous day). So we vacated and did some reading in the lobby.

We then decided to take another walk to visit the Orthodox church that we can see in the distance from our hotel room. Fairly recently restored, it has an especially beautiful dome.

The day was growing hot, so we sought out a place in the shade to linger over a beer. We found a craft beer spot, but our selection wasn't the best. Perhaps if our Romanian had been better....

We signed up for the optional tour to Bran Castle, (pronounced Brawn) but it didn't begin until 4:15 in the afternoon. This castle (or at least a sketch of it) was the inspiration for the castle described by Bram Stoker in his horror novel, Dracula.

Stoker used Transylvania and the castle as backdrops, even though he never actually visited here. He also borrowed the name from Vlad Dracula, the brutal 15th century ruler of Wallachia (the Romanian province south of Transylvania). Although this guy never visited Bran Castle either!

The castle remains intact, and was in fact occupied by members of the Romanian royal family until World War II and the communist takeover.

After our tour, we were served dinner on the castle grounds. The menu was duck, followed by something called "Romanian Funeral Dessert." It's much better than it sounds, consisting of whole wheat grain (like an oatmeal), nuts, honey, and rum. The dessert is uniquely Romanian and often served at funeral lunches, hence the name.

Brasov

Brasov (pronounced BRAH-shov) is an industrial city in Transylvania, but the old Medieval city center was untouched by the wars of the previous century and is wonderfully restored. Although archaeologists have found evident of human settlement here dating back 9000 years, it was established as a trading center settled by Saxon merchants in the 13th century. 

At that time it bore the name Kronstadt, and was a key center for trade between Vienna and Istanbul. Most of the old Saxon families fled from the communists and went back to Germany. Briefly named "Stalin City" in the 1950s, the Romanian name comes from the nearby Brasov River.

Our day began with a bus ride up the "mountain" (large, steep hill) to a scenic overlook. Because there is so much smog hanging over the city, we could have skipped that. Then the bus brought us back for a walking tour of the old town.

The key landmark in the old city is the "Black Church," which got its name -- possibly -- from a great fire that swept the city in 1689. Or from industrial pollution in the 19th century. In any case, it's no longer black. The church is one of the largest Gothic structures in Eastern Europe, and became a Lutheran congregation as a result of the Reformation in the 1540s.

The reformer who led that transition was a guy named Johann Hanterus, who has a statue outside the church. Our tour leader tried to tell us that old Johann was a personal friend of Martin Luther, but the dates and places are wrong, and when asked by the town council to create a theological statement, he appears to have been unaware of the Augsburg Confession or many of Luther's writings.

The church, however, still functions as a congregation of Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania.

When we visited, the organist was practicing and we got a free concert, despite noisy tourists. There are actually four organs in the church, though it appears that only the largest and newest one (from the 1850s) is actually functioning.

An interesting feature of the church is the collection of oriental rugs hung on the walls. There were Turkish imports that were used as funeral palls for wealthy merchants, then donated to the church as memorials. It's actually one of the largest collections of genuine Turkish rugs in the world.

While the Black Church dominates the old town, it is surrounded by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Hungarian population is mostly Roman Catholic, which Romanians tend to be Orthodox.

After a bit of a break for lunch, we took a hike along a trail through a wooded park on a hillside above the old city. The path was mostly paved, but in some areas gravel.

The path took us to the "White Tower," a watchtower that was placed outside the old city walls to prevent invaders from sneaking up on the city from above. The tower remains white, except for the graffiti.

Farther along we came to the "Black Tower," which served the same purpose, although it had a different architecture and was built of different materials. Like the Black Church that it overlooks, the Black Tower is no longer black.

Both towers offer a panoramic view of the old town.

We returned on a lower path that runs just outside of the old city wall which is cleverly named, "Strada dupa ziduri" -- which translates as, "The street behind the walls."

All of that hiking on a hot day made us thirsty, so we continued to the old town square and enjoyed a local beer at an outdoor cafe. We had hoped for some good people watching, but it was too hot for many people to be out. We wound up reading books on a bench in a nicely shaded park near our hotel for a while.

We returned to the square later, however, for a bowl of soup for dinner. It was excellent soup, and there were more people to watch in the cool of the evening.

Backstreet Bucharest

Tour leaders bravely took dozens of American tourists who have never ridden mass transit for a ride on the Bucharest Metro this morning. This group demonstrated yesterday, when we checked into the hotel, that getting on an elevator was a challenge for them. However, without too much comedy, they managed to get us herded onto the subway for a brief ride to the next stop.

