Impressions of Romania

Vlad Tepes

When we moved to Berlin we made a list of places we wanted to visit.  The list was quite long despite the fact that we left off places we've already been to while we independently studied abroad in college.  Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian helped to put Romania on the list.  The Historian is the best Dracula book ever, weaving a chilling tale of Dracula through the story of a family over different time periods and across Europe.  As Vlad Tepes (also called Vlad the Impaler, the person Dracula is based on) is from Wallachia and Transylvania, two areas in Romania, it went on the list.

Easter being early this year we were looking for a vacation spot that is a good place to visit in late March/early April.  Travel guides say that Romania is a good vacation spot anytime of the year, so it seemed like a good target.  Romania is further south than Berlin, so in theory should be warmer, but also it is a place where the main attraction is just to wander and get a feel for the area, so if you don't mind walking in the cold it is just as good.

As the holiday came closer discussions at work started about where people would go for the break.  Usually when I mention a place you get one of two reactions:  "What a great place! You'll love it." or "Wow, that's awesome. I've always wanted to go there!"  Sometimes this is mixed in with, you're going off-season, it would be better in the summer.  But I don't like crowds and stifling hot temperatures, so I usually do not think it would be better in the summer. 

When I mentioned Romania, however, I got very different reactions:  "Really? Okay."  or "That should be... different."  Romania is in the European Union, actually it is the last country to have been let in (2007). They do not use the Euro and are known for being a very poor country.  Despite the very nice looking hotels and seemingly cool things to see based on the travel books, I started to second guess our choice.  I had also been excited about the food, until I read that it is mostly pork and cabbage.  While I like these, coming from Germany they don't sounds as exciting.  Our last trip had been to Morocco and the food there had been so interesting so it was a bit of a let down to think about.  Also, that people knew we had been to Morocco, which is also a relatively poor country, and were still concerned about Romania was worrying.

All I can say is, the worrying was for nothing (as usual).  Romania is amazing!  (And so is the food.)

We went for 10 days and traveled to see 4 cities beginning with the capital, Bucharest.  The tour books say that most people fly in and leave to see other parts of the country, but that it is worth a visit.  So we stayed for a 1/2 day before heading out and then returned for a weekend before flying home.  It has the most varied buildings right next to each other that I've ever seen in a city.  Many European cities have been built through many years and styles, but often block by block (like in Berlin which had whole sections that needed to be rebuilt after WWII), or neighborhood by neighborhood. In Bucharest, many of the buildings have been rebuilt or restored since their earlier days, but some of the styles seem older--like centuries old.  These are next to communist style buildings next to modern buildings.  All jammed together in no specific order. 

We took trains to stay for a few days each in Brasov, Sibiu, and Sighisoara.  All three are medieval towns (with some roots even earlier) and all have ties to Germany as they were Saxon towns.  There was not a long list of things to do in each place, but they kept us busy and entertained while we were there.

Sighisoara

Brasov

Sibiu

While I could really write a blog on each of these four places, instead I will try to give you some important overall things from Romania.

You must like to walk.  Much of what there is to do is to wander and see the towns' architecture and get a feel for the place.  There are museums and churches to visit, but none will take a terribly long time (and really you are just walking in museums too).

View from train

Taking the trains is great.  The Inter-city and Regional trains are some of the faster and more expensive options, but they're still pretty cheap (maybe 14 euros or so per person between cities 2- 3 hours apart).  They are comfortable, have bathrooms, and you get to pay attention to the scenery of the countryside and the small towns and villages you pass through without having to worry about going in the right direction.

Romanian wine is good.  If you are in in Sighisoara try Teo's Cellar and if you are in Brasov try the Winery on Str. Diaconu Coresi.  Most restaurants serve at least one or two good local wines, and even the cheap house wines are usually pretty nice.  The beers are worth trying too.  I liked the Bergenbier best.

