Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

We caught a pretty rickety train from Romania to Bulgaria. We passed a large area where there were 'nodding donkeys' pumping oil from the wells and barges carrying coal along the river.

It was pretty hot the whole trip and the train stopped at the border for ages and at one point we sat for an hour with no engine and it was stifling.

Bulgaria is famous for monasteries and yoghurt. Now it is a part of the EU it has attracted a lot of middle-aged Brits who are buying up Black Sea properties and mountain villas and making real estate too expensive for the locals. Recently we heard that Bulgaria had had its EU funds stopped because of corruption and there are now many projects on hold as these funds were for them. The farmers are unhappy as they now have no subsidies.

We arrived at Veliko Tarnovo and were met by George from the guest house we had booked into. That was a treat as it was a long uphill walk to the guest house otherwise.

The guest house had a fantastic view of the town below. 1 in 6 residents of the town is a student but once they are on holiday I'm sure they are replaced by the same number of tourists.

We met Tara from Brighton, England and got up at 6.30 to do a 4 hour walk to the Dryanovo Monastery. We took a long time getting out of the city as there were many trails left by the locals walking their dogs and the shepherds grazing their animals.

The monastery was being renovated and the nuns lived nearby in a run down 3 storey building. It was possible to rent a simple room there if anyone wanted to. We had a lot of difficulty returning from the walk and tried hitching but were lucky enough to flag down a bus.

We visited the Tsarevets Fortress overlooking the city. It had a sound and light show but only happened if there were enough tourists in town to pay for the electricity for it.

We found a wonderful restaurant in town with 80 types of salads and diet pizzas made with rye flour. It has been difficult to find some fresh tasty food in the last few countries we have visited so it was a delight. Not only were the local dishes tasty but they were also cheap. The markets were full of summer fruits as well so we ate peaches, nectarines and watermelon everyday.

John has had toothache since Hungary but no amount of nagging on my part got him to see a dentist there so we had to visit a local dentist in the town as he was in pain. The dentist did not use gloves and the equipment was old and dirty. I don't think she had updated her practice since learning under the communist system and didn't know how to preventing cross- infection to her patients. She didn't speak English so we had to take Maria from the guest house to translate for us.

She didn't have an x-ray machine so we had to go to a lab in the city the next day and then we decided that we would not go back but find another dentist in the next town we would go to. The pain had subsided so at least John was able to sleep and eat properly.

In the town there were many of these wall murals on the end walls of some of the buildings. There were also many Soviet style statues in small squares scattered around the town.

We saw these red and white cords tied onto several trees about the city and discovered that they are worn on your wrist and on March the first you tie them to a tree with blossom when you see a stork. It is for good luck and good health.

We also saw many of these A4 sized posters tacked to trees, nailed to front doors and pasted to walls. They give information about loved ones who have died and some people post them on the anniversary each year. These were along the post office walls.


These eggs are painted for Easter.

Bucharest, Romania

Most people we met told us not to bother to go to Bucharest as they had found it an uninteresting city. It has a population of 1.1 million people. However, we enjoyed our short stay there and were not bothered by the beggars or Gypsies like we were warned we would be. It is a city that has no real centre that jumps out at you and says 'Come visit, come stay, come look around, come shop'.

In the 1980s, the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu wanted to stop foreign debt and look good in front of the rest of the world so he exported Romania's food while his own people had to ration food and endure power cuts to save money. he had one sixth of Bucharest bulldozed to build his House of the People, now the Palace of Parliament. It is the world's second largest building with the Pentagon being larger but it would have been the largest if the 10% planned had been built.



We couldn't go to Bucharest without visiting the famous Central Committee of the Communist party building and checking out the balcony from which Ceausescu made his last speech in 1989. Onlookers shouted 'Down with Ceausescu' and he made his escape by helicopter from the roof. Many people were shot and killed and we could see the bullet holes in the buildings.

We visited the Ethnic museum and learnt about the old traditions of the people. They never put crosses in their cemeteries and so when someone died they made 3 crosses, one for the house, one for the church and one for the village and they were place on a tree in the village.



