Brașov vital statistics:
- Population (2011): 253,200 (city proper); 369,896 (metro)
- Latitude & longitude: 45˚ 40′ N, 25˚ 37′ E
- January average temperature: High -0.3˚C (31.5˚F), low -8.3˚C (17.1˚F)
- July average temperature: High 24˚C (75.2˚F), low 12.3˚C (54.1˚F)
- Time zone: GMT+3 (7 hours ahead of U.S. EDT)
- Language: Romanian
- Currency: Romanian (new) lei
- Exchange rate: US$1=4.01 lei
- Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center: $343.03
I journeyed from Zagreb, Croatia to Brașov (bra-SHOUV), Romania with some trepidation. My Lonely Planet guidebook (Rick Steves apparently steers clear of Romania), warns of rude waiters and notes that Romania is suffering a brain drain as skilled workers flee to other, presumably better, parts of the European Union. One of the audiobooks I “read” during this trip, The Geography of Bliss (2008) by Eric Weiner, profiled Moldova as an example of just about the unhappiest country in the world not afflicted by war, insurgency, anarchy, famine, or extreme poverty, and mentioned that Romania, its neighbor, wasn’t far behind on the scale of discontent. Yes, Romania is in Europe. But is it more like Spain, or Sri Lanka?
My journey to Romania, at least, was a relatively comfortable one. I did have to get up early (4:30am to be on the safe side) for my 8:40am flight out of Zagreb. That’s about eight hours earlier than I normally get out of bed. But sunrise is so early this time of year that it was bright and sunny by the time I left my Airbnb, and my trip to the airport via tram and city bus was cheap and straightforward.
Zagreb’s airport lounge did not disappoint. My early morning grumpiness is always eased by unlimited quantities of food and alcohol.
Plenty of free snacky-snacks… (13 June 2018)
…and plenty of free booze… (13 June 2018)
…make Ben a happy man. Who says 7:30am is too early for a gin & tonic? Not me (13 June 2018).
For once, the airport’s layout conspired to maximize my stay in the lounge. Where’s the lounge? Opposite gate 23. Which gate does my flight leave from? Gate 23.
Fortified by a full belly and three gin-and-tonics, I strolled right on to my plane (13 June 2018).
Of all the flights I’m taking on this trip, this was, incredibly, the only direct flight. In just an hour and a half, I was in Bucharest, Romania. I had earlier, online, bought a bus ticket straight from Bucharest airport to the small city of Brașov up in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. The bus driver even let me take an earlier bus when I showed up ahead of schedule. In three hours, I was in Brașov. So far, Romania was working out OK.
The “bus” turned out to be a van. With no A/C, it was a bit of a stuffy three hours to Brașov. But the van had wi-fi, so I was happy (13 June 2018).
The scenery as the bus drove up into the Carpathians was gorgeous — low, forested mountains and valleys dotted with little villages in various states of (dis)repair — kind of like the Berkshires of western Massachusetts (13 June 2018).
The van stopped for 30 minutes at a highway rest stop with a gas station, convenience store, and this bizarre saucer-shaped café (13 June 2018).
Once I arrived and got settled in the ridiculously huge (four rooms!) apartment I’d rented for a song for my seven-day stay in Brașov, I did a little exploring. I was very relieved to find that European café culture extends all the way across the continent, from Portugal to Romania.
Eating a hearty traditional Romanian soup at an outdoor café (13 June 2018).
I am cautiously optimistic that Romania is going to work out (13 June 2018).
Even McDonalds and KFC get into the act here. Unlike all of the local eateries, though, they do not serve alcohol. I checked. What kind of beer would KFC serve, if KFC served beer, I wonder? (13 June 2018)
Brașov boasts a pedestrianized central square, Piața Sfatului, just as picturesque and pleasant as I’ve come to expect from the rest of Europe.
Can you tell I’m relieved? I really didn’t know what to expect. But yes, Romania is indeed in Europe. Also, check out the Hollywood-style “Brașov” sign atop Mt. Tâmpa in the background (13 June 2018).
One thing I noticed right away: Romania is cheap. By far the most inexpensive of my European destinations so far.
On 16 June, following my epic Mt. Tâmpa hike (to be detailed in a future post) the day before and a run that morning, I was hungry the way only my tapeworm and I can be hungry. Over the course of four hours, I consumed a milkshake, a beer, a Cuba libre (rum & coke), a meaty main course (pictured), a sundae, a huge heap of spicy mayo-covered fries, and ran to the supermarket to stock up on beer. Even with that Herculean eating and drinking effort, I remained under budget. I spent 116.60 lei ($29.07). There’s no way I could have pulled that off at any of my previous European stops. And I didn’t sacrifice any people-watching ambience to do it (16 June 2018).
The aforementioned sundae. The peaches were far from ripe — they were crunchy and completely tasteless. I couldn’t identify the flavor of ice cream it came with, but that at least was delicious (16 June 2018).
Supermarkets are a great value throughout Europe, especially here in Romania. Check out the prices on these huge plastic bottles of beer! Less than $2 for 2.5 or more liters of beer (13 June 2018).
Naturally, prices that low aroused my curiosity. I bought this 3-liter plastic bottle of beer for 6.60 lei ($1.64). Because this is how classy guys like me shop. This Romanian beer is at least as good as Budweiser, which is to say it’s not completely terrible (16 June 2018).