If you are looking for a friendly four-legged friend on vacation, Romania has plenty of them.  Many dogs roam free.  Be careful or you will want to bring them all home.  (Also watch where you walk.)


There is a lot of Turkish and Hungarian influence here (as Romania was part of each at points in history).  Therefore the pork and cabbage have more spice than in Germany.  I completely approve.  Do not eat at the many Irish pubs (I am not sure why there are so many) but try (and retry the ones you like) the Romanian dishes like cabbage stuffed with meat and chicken and pork in a tomato-y sauce over polenta with a fried egg.  Also the desserts are good, including amazing chocolate cake that they must soak in run because it tastes a bit like a rum ball.

Bran Castle

Don't go looking for Dracula at Bran castle.  They call it "Dracula's Castle," but the odds are good he was never there.  But it may be the castle that Bram Stoker used for his book.  And as a castle goes, it's pretty cool.  And you learn about the Romanian monarchy who last lived here.  So do go see it.  Also they say that there will be lots of Dracula stuff everywhere, but I didn't find that it was too much.  (Even though I liked the book about Dracula, I really don't care for scary things.)

From Rasnov Fortress

Go to Rasnov and walk up the front of the hill to get to the fortress (or go around back and take a tractor pulled wagon).  The fortress is in ruins, and the signs don't tell you that much, but it has amazing views!  I liked it even more than the castle.

If you have more than 10 days, rent a car.  There were a lot of day trips we didn't get to that would have been much easier with a car.  But we were able to do what we wanted while we were there with train, bus, maxi-taxi, and taxi.

Breite

The Romanians don't all seem sure why people are coming there to visit.  We had several people (all about our age) express wonder at this.  They don't seem to think that their wilderness that you can go walking in (like Breite outside of Sighisoara that has 800 year old oak trees) or the beautiful and historical towns are really worth seeing.  They know that if they lived in other places in Europe they could make a lot more money (average wage in Romania we were told by two separate people is 150 euros a month) and do more things and are not sure why we would choose to go there.  On the other hand, several older Romanians told us excitedly how Romania is great and expressed love of being able to earn money and choose to do with it what you want (although that did seem to include traveling outside of Romania).

But even off-season we were not the only tourists.  Tourists there must be mostly German or British because that was always what people asked.  Although most of the English-speaking tourists we heard were American.

Eastern Europe definitely has a different feel than Western Europe.  In Berlin, you don't quite get the full sense of it because half the city was in each and they have very much merged.  Romania has a long history and much of it still exists as buildings and places to be seen and explored.  While it seems like they were often ruled by others they seemed to have retained a sense of who they are as their own nation and that shows too in the food and the traditional clothes, music, and dance.  It is worth adding it to your list.


Rereading The Historian before and during the trip, I remembered how many other eastern European places the book travels through.  While some of the cities they do not tell the names of (some of which you can tell anyway), many they do.  So while we checked off one place from our list, it ended up longer than it was before we left.

American Food in Berlin

Last year everything in Berlin was so new I didn't often miss the food I ate before I moved here that I couldn't get here.  Sure, when I went back to the US there were things I would need to get (bagels with egg and pork roll, pizza, and Mexican food) but I was able to cook enough things that we were normal to us that it didn't matter that much while we were here.

During these dark days of winter we can go for a week with grey clouds and no real sun (rather reminiscent of South Bend, Indiana) and the sun rises when I am almost at work and sets before I leave, so I have been feeling the pull of old comfort foods more.  Luckily we've found some things to help, but we've also seen some sad misses.

This past week has been a real example of what I mean.  Last Saturday I wanted pancakes for breakfast.  This is actually something I eat rather rarely in general and even more so since we've lived here.  Usually if we want pancakes we plan ahead when we go grocery shopping to buy buttermilk and then we make them (no box pancake mix here unless you want to spend a near fortune on it).  This time I remembered that Atlantic on Bergmannstrasse has an American breakfast that consists of pancakes, maple syrup, and fruit.  I had not tried it before because it seemed silly to order an American breakfast when we're eating out.  I was quite excited as I waited for my pancakes to arrive.  When they came what I saw was something like a very thick crepe with powdered sugar sprinkled on top and the thinnest syrup ever.  It tasted a bit like funnel cake or like 5 crepes stacked on top of one another maybe. So don't get me wrong; they were good.  But they were not pancakes.