In the historic part of the city (1600s) there are still some old buildings standing but others have been covered by new buildings. There is even a section of old cellars that they have dug up and built walkways over but they are sadly filling with rubbish.


A modern glass building has been built inside the old shell of this building. There were a few tall modern buildings but not many. Near our hostel was a huge pillared building that the dictator had planned to be the radio and communications building but it was never completed. Today contractors are gutting it and turning it into a mall. It will look fabulous when it is finished.

Humor and Voronet, Romania

The staff at our pension in Suceava phoned a tour guide for us so we could take a trip to the painted monasteries at Humor and Voronet. There are several monasteries in the area but we just decided to visit two of them.

The villages around the monasteries still go about their business by horse and cart.
We noticed that the carts had number plates and asked the guide why. He told us that before communism the farmers owned the farms and they were taken by the communists so they had to work for the state. In the evening the farmers would pick the crops and sell them on the black market. The communists couldn't identify who had taken the crops so number plates were introduced and people have continued to use them from that time.

The red tassle hanging by the horses ear is to ward off evil spirits.

The Humor Monastery has frescoes painted on the outsie from 1530 AD. On the sheltered side of the building they have managed to survive the sun and snow. maybe paint companies could find the recipe and have our house paint last like this has!




Many of the houses are built from small wooden shingles.


The wells in front of the houses are well decorated with metal rooves.

Voronet Monastery is a working monastery with about 20 nuns. They have a farm surrounding the monastery and work it themselves.

All the monasteries are painted with the same stories. This monastery was built after winning battles against the Turks and out of gratitude to God.

Suceava, Romania

While in Brasov we were able to watch the news in Romania and could see that there was a lot of flooding in the Suceava area. We saw a large bridge with its approaches washed away and people being evacuated from their villages by the sea. Unfortunately, we were unable to work out exactly where in Suceava it was and we couldn't find anyone who could tell us. Nevertheless we decided to head off anyway.

The train journey to Suceava was very interesting as some of the fields of crops were flooded while others looked like they needed water as they were so droopy and yellowing.

There were farmers burning the wheat stubble and others cutting hay with scythes and several using wooden rakes to stack the hay on wood frames. Families traveled beside the train on the back of their horse drawn carts.

There were people taking water from wells on long poles. Some people had shelters near the fields where they stayed to be close to the animals and crops.


We were not sure what this family was doing but we think they were mixing horse manure with mud probably as a building material.


The city of Suceava was not so special and had a bigger population than we first thought. We were unable to update our blog from there as the pension Wifi got flooded in the storm. We were told that there were no internet places in town as they had been closed down but we don't know why. We tried to hook into the free Wifi at Mc Donalds but couldn't.

Sinaia, Transylvania, Romania

We caught a train from Brasov to Sinaia in the Carpathian Mountains to visit Peles Castle. The
castle was built by King Carol 1 in 1870. It has beautiful fairylike turrets and scenes painted on the outside walls.

Inside the rooms are built in a mix of Moorish, Florentine, and French styles. The walls and some ceilings are carved walnut and oak wood and are beutiful. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photos of them. All guests had to wear slippers on their shoes to protect the flooring.

The castle was only ever used as a summer house and the king's nephew still owns it and he lives in Bucharest and is in his 80s.

The setting was green and gorgeous as it sits in a meadow and is surrounded by fir trees.

On the train journey we met an elderly Romania guy and a university student. The elderly man looked like a labourer and was dressed in faded tatty clothes. He spoke excellent English and this shocked the student. He had spent his working life as an electrical engineer and wished he had more opportunities to use his English. The student studied geography and wants to preserve the Romania wilderness. We have found that it is the older folk who are prepared to talk to foreigners the most even though it is the younger ones who speak English.

Brasov, Transylvania, Romania

We caught a train to Brasov and every station we passed had its "platform dogs". They lounge around on the platforms and look at the waiting passengers with sad eyes and get fed. There are so many homeless dogs here but they have left us alone so that is the main thing. We did read that a Japanese business man was bitten by a stray dog and because it cut an artery the guy died.

