.In June 2002, during a tour through
Central Europe, I briefly visited România. Coming from
Hungary, I crossed over into România near Nădlac. From there I drove to Arad, then north through Chișineu-Criș to Oradea. That afternoon I drove east just getting into the beginnings of Transylvania. This is a very beautiful area with wooded hills and deep valleys. I didn't have a chance to see any Vampires since I was there only during the day .
Oradea was my overnight stop. I stayed in a fairly good hotel there. The next morning I headed back to Hungary.
România is the economically least developed of the central European countries. Most farm work is done by hand and with horse power. Horse drawn carts are everywhere. The cars on the roads are mostly Dacias. While the small cars in Poland are descendants of the Italian Fiat, these are descendants of the French Renault. România started building them in the late 60's under license of Renault. In recent years the company experienced economical problems. France's Renault has now bought back the Dacia factory, which hopefully means that the company will be able to recover from the economic problems. There are also plenty of old Soviet era cars still around.
The western parts are like the Puszta in Hungary, with the same type of buildings, the wells with the large wooden poles for drawing up the water, and the storks. Storks are even more plentiful in România than in the other central European countries.
Having heard stories about potential problems in România, I felt a little less comfortable driving around than I did in the other central European countries, but that may have been unjustified. The roads were not in quite as good a shape as in the other countries in the area, but at least in the part of România that I visited they were quite decent.
It is clear that România has a lot of catching up to do, compared with the other countries in Central Europe. Hopefully they will do so soon.
All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.
The total number of pictures online on my website from România is 14
Page last updated on Fri Apr 26 18:15:08 2024 (Mountain Standard Time)
România - Land of Dracula on guenther-eichhorn.com
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