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.
16 comments:
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. :)))
Hi Razvan, Glad you enjoyed it.
More Things You Did't Know About Romania :)
1. Romania is a country with a predominat Latin culture (the only Latin country in Eastern Europe); Romania is not a Slavic country, such as Poland, Czeck, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine or Russia; There are also other ethnical groups living in Romania: Hungarians, Germans, Jews, Gypsies, etc.;
2. The Romanian language is similar to Italian, Spanish and French and totally different to the Slavic languages such as Polish, Czeck, Russian, Bulgarian, etc.;
3. The Romanian alphabet is the Latin one and not the Cyrillic one, as some Slavic countries have (Bulgaria, Russia, etc.);
4. In some countries Gypsies are also called Romani and that is why sometimes foreigners are making a confusion between the two totally different ethnical groups: Romanian versus Romani. Ups :)))
5. Foreigners also seem to make quite often the confusion between Bucharest (the Capital city of Romania) and Budapest (the Capital city of Hungary). :)))
6. ’’Dacia’’ is not just a car brand now owned by Renault, it is in fact the name of ancient Romania; Dacia was conquered by the Romans, so that’s where the Latin blood comes from.
7. After the 2nd World war, Romania was forced to change from a Monarchy into a Republic; however, nowadays the Romanian Royal Family is still respected and their informal role in our society is visible; King Michael of Romania got 90 years old in November 2011.
Hi Razvan, thanks for all the cool info.
Fascinating. All I knew about Romania was that they had some big orphanage scandal at one point and there used to be a dictator.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Hi Ruth, Thanks a lot. I'm really glad your sister loved Romania. I can't wait to go back.
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!
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
Hi Casey, Yeah, I know. Pretty crazy, huh? And, I also agree that Razvan had some pretty excellent historical factoids.
Hi MyKidsEatSquid, I was very much taken with the hospitality of the Romanians I met.
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.
Wow, there's so much I didn't know about Romania, thanks for the great post.
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