what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

through Romania


People complain about the Romanian road system - and I used to be defensive since I do know some good parts. But, as I tried - for he first time for a deacde- to descend from the North West to my house in the carpathians (near Brasov) I realised what they meant.
Monday dawned misty – I wanted to avoid the Monday morning traffic through Cluj and took a detour which promised Turda (definitely the ugliest town!) and contemplated writing a complaint to the Prefect as I tried to avoid being forced off the appalling and winding forest mountain road by great trucks. Eventually, however, I found myself bypassing Cluj and on a spectacular new motorway which took me to Turda over the mountains. The complicated access system, however, seemed typically Romanian.
I assumed that the Sibiu-Brasov section is not yet complete and therefore chose to go via Tirgu Mures – which required me to go through Turda and the very long village which borders it. Very frustrating. But then the road to Sighosoara was very scenic –although a detour almost broke my suspension!
Stopped at the various fortified churches I encountered – all were locked with no indication of who held the keys (at Busteni I was told the house which had them but it too was locked!). And why don’t they put a notice on the door indicating who has the keys?
Eventually I arrived home at 15.30. They too had suffered from torential rain - and therefore no question of my being able to use the muddy track at the bottom of my garden to ease the emptying of my overloaded car. I made at least 5 journeys up the hill before calling it a day - and talked with the French artist who had arrived just behind me. Marcel Moulin had used the Hachard Guide (like others) to locate the guesthouse - and had travelled alone from his place near Mont St Michel in Normandy.
It was lovely to be back in my house - Maritsa fed me with one of her soups and I prepared at home pork and the rice I had bought in France. Two amazon packages were waitingfor me. After some internet posts to bed

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