On the other hand we had recently found that the Colombian restaurant near Gneisenaustrasse sells canned tomatillos and poblanos, along with a variety of other packaged South American/Mexican food items, and their homemade hot pepper salsa.  So when I was looking at what to do with a pork tenderloin we had and came across a recipe for Tequila Pork with Tomatillo Guacamole I decided that was the winner.  We haven't been able to find tomatillos really before this so I had been ruling out all such recipes.  Since it is a giant can, I decided to also make tomatillo salsa.  And the grocery store helped out by actually having cilantro, which is by no means a sure thing.  So we planned 3 Mexican dishes for the week to use up the salsa and pork and while it wasn't authentic Mexican, it was pretty good Tex/Mex for Berlin.  Of course, there are two places in Berlin where you can get decent Mexican, Santa Maria and Ta Cabron, but the options are limited, and it was good to cook it at home like we used to.

This week I also had Cherry Coke.  I had not been able to find it at the grocery store, and it definitely isn't served at any of the good burger places where I would want it to be, but then I found it at the grocery store in the train station on our way back from some trip or other.  I didn't care that I had to carry the bottle across town, I needed it.  Then I saved it until this week when I decided it was time.  I know that Cherry Coke doesn't really pair well with Mexican food, but they both remind me of home and I didn't really care.  I also found last week that they now sell Cherry Coke at our grocery store so I can buy another bottle to save for the next time I need it.

This weekend I picked up bread and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  So I guess I am still in need of some American comfort foods.

While I don't often need an American food fix, it is nice to know that it is possible.  There is a NY style bagel place Barcomi's (where the bagels are decent, but not really like those from NY), a new place that sells pulled pork or brisket sandwiches (which are good despite being American/German fusion), and a new American diner that I have yet to try.  Cooking at home also helps as long as you are careful to pick dishes where you can get the ingredients you need. 

Now that the sun has started to rise earlier and set later every day and we have begun to see it shine more often from behind the clouds and we even had a week of false-hope spring, I imagine the need for comfort foods will decrease, but it was nice to have them while I wanted them.

Visit Szczecin, Poland

When we talked to friends from Berlin early on about day trips from Berlin some people mentioned Szszecin, Poland.  After living here for a year we finally decided it was time to go to Poland for a weekend.  From Berlin, you can cross into Poland within about an hour depending on where you are headed.  So we thought back to what people had said about Szczecin in northern Poland.  Then I started to do some research looking up what to do there and whether we should spend the night or come back the same day as it is only a 2 hour train ride.  After several blogs and other sites the general impression I got was- "Don't go."  It seemed people much preferred the day trips within Germany.  I started to waver and was thinking about alternatives.  

Then I talked to a friend from work who is from Poland.  He has been to Szczecin and said that if people go there thinking they are going to a big European city like Rome or Paris, they are often disappointed.  Also, much of the city was destroyed in World War II, so it is not as old as some other destinations in Poland, so it has less of a sense of history about it.  He felt that the town was a bit grey, but it was a nice place to walk around and was worth seeing.  Also it would be a taste of Poland: the culture, the people, the food, while also being close to home.  Not only is not far from Berlin, it was for a time part of Germany and only went back to Poland after WWII.  In German the town is called Stettin.  I recently saw a map of Europe from during Frederick the Great's time and Stettin was on the map as part of Brandenburg.  In the end we decided to go.

We tried to book train tickets online but could only get them mailed to us.  We decided that since it was less than a week a way that might not be the best plan.  So we went to the station and got them a few days in advance.  This turned out to be a good plan.  Online the only option was about 60 euros per person round trip.  At the train station we got tickets for only 20 euros round trip per person.  This made it definitely worth going to just get out of Berlin for a couple days.

