Bucharest and Brasov, Romania

Feeling adventurous, my lovely friend Kaitlin and I decided to take on another weekend of travel immediately following our spring break excursions. Bucharest is a city I had looked into while I was planning spring break but decided I didn't have the time to see it then, though we were both curious about Romania so we decided to take a weekend to go explore.

Since we were both coming off spring break travels, we approached the weekend from more of a vacation standpoint than a travel standpoint. (This whole semester is travel, but we had a very relaxed weekend and that's how I would distinguish it). Here are the highlights from out trip:

Our hostel - probably the best hostel I've stayed at in Europe so far because of its small, more family style environment that reminded me of hostels I'd stayed in last semester. They even had their own tea room where we were able to enjoy tea and play with their cats.

City tour - Romania as a whole has a lively history, complete with Dracula and a dictatorship that ended in 1989. Highlights from the tour: the house of parliament is the 2nd largest government building in the world, second only to the pentagon in the USA, and nearly 55% is underground. Of the part that is above ground, only around 30% is used and the rest is rented out as event space. Its a massive and beautiful building, however the government (dictatorship) evicted people from their houses to build it and relocated them outside the city, so it doesn't have the best history.

Parliament - this doesn't even do it justice

Lovely open spaces in the city

Old and new

Moving churches - during the time that the country was under dictatorial rule and people were moved from their homes, the plan was also to destroy around 40 churches in the surrounding area to make room for the parliament building. One of the architects, though, had the brilliant idea to "simply" move the churches by pouring cement under them and rolling them on train tracks they had built specifically to move them to other locations. Don't ask me for specifics, that's all I know, but it's an interesting story, and explains why there are so many random beautiful churches surrounded by much newer looking buildings. The churches have a very distinct architecture and I thought they were all so beautiful.

Thermal baths - I don't remember the last time I felt so at peace and pampered. The picture below is from the internet because I didn't have my phone on me in the pools but I wanted to convey how incredible this place is. The water is naturally heated and the complex is huge, complete with water slides, spas, indoor/ outdoor pools connected by a revolving door in the water, and bars in the middle of some of the pools. We went at night (incredibly fun) and spend several hours going down slides, wading in the pools, enjoying the jacuzzies, and meeting all sorts of people. If you are in Romania, go.

                               

Brasov - we took a brief day trip to a town in the middle of the Transylvanian alps, Brasov. The train ride through the alps was lovely, but I was surprised there wasn't more snow. The town is divided between a very industrialized downtown and the historic city center, which is where we spent our time. We walked through its winding streets, climbed up above the city to an old fortress-turned-lookout point, rode the tram up the town's imposing hill, and mostly just relaxed and enjoyed the sun. I would love to explore more of this region.

Train through the alps

Main Square

Aside from this our time was filled with good conversation with friends made at the hostel, various meals (some Romanian, others not), and time out enjoying the sun and relaxing in some of Bucharest's beautiful parks.

It was a great weekend with a laid-back pace that both of us needed and appreciated. Bucharest was very urban, much like the other large eastern European cities I visited over break and filled with a young, alternative vibe. Again, it's surprising (and relieving) how many people can speak English, however much like our time in Rome, it discourages us from absorbing as much of the language. We weren't going to manage conversational Romanian in one weekend, but we didn't even have to try as almost everyone could speak to us in English. We are happy to have this be true, but we also recognize English fluency as an immense privilege that we have and with this we have been trying our best to not go around relying on English to get us where we need to go and instead try to at least learn hello/goodbye/ please/ thank you in other languages. And we use our limited Italian when we are out in Italy. However, being able to go all of these places and use English has been really impressive and easy.  Language observations aside, Romania is a very beautiful country (or at least what we saw over the course of 3 days) and I would love to go back and explore more of the countryside and learn more about its culture.