Romania, the perfect tourist destination for Halloween
November 13th, 2011 |
Romania is presented by The Irish Times and The Telegraph as the perfect Halloween destination, being the land of strange adventures with witches from Wallachia and vampires from Transylvania.
With Halloween upon us, Romania is a natural home for spooky adventures featuring witches from Wallachia, vampires from Transylvania and many terrifying things that go bump in the night, journalist Sean Hillen writes for The Irish Times.
This eastern European country promises more in the way of spooky adventures than any place in the region, from vampires in Transylvania to witches in neighbouring Wallachia. And plenty of tour operators to deliver on your every nocturnal whim, he writes.
“First stop on the tour is the capital, known in the 1920s and 1930s as the “Little Paris of the East” due to its broad boulevards and lively nightlife. Not the prettiest of cities, Bucharest still offers diverse activities, from theatre to opera, from classical to jazz.
“Several interesting museums are worth a visit – the Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum reopened last month after a 10 million Euro renovation; the National Museum of Art hosted in a 19th-century palace; and Old Princely Court, the ruins of the first Bucharest citadel built by Vlad the Impaler. A sprawling outdoor village version and the Peasant Museum offers insights into changing lifestyles over the centuries.
“More interesting on the vampire trail is a short trip out of the capital to the island of Snagov, a 30-minute car journey north of the city. My first trip there was in 1990, shortly after the downfall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. (…)
“Snagov was one of the principal hangouts for Vlad the Impaler, a medieval warlord, who built a prison there. He ruled the region in the mid-1400s, and, it is said this is his final resting place. Some literary critics say Vlad’s life influenced Bram Stoker when the Dublin-born author was developing the character of his infamous Count.”
Hillen also writes about several towns and places across Transylvania that are worth visiting, such as Brasov and Bran Castle, Sighisoara, but also Bistrita.
The Telegraph also published an article about Romania, written by Sir John Ure, former ambassador to various countries and author of travel and history books.
In an article called Romania: On the trail of Count Dracula, Ure writes about three distinct emotional and historical worlds that can be encountered in Romania.
“The first world was one of Gothic fantasy. It is epitomised by Bran Castle, with its much-vaunted connections with Vlad the Impaler – better known as Count Dracula. Other castles crowd the hilltops with their turrets and dungeons, their armouries and torture chambers. This is a world in which Ludwig II – the mid-19th-century mad king of Bavaria – and Wagner would have felt at home.
“The second world is a more wholesome one of Saxon villages and simple peasant agriculture. Horse-drawn carts trundle slowly along the lanes; small old-fashioned haystacks line the fields and punctuate the horizons; smiling old men scythe in the fields and decoratively dressed women fork up the hay; poppies and other wild flowers enliven the meadows; wooden Saxon houses with their high gates and brightly coloured exteriors line the village streets; every telegraph pole seems to support a nesting crane newly arrived from Africa; Lutheran churches, with their outer defence walls, outnumber Orthodox and Catholic ones.
“This is the world beloved of Prince Charles, who has bought a manor house in the region. It is no longer Wagner’s world, but rather that of The Sound of Music.
“The third of the worlds through which we passed is a ghost world of the former Romania of Nicolae Ceausescu and the communist era. Much has been done in the past two decades to remove the ugly traces of that unhappy chapter in Transylvania’s history. Hotels have had massive makeovers; no longer do they look as if they are awaiting party delegations, and are instead alive with young people dancing at wedding breakfasts; but still bath plugs tend to be absent and loo seats tend to be wobbly; credit card machines tend to be non-functional; and one is tempted to ask the occasional receptionist whether she got a refund from charm school.”
Posted in Tourist in Romania (english)