We of course picked the rainiest weekend in weeks, but since we had tickets we stuck to the plan.  Even in the rain, I really enjoyed walking around the city.  It is really a good place to walk around.  There is a tourist path (drawn in red on the sidewalk, even) with historic and important sites to stop at (all numbered and everything).  We didn't really have the walking tour book and didn't care much to take out paper to read about what we were seeing since it was raining.  While parts of the city are a bit grey and looked even more grey in the rain, the buildings were cool.  I know nothing about architecture, but the architectural styles around town were varied and interesting.  Some of the old part of the city have been redone with bright colors, so that made everything a bit more cheery.  There are museums but they apparently don't have much labeled in English, so we didn't go to any of them.

As a significant port city, they have a nice waterfront walk in front of the Maritime Museum and Nautical Academy, which impressively sat upon a hill overlooking the water.  As you walked along the river you could smell chocolate from the chocolate factory on the other side of the city.  In the future they will be creating gardens in the water where the river is too shallow for large ships.  Apparently you can also rent kayaks and canoes, although it was a bit too cold for that in October.  

 

 

There is a castle of the Pomeranian Dukes, which supposedly has some exhibits, but really was just a cool building to walk around.  In the warmer weather they do open air concerts in the courtyard.  And the space inside is also used for weddings which we saw as well. 

We ended up meeting with my friend's friend who lives there and she took us around the city a bit.  Two things she showed us which we would not have done on our own were to visit the cemetery and to go up to the 22nd floor restaurant to overlook the city.  I had seen that the cemetery was one of the things to see in Szczecin, but as it was a bit outside of the historical district (so you needed to take a bus or tram) and we don't speak Polish I figured we wouldn't bother.  I am glad that we did because it was unlike most cemeteries I've been too.  Szczecin at some point decided to move all of the cemeteries from around the city into one place.  What resulted was one ridiculously large cemetery with some sections specific to certain religions and others more general.  There are fountains and statues.  Also, there are many many trees.  I am used to no trees and being able to see all of the graves.  I think about the military graves from the civil war where you can just see lines of the white crosses forever.  But here the graves sites seemed more intimate, with personal touches like gardens and benches and they are hidden from the roads and pathways with clear sections between graves.  I liked the feel much better.  Although I suppose that this cemetery has a different intention than the military ones where they want you to feel how great a loss it was.  

 

Overlooking the city was also fun, although would have been nicer on a nice day.  You could really see how green the city was with all of its parks from above.

 

The food was also amazing, which makes the train ride worth it on its own. For lunch we went to a brewery that opened a year ago called Browar Stara Komenda.  The beer was great and the food was awesome!  Not all of the food was traditional Polish but we tried a more traditional soup (I think it was a cabbage soup), bread with schmalz, and what we decided was a Polish hot pocket (only actually good).  

For dinner we went to Karczma Polska Pod Kogutem, which both our Poland tour book and the hotel recommended as good for traditional Polish food.  It was a bit hokey and touristy (people on one side of us spoke German and on the other side English), but the food was good.  We had Bigos (cabbage stewed with pork in a bread bowl) as a starter, then Polish pierogi with bacon and barley, and pork knuckle village style.  Overall, it was a lot of cabbage, but all so wonderful.  The pierogis aren't at all like the ones we get in the US and in fact not what we had at the Culture Festival in Berlin either.  (This was a bit of a shame, as the Berlin ones were the best.)  We again had beer, which was great.  We were tired from the long day and rain so we didn't move on to vodka.  Some say Polish vodka is the best.  I am not in a position to say, since I don't drink vodka often.  But it is cheaper and they have a great variety so we did bring some home with us!

