Romania: The Rough Guide, First Edition - Softcover

Burford, Tim; Richardson, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858280974 ISBN 13: 9781858280974

Publisher: Rough Guides, 1995

Synopsis

Whether you're tracking wild bears, dancing with Gypsies or braving Dracula's lair, you won't set a foot wrong with The Rough Guide to Romania. From the folk customs of Maramure? and painted monasteries of Bucovina to Bucharest's thriving gastronomic scene, Rough Guides' freshly updated seventh edition takes you on a time-travelling trip around this most diverse of destinations. With a section of suggested itineraries, plus detailed maps and gorgeous full-colour photographs throughout, you'll feel inspired to step off the beaten track and really explore Romania's wealth of cultural riches. Our local-expert authors have also peppered The Rough Guide to Romania with anecdotal titbits, hand-picked tips and unparalleled historical background to ensure you squeeze every last drop of potential from your travels.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Burford studied languages at Oxford University. He first visited East-Central Europe in 1988 and has travelled widely in the region over the last ten years, researching and writing hiking guides to Romania, Poland and Ukraine. Dan Richardson has travelled extensively in Egypt and Eastern Europe. He first went to Romania in 1984 and has been back many times since.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The best of Romania, though, is its countryside, and in particular the mountain scenery. The wild Carpathians, forming the frontier between the province of Transylvania and, to the east and south, Moldavia and Wallachia, shelter bears, stags, chamois and eagles; while the Bucegi, Fagaras and Retezat ranges and the Padis plateau offer some of the most undisturbed and spectacular hiking opportunities in Europe. In contrast to the crowded Black Sea beaches along Romania’s east coast, the waterlogged Danube Delta is a place set apart from the rest of the country where life has hardly changed for centuries and where boats are the only way to reach many settlements. During spring and autumn, especially, hundreds of species of birds from all over the Old World migrate through this region or come to breed.

Few countries can offer such a wealth of distinctive folk music, festivals and customs, all still going strong in remoter areas like Maramures and the largely Hungarian Csango and Szekelyfold regions. Almost any exploration of the villages of rural Romania will be rewarding, with sights as diverse as the log houses in Oltenia, Delta villages built of reeds, watermills built entirely of wood in Maramures, and above all the country’s abundance of churches, which reflect a history of competing communities and faiths. In medieval Transylvania four religions (Roman Catholic, Reformat, Lutheran and Unitarian) and three "nations" (Saxon, Hungarian and Szekely) were recognized, a situation stigmatized as the "Seven Deadly Sins of Transylvania" as the Romanian majority and their Orthodox were excluded.

In Moldavia and Wallachia Orthodoxy had a monopoly, but the clergy were as likely to be Greek as Romanian, and as late as the nineteenth century held services in incomprehensible Slavonic rather than the native tongue. This religious mix, together with the frequency of invasions, accounts for Romania’s extraordinary diversity of religious architecture. In Moldavia and Wallachia masons and architects absorbed the Byzantine style and then ran riot with ornamental stone facades, most notably at the monastery of Curtea de Arges and Iasi’s Three Hierarchs church, and in Oltenia, where the "Brâncoveanu style" flourished, with its porticoes and stone carving derived from native woodwork motifs. The frescoes so characteristic of medieval Orthodox churches reached their ultimate sophistication on the exterior walls of the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina, in northern Moldavia, which are recognized as some of Europe’s greatest artistic treasures. Fine frescoes are also found inside the wooden churches of Maramures, with their sky-scraping Gothic steeples. The Orthodox Church maintains dozens of monasteries (many in fact nunneries), the most famous, after those in Bucovina, being Snagov, where Vlad the Impaler is buried, and Horezu, Brancoveanu’s masterpiece.

WHEN TO GO
The climate is pretty crucial in deciding where to go and when, since life can be literally at risk during winter unless you come fully equipped. Even in the capital, Bucharest, it’s not always easy to find hotel rooms where the heating functions properly and, in winter, temperatures regularly fall well below freezing. Conditions improve with spring, bringing rain and wildflowers to the mountains and the softest of blue skies over Bucharest, and prompting the great migration of birds through the Delta. By May the lowlands are warming up and you might well find strong sunshine on the coast before the hordes arrive in July. Summer or early autumn is the perfect time to investigate Transylvania’s festivals and hiking trails, and to see the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina, while flocks of birds again pass through the Delta towards the end of autumn.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1858280974
• ISBN 13: 9781858280974
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384