You Should Visit Romania – Part II
We spent close to a month in Romania, and we felt it needed at least three blog posts to capture our time there. Our first blog post talked about our time in the Bucegi Mountains and Bușteni, our second was a post about our hike to Heroes’ Cross in Bușteni, and this one will cover our time in two major Romanian cities – Timișoara and Bucharest.
Our entrance to Romania was so unique. We crossed at one of the Hungary/Romania border crossings, and right away we could see a difference. There were a bunch of cars, piled into unorganized lanes, with people getting in and out of their cars, walking around barefoot, driving with their doors open, and switching between vehicles. It seemed kind of crazy to us! Back home, the borders are so carefully monitored, none of that would be tolerated. We got to the crossing guard and had no issues with crossing, we just had to wait a few minutes for them to check the car registration and stamp our passports.
Our first stop was the city of Timișoara. This is the third largest city in Romania, and is considered to be the Vienna of the East. It has a buzzing nightlife, a bunch of coffee shops and bars, beautiful architecture, and hosts numerous plays and musicals. Our first day walking around this beautiful city made us feel like we were in a funky hipster town, we really loved the vibe of the city!
Our Airbnb was a 30 min walk to the city center, so that is where we started our day. We love old town squares, so we are always excited to check them out when we get to a new place! Timișoara has three squares, so we were in for a real treat! Union square was the first one we visited, and probably our favourite. It had beautiful cathedrals, colourful buildings, cafes with outdoor patios, and statues. It was so picturesque, and we enjoyed taking some time to walk around and snap pictures. The first thing we noticed is there were almost no people around, and definitely no tourists. After Austria and Budapest it was refreshing to not be in mobs of people, looking at the pretty sites.
From here we made our way to the more popular Victory Square. On the way, we passed by a gorgeous umbrella street. Sharleen had seen a picture of this street a little while back, but we had forgotten it was here until we Google’d the must-see spots in Timișoara. We were happy to find it, and we really enjoyed the bright colours. Looking back it was probably one of our favourite little streets, and it was a great way to enter Victory Square.
In Victory Square there are many restaurants, bars, coffee shops, a theatre, and the most well-known building in Timișoara - the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral. It was a beautiful building, and really one of the first Orthodox churches we had seen. It was impressive! We found it a little challenging to photograph, because there are quite a few overheard lines and lights throughout the city. They light up the city in the evening, but during the day you just see a lot of overhead lines everywhere, which kind of takes away from the views. In the wintertime, close to Christmas, we can only imagine how beautiful the city would look with all of these gorgeous lights!
From Victory Square we walked around the Bega River, and some of the parks on the south side of the city center. We made our way to a delicious record shop/bar, called Viniloteca, to grab a beer and take a break from the hot sun. We loved this place! It was an awesome little hipster store, run by a man who loves records, coffee, and beer. It was just us and our travel buddies, Arpad and Jess, in the store, and we had a blast drinking craft beer and chatting with the owner. His son owns a small craft brewery called Hop Hooligans, and all four of us thoroughly enjoyed tasting a variety of their beers! The owner was awesome. He ended up giving Jess a free beer glass, and we all got free stickers. It was probably one of the best bars/beverage hangouts we have been to on this trip.
Since we had fun exploring the park near the river, we continued to walk around the city center, one park to the next. There is a surprising amount of green space in Timișoara. The large number of parks was great! Almost all of the area around the river is one big park, and we walked a whole half circle around the city center in a park - at least 2.5 kilometers. Our first day in Timișoara really surprised us, and we were really impressed with this small city.
We had a second day in town, so we decided to head back into the city center and enjoy some of the shops and streets we didn’t see. Timișoara isn’t very large, so we had seen all of the major sites on the first day. The two of us headed into town and had a relaxing day, we joked that we ate our way through the city center. We had a great lunch, grabbed some delicious gourmet doughnuts, got some pastries to enjoy at home, and made a stop for coffee. Shar had read that Romania has quite the coffee scene, and it seemed like there were endless coffee shops in Timișoara. We ended up stopping by Ovride Specialty Coffee looking for something cold to quench our thirst. The owner greeted us and was so friendly and helpful. Shar saw a summer special called a cold brew and tonic, and was quite curious! This was also the drink that the owner recommended we try. Her husband brews the cold brew in a particular way that makes it very flavourful, and then they add a tonic concentrate. So we gave it a go! When she delivered our drinks to our table outside, she really wanted us to enjoy them, and said that if we didn’t like them we should tell her and she would make us something else. So kind! The drinks were definitely unique, Sharleen quite liked it and Darrell thought it was pretty funky and a little too weird. But we both enjoyed sipping them on the patio as we people watched.
After our relaxing day strolling around town, we met up with Arpad and Jess for a beer in Union Square before heading back to our apartment. We planned on heading back into town at night to see the beautiful lights, so we wanted to head to our apartment and make a quick dinner at home. Unfortunately, we got hit with a thunderstorm, so all four of us ended up staying in and not seeing the city lights. Darn!
We both really loved our time in Timișoara. Even though we saw the main sites on the first day, we both wish we had more time to explore the city. We easily could have called Timișoara home for a week, maybe longer. Without a doubt, Timișoara has been one of our favourite small cities so far on this trip.
