Thursday, December 29, 2011

Things You Didn't Know About Romania

Some countries, like Romania, are just ridden with misconceptions. In fact, once I told my colleagues and friends that I would be spending a week in this Eastern European country, I was hard pressed to find many positive comments.


More typically, I heard: "Why are you going there?" and "You better be careful of those gypsies." But, like so many of my travels, I was determined to do some myth busting. And this included looking for the Romania beyond the signature sights of fortified churches, painted monasteries, and anything to do with Dracula.



My article for the Huffington Post focuses in on Romania's hidden treasures.

15 comments:

Razvan said...

Nice article!

Some hints for your next trip to Romania: Queen Marie of Romania. She was in love with NY and NY used to love her.

http://speccoll.library.kent.edu/women/marie/triptoamerica.html

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5318

http://www.tkinter.smig.net/QueenMarie/index.htm

PS Let’s be honest: Dracula is funny, too. :)))

J The Travel Authority said...

Hi Razvan, Glad you enjoyed it.

J The Travel Authority said...

Hi Razvan, thanks for all the cool info.

Brette Sember said...

Fascinating. All I knew about Romania was that they had some big orphanage scandal at one point and there used to be a dictator.

jcreaturetravel said...

Hi Brette, I did find it very hard to find anyone who visited Romania. And the few I did find, all had relatives there. Thanks for your comments.

Alexandra said...

My husband wants to visit the region, Bulgaria tempts him. I want to visit Romania and will go read your Huffington Post article now. Thanks!

ruthpennebaker said...

I'm sending your article to my sister. She's always raved about Romania as her favorite country in Europe. Reading your article, I can begin to understand why.

J The Travel Authority said...

Hi Alexandra, I still haven't made it to Bulgaria. But, hope you enjoy the piece on Romania. If you need any other travel questions answered about the country, let me know.

J The Travel Authority said...

Hi Ruth, Thanks a lot. I'm really glad your sister loved Romania. I can't wait to go back.

Casey@Good. Food. Stories. said...

I can't believe someone actually made that gypsy comment to you! You'd think people would be more worldly these days. Sigh.

Cool info from commenter Razvan as well!

MyKidsEatSquid said...

I agree with Casey. I've always wanted to visit Romania. I had a friend who went there in part to track down some of her family history; she said it was a beautiful, welcoming place

jcreaturetravel said...

Hi Casey, Yeah, I know. Pretty crazy, huh? And, I also agree that Razvan had some pretty excellent historical factoids.

jcreaturetravel said...

Hi MyKidsEatSquid, I was very much taken with the hospitality of the Romanians I met.

van rental Dublin said...

Thanks Razvan,
It's really a informative blog. I got lot of knowledge about Romania though this blog and links are so useful to get history about Romania.

canvas art said...

Wow, there's so much I didn't know about Romania, thanks for the great post.