Once we had disembarked, we emerged at the University Plaza. Unfortunately, most of the university buildings are under renovation, and were shrouded in scaffolding. But nearby we saw the National Theater and other nearby buildings.

We then walked a short distance to the National Bank of Romania which, unlike the beautiful building across the street, has been fully restored to its socialist mediocrity.

Walking further into the Old Town district of Bucharest we visited a Medieval caravanserai (an overnight stopover inn for traders and their animals) that is now a fancy restaurant.

We also visited one of the oldest Orthodox churches in Bucharest, where we witnessed a very unusual act of veneration for the relic of a particular saint. The relic sat on a marble table, and beneath the table was a cushion. We watched an elderly woman get down on the cushion and crawl under the table to the other side. She then walked around to the front of the table and repeated the action, for a total of three times.

Nearby, we saw the ruins of one of the many castles that once belonged to King Vlad (a.k.a. "Dracula"). It's in bad shape, but is also being renovated to become a high class restaurant. More's the pity.

Along the way, we came across part of a high school graduation ceremony taking place outdoors in a park. Because of the heat, students were shedding their black gowns. They were dressed to the nines underneath.

Thanks to Google Maps on my phone, we managed a long walk in the hot sun to the old Jewish quarter. There we made a "donation" in order to visit the Great Synagogue of Bucharest, which is now a Holocaust museum. We didn't have time to stay long.

Back at the hotel, we were granted a late checkout in order to prepare for our bus ride to Transylvania. But we were a little too slow to get to the bus, and because others seemed to assume that they were entitled to spread out over two seats, we weren't able to sit together. Mark was in the back with all the coughing and sneezing. There are suddenly a lot of sick people on the trip.

The Carpathian Mountains are not the Alps or the Rockies, but they are quite beautiful and the wealth in the resort villages along the way demonstrates that money does, indeed, flow uphill. Unfortunately, we drove through fog and heavy rain much of the way, so we got few photos.

As we neared Brasov, however, the skies cleared and we were able to see that this city of 300,000+ still shows its communist past, but like Bucharest, has dressed it up with fresh paint.

Our hotel is in the old city center and surrounded by charming old buildings that are well preserved. The entire old town area, which is quite extensive, is a pedestrian-only zone. We walked to dinner, but we are anxious to see more.

Romanian Backtrack

The M.S. River Adagio is our home no more. We packed up and left the ship this morning and spent the next several hours on a bus, going back the way we came on the boat. We even crossed the Danube three times on the highway, seeing places we had just been the day before.

The motorway was in better condition than a lot of Interstate highways in the U.S. It's a toll road, but all tolls are collected electronically so we had no stops for that.

The terrain when we left Constanta was rolling hills. It looked a lot like Iowa or Minnesota. But shortly after our second crossing of the Danube - Black Sea Canal the land became tabletop flat. The fields are huge and there are no farmsteads. Farmers drive equipment from towns.

At a rest stop we encountered a Roma ("gypsy") woman who had parked her horse and wagon among the wild poppies that line the road.

We arrived in Bucharest in time for lunch. Our tour director told us that we were nearly there and to get ready to leave the bus. Then we inched our way through heavy traffic on city streets for another 45 minutes. All three of the other buses with Adagio passengers arrived ahead of us. We wonder if our driver was lost.

Lunch was very good. And as soon as it was finished we met our local guide and got back on the bus for a city tour. Big meal, hot day, warm bus -- the guide wasn't bad, but we couldn't stay awake.

We stopped in Revolution Square, across the street from the Presidential Palace, where we met a Romanian man who participated in the demonstrations that led to the ouster of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989.

We continued on to the Parliamentary Palace -- the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. 

This huge building -- which Ceaușescu nearly bankrupted the country constructing -- is not sufficient to house the entire government and bureaucracy of little Romania. There are more government office buildings lining the avenue that leads to it.

Bucharest still bears the marks of its communist past, but with a lot more fresh paint, tree-line boulevards, and nicely restored older buildings than cities in some of the other countries we've visited. It was known as "the Paris of the East" in its pre-communist days, and that classy history shines through, too.

After checking into the hotel our tour leader took us for a walking orientation of the neighborhood. On his recommendation we visited a bakery that specializes in French-style eclairs. They were a bit pricey, but very good.

Then we went to a grocery store and bought cheese sandwiches for dinner. Nothing like having dessert first! But the sandwiches were also quite good, and incredibly cheap.