From Timișoara we headed to Bușteni. On our way there, we made a pit stop to see the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara. Although we didn’t pay to go into the castle, we had great views from the outside. It was the first gothic castle we were going to see in Romania, which made us quite excited! It was huge, one of the biggest castles we have seen on our trip, and not overly touristy which was nice. We had a long drive ahead of us, so we didn't stop here for too long, but it was just enough to snap some pictures and walk around as much as we could without paying an entrance fee.
Bușteni was our next stop, and you can read all about our time in the Bucegi Mountains in our blog post here!
After our time in the mountains, our next major city was Bucharest - the capital of Romania. We were excited to spent time here, especially because our time in Timișoara and Bușteni was so great. We booked an Airbnb for 5 days, hoping that the extra few days in the city would give us the time we needed to feel like we saw everything. We also booked a place right in the city center, so we were close to all of the sites and didn’t need to drive or take transit.
After two weeks in the mountains, we both found that it took us a while to get back into the swing of travelling and site seeing. In addition, it was crazy hot in Bucharest! Each day we were there it averaged around 33 degrees, and when walking in the sun on the pavement, it made it feel so much hotter. Some days it felt like our shoes were melting underneath us.
Right away we noticed quite a few differences in Bucharest that we hadn’t seen in other cities. First, driving was quite an experience! There were many roads without lane lines, and it was rather challenging to see stoplights. Sometimes it felt like we were driving in India! It was definitely the city we were the most nervous driving in.
Second, the architecture in Bucharest is very different. There are a lot of concrete, rectangular buildings, which were built during the communist era. There is also a very noticeable mix of old and new, rich and poor, abandoned and occupied places throughout the whole city. We walked many kilometers in Bucharest, and it seemed like the one thing each area had in common was how mixed all of the buildings were. It was impossible to tell if we were in a “rich” or “bad” neighbourhood.
Third, there was quite a bit of garbage on the streets. It was very common to see garbage, dog poop, dead bugs, and other litter on the street. It was quite sad, as the city would definitely get quite a face-lift if there were less garbage. So far on our trip, Bucharest has been the dirtiest city we have visited.
Fourth - and maybe most different - you cannot be a lazy tourist in Bucharest. Sharleen had read a blog post on Bucharest done by Happy to Wander, and they had said that if you wanted to understand why Bucharest was special, you would need to dig. This turned out to be very true. Everywhere we walked, we would pass by things that were easy to ignore or not notice, and it wasn’t until we went in that we would find hidden gems. A prime example is Dianei 4, an amazing restaurant near our Airbnb. From the outside it looked like an overgrown jungle and a rusty fence. But if you walk through the crazy plants and industrial looking gate, you find a beautiful patio and a restaurant with delicious food and coffees!
Over our few days in Bucharest we had a great time seeing all of the major sites. Our favourite was the Palace of Parliament, which is the largest building we have ever seen! This was Darrell’s highlight from our Week in Review: Week 14, and for good reason. This building is so impressive; it took us probably an hour to walk just around it. It is also one of three buildings you can see from space! It is a great example of the type of architecture we found throughout Bucharest.
We also really enjoyed our walk to King Mihai I Park, one of the largest parks in the city. It was nice to escape the heat of the pavement and walk under the trees. We stopped at one of the many cafes in the park and enjoyed some beverages in the park. It was really lovely! From there we were so close to the Arcul de Triumf, a 26 meter memorial in memory of the WWI troops. It mirrors the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and sits in the middle of a large traffic circle. It was beautiful to see, and is one of the many neoclassical buildings in Bucharest.
Our few days in Bucharest went by really quickly, and we were sad to say goodbye to Romania. We didn’t really know what to expect when we went to Romania. We knew we wanted to spend about a month here, to be out of the Schengen Area, but other than a few castles we didn’t know what it would be like! When we told other people we were going to Romania, most people were confused and questioned why we wanted to go there. No one was overly happy for us to be going, instead they told us about how unsafe, dangerous, and full of crime Romania was. We had heard everything from sneaky ways people break into hotel rooms, how people steal cars, how bad the roads were, and how they pickpocket. In a weird way, it kind of intrigued us and we were curious to see if this really was the Romania we were going to experience.
We ended up really loving Romania, and we would probably say it’s one of our favourite countries so far on our trip! During our time in the two major cities and in the mountains, we did not feel unsafe. We were always comfortable, but made sure we were paying attention to our belongings and not flashing our valuables - just like we would do in every other place we visit. Almost all of the people we met in restaurants, shops, and our Airbnbs were very friendly, hospitable, kind, and excited to teach us about their city/town/food. At no point did we feel like our valuables were in danger in our Airbnbs, and we had no issues with our car. Other than the roads....that is the one rumour we heard about Romania that ended up being true! The roads are not in the best condition, and Darrell was quite careful as he drove on all streets - side streets, major highways, secondary highways, and city streets.
Both of us agree that Romania could do quite a bit of work on the tourism front, as there are a lot of misconceptions out there that prevent people from visiting this beautiful country. But we would both highly recommend it to anyone excited about history, city and rural adventures, scenic mountains, gothic castles, great food, delicious coffee, tasty wine, and craft beer. And we don’t know anyone who doesn’t love at least one of those things!