During my explorations, I discovered what the local youth (I assume) did with some of these bottles and a dollop of creativity. I imagine this is what Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree looked like during his teenage juvenile delinquent phase (16 June 2018).
Unfortunately, Romania also presents some examples of why the word “cheap” denotes both inexpensiveness and poor quality. Let’s start with my rental apartment.
At first, the wi-fi didn’t work at all. That’s a first. Even in Sri Lanka, I always had workable (slow, but reliable) wi-fi in my rooms. I called the apartment manager and silently, sometime the next morning while I was sleeping I presume, someone came by and replaced the router and modem. That worked pretty well for the rest of that day, allowing me to crank out my last Zagreb blog post. But from the following day (15 June) on, the wi-fi was so slow that it was all I could do to get basic apps (Weather, Words with Friends) on my smartphone to work. I couldn’t upload or download so much as a single photo, which as you can imagine, severely curtailed my blogging ability.
So, for the first time on this trip, I was forced to seek out a coffee shop to do my blogging. Which is where I am sitting now. How gauche.
For the price of a 12-lei ($2.99) foofy caramel latte thing, I got six or so hours of wi-fi. Fortunately this drink was so tarted up that I couldn’t taste the coffee. I hate coffee (17 June 2018).
I prefer to write late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. That way I reserve the daylight hours for my true priorities: Sleeping through the first half, and eating and drinking at outdoor cafés during the second half. That’s why I like to have wi-fi at home. Fortunately, I guess, this Sunday has been gloomy and rainy. Like, seriously rainy. The street outside the coffee shop morphed into a river for a while there (17 June 2018).
The shower at my apartment also proved a disappointment. The hot water takes anywhere from five to 30 minutes to start up and then lasts for just two to five minutes before turning freezing cold. Normally I can make do with a cold shower if need be, but this water was so cold it gave me an ice cream headache while I was rinsing my hair.
Also, all of the bathroom and kitchen fixtures are loose and leak, and, as in the old house I stayed in in Porto, only about 20% of the lightbulbs turn on, so it tends to be pretty dark. I get the sense that Romanian craftsmanship is not up to, say, German standards. If I lived here, I think I’d best brush up on my rusty do-it-yourself homeowner skills.
Oh well. That’s just more of an incentive for me to get out and enjoy my destination, as Rick Steves says. Now all of the cities I’ve visited in Europe have visible vestiges of their medieval past — reconstructed city gates, crumbling castles, narrow, winding streets, what-have-you — but Brașov, more than anywhere else I’ve been, retains a flavor of the Middle Ages. I’ll treat that aspect of the city in a future post. For now, I’ll focus on the (early) modern aspects of Brașov.
As with the other cities in Europe I’ve visited, Brașov contains a mix of beautiful and seriously decrepit older buildings.
My favorite street in Brașov is — surprise, surprise — a pedestrian-only street lined with outdoor cafés. I’m nothing if not predictable. This example is called Strada Republicii and leads to and from the main square, Piața Sfatului (16 June 2018).
I love the paint job on this building to the left (16 June 2018).
16 June 2018
A detail from the above building. I love little architectural flourishes like this (16 June 2018).
I give the architect of this building bonus points for trying. I expect this is an example of the communist-era aesthetic (16 June 2018).
This stately old building is in serious need of a new paint job. Seriously, why isn’t the local homeowners’ association or chamber of commerce all over the owner? (15 June 2018).
Cobblestone streets are quaint… until the cobblestones erode away. Then they’re just muddy (15 June 2018).
This trip has blown away my American notion that the former Eastern Bloc countries are gray and drab. Brașov boasts an impressive amount of green space.
I incorporated this pleasant little park near the city center into my running route. Look, it has a drinking water fountain! These have been few and far between in Europe, as far as I can tell (15 June 2018).
This other park boasts an appealing café and lovely running and walking trails, like this one. Naturally I added it to my running route too (16 June 2018).
Nicolae Titulescu Park, Brașov’s most central green space, features trees, flowers… (16 June 2018).
…and plenty of old-timers playing chess (16 June 2018).
Nicolae Titulescu Park includes a small “Heroes’ Cemetery” for local people who died during the uprising that overthrew the communist regime here in 1989. The grave in the middle there is for a six-year-old child. I shudder to think how violent things got here, that a six-year-old could somehow die a “hero’s death” (16 June 2018).
Speaking of cemeteries, there are a lot of them in Brașov. Maybe the Orthodox faith prefers burial to cremation. This small cemetery surrounds the modern St. Paraskeva Orthodox Church (15 June 2018).
Some colorful murals on the outside of the church (15 June 2018).
I’ve never come across anything like this before: A German World War I military cemetery. Brașov was founded as a Saxon (German) colony, and many of the streets and buildings here still have German names. I don’t know if these are the graves of local Germans who fought in the war, or if they’re of German soldiers who came here to fight on the Balkan front (14 June 2018).
I just took a cursory look at the World War I history of this area. Transylvania (the region Brașov is in) was part of Hungary (a German ally) at the outset of World War I, and the new nation of Romania, backed by Russia and the other Allied Powers, fought to take it over. After the Russian Revolution, when Russia left the war, Romania found itself surrounded and surrendered too. So they managed to lose the war despite being on the (eventual) winning side. I’m sure that was little comfort to these guys (14 June 2018).
Chaz