If I were a Romanian…

Every stone and piece of glass in the Presidential Palace is from Romania. The square meterage of the building is second only to the Pentagon.

Like Turkey, Romania seems to dance with its mixed identity in a way that is at once intriguing and not quite sure of itself.

It has warmth and hospitality and many of its people have olive and latte colored skin. But to call it Mediterranean would be like calling Louisiana the Caribbean. It has a hearty, heavy diet that includes a spiceless polenta like substance, lots of potatoes and cabbage, and borscht. But to call it Slavic (or Hugarian) would be like calling Armenia Russia.  Its Transylvanian heartland has Saxon architecture dating from the 14^th century, complete with fortified churches to protect it (against Turkish invasions), but to call it German would be like applying the same label to Norwegians. In short, it’s a satellite orbiting around no one culture, despite lots of occupation in its history.

And yet it feels so damn EUROPEAN, just as Anatolia feels so ORIENTAL. Both regions are crossroads, where rolling, accessible landscapes trampled on by dozens of civilizations over the millennia, and now both are bearing the fruits of recent heavy investment in tourism.

The Black Church in Old Town Brasov at dusk, colors blazing and moon rising.

Located just an hour’s flight from Istanbul, Romania’s accessibility – thanks to budget flights on Pegasus Airlines from Sabiha Gokcen – makes it an ideal regional getaway. It reminds one why Istanbul is such an appropriate base for regional travel into southeast Europe. But Bucharest is not nor should be the end point of any trip to Romania lasting more than a couple days. There is stuff to do and see in Bucharest – the presidential palace and its ridiculous, tragic and opulent legacy of the Ceausescu reign, a building that is only dwarfed by the pentagon in square meters. There is the old town, small and filled with shops that locals actually go to. But Bucharest feels like a working capital not totally awakened (or succumbed to) to being a destination the same way Prague or Budapest are.

Two hours away, though, is Brasov. Brasov is a charming medium-sized Saxon city that – despite a hideous Hollywood-style “Brasov” sign on the mountainside — is a charming fairytale city nestled in a valley. Being there in early November, my traveling companion and I could marvel at the bright reds and yellows of the leaves on the trees of those hillsides.

But Being the kind of travelers we are, my friend and I made it a point to check out the local pub scene, not the foliage. Nights are cold in November and the tourists are largely gone, but we found a couple cozy bars to have a pint of Ursus, Silva, or some other local suds (none of which are exceptional). We bantered with the owner of one bar, a basement type joint owned by a motherly woman who spoke several languages and was about to retire to the countryside on account of high rents. We sampled Romania cuisine at Casa Romaneasca, where I dined on pressed chicken livers wrapped in bacon and covered in a creamy garlic sauce, ample fuel for the body’s furnace on a chilly evening (to avoid carrying a bowling ball in his stomach the rest of the evening, my friend had a hearty chicken soup with a salad of pickled red peppers).

At Rasnov Castle overlooking the Carpathian Plain

Two days in Brasov is probably enough, and more than half of one of those days was spent checking out the famous Bran castle of Dracula lore and the hilltop fort at Rasnov. Perched on a steep Carpathian hill, the last in the range before a breadboard-flat plain, the fort at Rasnov was a pleasant surprise, and it’s easy to see why the fort is so strategically necessary (as is the Bran castle, about 12 km down the road.)

The next day it was on to Sighisoara, another 3 hours by train and in the geographical heart of the country. Sighisoara is Brasov redux but with a more charming (if that’s possible) citadel on top of a hill with a 270-degree view of the surrounding town. The town is brimming with school kids, leading me to believe that people are either really bored or confident in Romania’s future to provide for its people. While staying in a cozy hostel/pension next to the citadel and adjacent Biserica din Deal (church on the Hill) built in the 14^th century, we managed to have a lot of walks past village houses with chickens feeding and mangy dogs barking.

Pedaling into the Transylvanian village of Vulkan (also a Turkish word meaning volcano)

On our second to last day in Romania, we rented bikes from a helpful tourist office in the center of town (after filling out countless forms), and went on a 40 km bike ride through the Transylvanian countryside, stopping at a church in the Gypsy village of Apold. In Apold we turned onto a dirt road and slowly plied our way up a gradual slope – past sheepherders and fields of stubble – through to an isolated hamlet (Volkan). There we went along a farm track barely visible up to a ridge, then down a hill back to the Sighisuara, but not after being chased by surly farm dogs as if we were 11-year old boys in some coming of age film set in the 1960’s rural America (old man Mr. McGoo’s dog is after ya, Nick…faster faster!). At first we bemoaned the gloomy weather of low clouds, but then we realized that it was fitting because we were in Transylvania after all, and warm sunshine and greenery would be too…well…sunny for a landscape with such a macabre reputation.

Pork, Polenta (mamaliga) and Peppers -- Romanian delights!

It was back to Bucharest on the 5-hour evening train (first class is worth it for the reclining chairs). We stayed in a hostel in a grand old communist era townhouse, which was run by a chatty eccentric Canadian woman and her Romanian-born teenage daughter. The only bummer was losing my camera, and Romania, as developed as it may have gotten, lacks lost and founds. After touring aforementioned presidential palace (which faces the Boulevard Unirii, which Ceausescu intentionally made 6 meters longer than the Champs Elysee), we did some last minute gift buying for my friends significant other before heading back to cozy and quick Otopeni Airport.

It was 5 days in a country that like Turkey seems to relish in its identity as a nation not quite sure of its identity, and like Turkey, 5-days only whet my appetite for more.

Mă întorc România!

(I’m coming back, Romania!)