If you are visiting Berlin and don't have much time, it may not be worth going to Szczecin.  There is plenty to see in Berlin and Potsdam.  But if you are in Berlin for an extended stay or are living here, it is definitely worth it.  I would recommend going in nice weather and maybe when you can go kayaking.  It is a perfect mini getaway that makes you feel like you have gone much further.  Plus you get to train through the countryside to get there.

Kartoffel Fest

Potatoes are not my favorite, but they sure are a staple here in Germany.  There are even potato based restaurants in Berlin like the Kartoffelkeller.  We haven't been there, but even I am interested in seeing what the restaurant is like.

So when it is potato picking season, what better than to have a Potato Festival?  There is one on a farm in Dahlem, a section in southwest Berlin.  As festivals are generally fun, we went to check it out.

I learned how they pick potatoes.  A tractor goes and pulls up the plants from under the ground.  Then the potatoes can easily picked up off the ground.  There were lots of kids waiting for the tractor to come past so they could scoop up a bunch of them.  People were walking away with huge bags of potatoes.

I also learned that there are a ton of different types of potatoes, besides white, blue, purple, and sweet.  The sad thing was that they didn't have any that you could taste.  It would have been interesting to find out what the differences were.

 

We had some excellent kartoffelpuffers, which is similar to a potato pancake, but different than any I've had in the US.  These I actually like to eat, even.  We also had Federweisser, which is a fall drink of freshly fermented grape juice.  It tasted a bit like a apple cider (the non-alcoholic American kind).  Sadly we have bought some since at the store and it is not half as good as the glass we had at this festival.

There are so many festivals in Berlin.  They are fun and rarely disappoint. 

Feigen

Every once in a while we would buy some new exotic fruit from the grocery store, look up online how to cut and eat it, and try it.  In this way we have tried Lychees, Dragon Fruit, Tamarillos, and a variety of other fruits.  One that I never tried were fresh figs.  I eat them dried and love them.  But whenever there would be a few fresh ones at the store they were so expensive especially compared to the packages of dried ones that I never bothered.  I figured it was better to try something I had never had in any form.

Here in Berlin, fresh figs, or Feigen, have become a fall treat for us.  They are in season in Turkey and get shipped here.  You can buy them for most of the year and they are still cheaper than in the US.  However, when it is the height of the season, they reduce in price to about a pound for 3 Euros. 

They make a great quick dinner after a long day of work.  Slice up a fig, put it on some fresh baked bread with some prosciutto and arugula (which the Germans love and eat on everything including pizza) and add some Balsamic vinegar and you have a great sandwich to go with your favorite sides.  I am not a big sandwich-for-dinner person, but these are worth it. 

This summer while back in the states I picked up a Food Network magazine that had several jam and preserve recipes.  One of them was a Fig and Ruby Port Preserve.  I have never been tempted to make my own jam, but this one called to me.  I have had fig jam before at La Femme, a Turkish restaurant near Hermannplatz that makes their own jams to go with their simit rings (sesame bread rings) for breakfast.  I love all of their jams.  Generally they serve strawberry or some other berry, but every once in a while you will get fig instead.

So I went for it.  I bought a few canning jars and a bunch of figs and tried the recipe.  I had to use Tawny Port as it is difficult to find Ruby Port here (3 stores, 2 of them wine stores and still no luck, which is crazy considering they come from Portugal which is in the EU).  I am also pretty sure that the La Femme puts honey in their jam so I traded out about 1/4 a cup of sugar for honey.  Since I tripled the recipe it took about triple the time to cook down, but it was completely worth it.  The preserves were amazing with strong cheese, on scones, and I bet will be the best on vanilla ice cream!  I can't wait till I have time and cheap figs again!

Ping...Pong

For the most part it doesn't get so hot in Berlin that it is unpleasant to be outside.  This is good since there is almost no air conditioning here.  It is also not as humid as the east coast of the US.  That means that on a nice summer day it is fun to go to a park.  And Berlin has a ton of parks.

