Tourism in Romania

Romania joined Europe in 2007. That's good. Romania is growing real fast apparently. But there are still loads of little things which make the country seem like it is still ruled by the 'Commies'.

Last night I sat at a restaurant and got ready to order when the waitress showed up and told me she could not cook for me because she had a group coming (what the f*** I thought, if you have a group you cannot serve single travelers???). I moved to another restaurant: out of the 20 dishes listed on the menu, only half was available. I got up this morning to find out there was no hot water for the shower; when I enquired at reception I was told 'the pump don't work' until further notice. Right! To warm up a bit I went down to the breakfast room and ordered a coffee: I could not get a coffee because something was wrong with the machine, or it had to be cleaned up or whatever... This afternoon, after a long long day walking I tried the shower in my new hotel in Brasov; well the shower handle was not working! So I had to bend under the bathtub tap to wash. And I can tell you it wasn't that easy to wash my hair, especially with sore legs and feet.

Maybe the nice thing about Romania is precisely all these little things. The country is not really ready for tourism (certainly not for mass-tourism) so not many tourists are around (although I took the train this morning with 2 Chinese girls which made me wonder...).


OK, well I am in Brasov, a super nice Saxon town looking like a postcard of a small German village. Streets, squares, churches, pointed roofs... it's all nice. Pix above is the view from the top of the mountain overlooking Brasov, after a nice little trek. Pix below is from the city looking up at the same moutain.