Eastern Europe looks like Asia when it comes to managing rubbish and in Romania the rubbish lies in huge piles on the streets and it is also dumped on the edges of the farmlands, probably just out of sight of the dwellers!

We passed many huge factories in varying stages of decay. One of the locals told us that after independence the factories were sold by the state. There were contracts that stated that the factories could not be changed for 2 years. After 2 years the new factory owners stripped the building of its valuable metals, equipment and chemicals and sold these. They made a lot of money as the factories were bought for a very cheap price and then the locals were left without employment.

The countryside is very flat and like most of the other East European countries we have been to there are fields of corn, alfalfa, wheat and potatoes. As we approached Braslov we saw mist covered mountains. There were many horses grazing in the fields and shepherds watching their grazing flocks of sheep and goats beside the rive
rs.

Brasov was a nice city with a large cobbled pedestrian area and the familiar outdoor restaurants that we have seen everywhere. The square was used by merchants and barters in the medieval days. The town hall at the end of the square was used to torture witches and heretics.

There was a display of Trabant cars in the square.

We visited the Black Church which was built in 1477 and is the largest Gothic church in SE Europe. Inside the church is a 4000 pipe organ and it is the first church that we have seen carpets hanging on the walls which were from the Turkey.

We used a web site to find accommodation here and ened up in a huge old house that was owned by a retired police man. He had huge glass bottles of pears, cherries, plums, and apricots in sugar fermenting on the porch to make fruit brandies called tuica which is usually 30 proof.

Timisoara, Banat, Romania

Romania is famous for Dracula,Transylvania, and Nadia Comaneci scoring 10.0 at the 1976 Olympics.
87% of the population is Eastern Orthodox Christian and they are forever crossing themselves as they pass by crosses or churches and chapels.
Romania was granted European Union membership in 2007.

We crossed into Timisoara by train from Belgrade and it was the first time that we had sniffer dogs come through the train. We wanted to change our Serbian money (dinar) to Romanian lei in Serbia but it was impossible. We later met a Romanian lady on the train who told us that Serbia is not happy with Romania because Romania allowed the NATO troops to base themselves in the country when Belgrade was bombed.

While we were in Timisoara there was a festival and we saw the opening act which was the Border Police Department big band. It would have been a good day to cross the border as they were all in town!



On the train we also met a young woman, her mum, and the physiotherapist from the Spanish Tae Kwon Do team. the young woman lived in a High Performance Complex and was Spain's national champ for under 75 kilos. They had been to the University World G in Serbia but she didn't finish in the top 3 as they had expected.

We arrived at Timisoara quite late at night and had to take a taxi to the pension that we had booked. Romania is well-known for its rip-off taxi drivers and so we had to do battle with a few of them before we felt we had a legitimate one. The taxi had a light that was attached to the roof and was lit up and not removable. It also had an official looking licence plate, showed the rate per kilometres and he had a meter that he was happy to use as well as a radio telephone that he used to contact his office. It worked out well and we paid less than the pension owner told us it would cost.

Beside the taxi queues were many homelesss children begging from the train travelers in the pouring rain.

The pension we stayed in was like a New Zealand motel in a two storied block of about 12 units. It was a real treat after loads of hostels, and it was a short walk from a huge brand new shopping mall with lots of places to eat.

There is a lot of construction going on all over Romania and it was very noticeable in Timisoara. There were Chinese workers on the second stage of the shopping mall and many cranes at building sites around the town centre. The European Union has given Romania a lot of development money since joining the EU.

Timisoara has many old buildings from the Habsburg rule in the late 1600s and lots have not been renovated and they were wonderful.

Romanias refer to Timisoara as "First Free Town" because a priest at his Hungarian Church publicly condemned their dictator Ceausescu. Following this thousands of protesters gathered in the main square beginning the December 1989 revolution on the 15th. On 21 December in Bucharest, Caeausescu was booed and had to escape by helicopter from the roof of the building.