Victory Column

There are big ones like Tiergarten in the center part of the city.  This park contains the Victory Column (Siegessäule in German) and is right near the Brandenburg Gate.  It is hard to tell how big the park is when you are in it because it is broken up by a streets and rivers and lakes and also sectioned off by trees and paths.

Soviet Memorial in Treptower

One of my favorite large parks is Treptower Park.  It is in eastern Berlin along the Spree.  Along the river there are cafes and snack stands.  The most appropriate one seems to be the smoked fish stand.  Here also there are many paths and sections to the park including open fields, flower gardens, and wooded places for shade.  Treptower Park also has a large Soviet War Memorial which I enjoy walking through.  The most interesting thing about the park is the SpreePark, an abandoned amusement park.  It is all fenced off and there are many trees that make it difficult to see into the park, but you can see the ferris wheel and a beat-up fiberglass dinosaur or two.  Apparently this park was open until 2001.  But it seems much older and creepier because it seems overgrown.

Can you find the ferris wheel?

Dinosaurs

The other large park we go to is Tempelhof Airfield.  According to Wikipedia it gets its name because the land was originally owned by the Knights Templar in medieval times.  As I have mentioned this airport is the one used for the Berlin airlift when allied troops brought in food and supplies to West Berlin while roads and water routes were closed off between June 1948 and September 1949.  The airport building, rebuilt by the Nazis, was at one point in the top 20 largest buildings in the world.  Now the building is used for events like a large fashion show.  And the airfield is used as a park.  There are areas to grill, dog parks, mini-golf, and gardens.  And you can rollerblade, bike, or skate sail on the runways.  This is a park you don't want to come to if you are looking for shade though.

Viktoriapark- looking up to the monument

There are many smaller parks as well.  Viktoriapark has a lot of space for picnics and walking but its main thing is that you can walk about the hill (one of the very few in Berlin) and look out over the city.  There is a monument to the war against Napoleon at the top of the hill and this is a great place to watch the sunset.

View from top of Viktoriapark

A park we recently went to is Volkspark Hasenheide near Hermannplatz.  You can almost walk from this park directly to Tempelhof but you have to go on the road for a little bit to make it between.  We went here just to walk through a park on a nice afternoon.  What we found was that this park also has mini-golf and a mini-zoo (camels and llamas plus more). 

There are also mini-parks with just a playground and some shady spots and some sunny spots dotted throughout the city.

The one thing that most of these parks have in common (other than Tempelhof maybe) is that they have ping pong tables.  These are smooth slab tables with metal "nets" so they don't get ruined by weather.  You can bring your own paddles and balls to most parks and play a round or two.  While I am not the biggest ping pong player, I find this a nice thing to do at a park.  Something to think about in the parks in the US.

Overall I think that the parks in Berlin offer something for everyone:  shade, sun, history, water sports, ping pong, grass, walks, and all without having to be too far away from home.

Olympics 2012 in Berlin

While I am usually an avid Olympics watcher, this year I did not watch as much as I would like.  Instead I was busy traveling and visiting people.  But once we were back in Berlin we were able to take advantage of being able to watch the Olympics at Tempelhof Airfield.  They had a big screen set up airing the Olympics all day.  We brought some beer and sat in the grass watching the Mexico vs. Brazil soccer game.  It was a perfect day with some sun and some clouds and 70 degrees.

You could set up camp there all day either bringing in packed food and drinks or buying things from the stands set up around the area.  They brought in a bunch of porta-potties too.  They cost 50 cents to use, but they were clean! And outside there was a real sink with soap and water.  I really don't mind paying to use a bathroom when I know that it will be clean and have toilet paper. 

And if just watching the Olympics makes you feel like getting up and being active you were in the perfect spot.  You could go onto the runway and rollerblade or bike.  If you didn't have your own bike you could rent one or if not into biking you could rent a segway.  They also specially set up a soccer field, hockey field, volleyball court, and badminton court for people to play in.  And apparently in the mornings they had free yoga and pilates classes.  If only we'd found out about this before the second to last day!