Romanian Adventure with my Dad

In August, Dad and I embarked on one of our joint-ventures. I love to explore new places and he loves heritage railways, we travel to places that cater to both our needs (see for reference - Poznan, Vienna etc.) this time we got out of the boat one step further and went to Romania.

Iași (yash)

We arrived in the intellectual city of Iași in the early afternoon. We caught a cab to the city centre and immediately realised how much further our money would go than in England. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Trajan and I enjoyed feeling really posh and like I was in a Wes Anderson film at the same time. Iași is a pretty place to spend time; it has some modern buildings but many gothic buildings, and a town-hall that looks like it is out of Disney. We found people to be very courteous in this university-town.

Riding old school trams

Rural life in Suceava region and beyond

The following day our hosts (my London house-mates) came to pick us up and we began the long drive to Vicovu. We passed many horse and cart pairs harvesting hay. In rural Romania people are very self-sufficient. Most families have reclaimed land since communism and use it to produce the freshest of produce. Whilst we were there we ate fresh tomatoes, quails eggs, local chicken, aubergines, even ice-cream. I watched Dad visibly relax in the Romanian world; people still believe in fixing broken machines there, and respecting their elders.  We were really touched to meet the parents of our friends who were also our neighbours; we overcame language barriers partly through a book about trains, and the common purpose of fixing a chicken-feeder.

Dads fixing the chicken feeder

Heritage Rail, Salt Mine and local heritage

If you like industrial history there is oceans to get stuck into in the area. Dad's motivation on coming to Romania was to visit the Mocanita la Moldovita - it is famous with his friends even in England. Dad helped the guys fuel the engine, lapped up the ride too and from and even got a cab ride on the way home.The guys were so impressed by Dad's enthusiasm and help they even gave him the mobile number of the Austrian who set it all up! I mainly took in all the views including these slightly risky looking bridges.

Bucovina Rail

Bridge

There are other adventures to have. We spent a morning down the salt mine at Mina Cacita-Suceava; the caves have been used to store cheese and mushrooms, play football matches and even as an underground ballroom!

Underground ballroom

Suceava has some gems to visit too. We went to the Bucovina Village Museum - where they have brought 30 houses from across the region and centuries to one place. You can tour them and learn more about the history of the region. I learned lots, but remain terrifying of the mourning house complete with wailing statues. My personal highlight of the trip was a late night trip to the Castle of Stefan - we had it all to ourselves and there was minimal interruption from little plaques explaining what everything us. Castles at night-time can be magical!

so much magic

The area of Suceava is famed for its UNESCO protected monasteries, we visited a few. It is certainly true that some of them have beautiful painted walls but the experience of these spaces was possibly the most alien of all our time in Romania. Neither Dad nor I have had much exposure to Eastern Orthodox practice and it felt unfamiliar. That said, I bought a beautiful hand-painted icon of Jesus at one of the monasteries, he is installed above my bed and was the inspiration for a lot of my bedroom design.

A first class rail journey?

There are not many opportunities to experience first class rail travel in my English life. So when the opportunity arose to cross Romania in a first class sleeper coach we jumped at the chance. The majority of the trip felt like a really luxurious trip into the past. That is until about 7am the following morning when the train came to a halt. After 2 hours of sitting still there was a bang on the door and the guard said 'You English need to leave'. We were so scared of what was going on; descending the carriage Dad fell to the track and I watched our whole trip flash before my eyes, we eventually boarded a standard class train, via absolutely everywhere, and Dad stood for 45 mins til a seat became available. We eventually learned where we were through my GPS and what the problem was, localised flooding as evident from the window. We did get to Bucharest eventually but we did also reward ourselves with a McDonalds. 

Our impressive cabin

Flooding the railways

Bucharest

We spent our last 48 hours before the journey home in Bucharest. To be honest I think we were spoiled by Iași and Suceava, in that we found Bucharest to be noisy and a bit too 'lively' for us. For dinner we went to Caru cu bere - the inside is a finely painted beer hall with live musicians and everything, but we were happy to cut the queues and sit outside. With full bellies we fell asleep and the next day flew home.

Gara de Nord

Adventures in Europe 1(of 3)

Locations: Southend, Amsterdam, Berlin, Wolstyn, Poznan, Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Southend.

Music: New Season (Luke Leighfield), Best of the Lighthouse Family (Lighthouse Family), ill Manors (Plan B)

Accomodation: Lalo Calado, Wolsztyn train house, IndustriePalast (Berlin), Hotel Budapesterhof (Hamburg).

So this summer my father and I bought some interrail passes and set off for Europe. The aim was to get to Wolszytn, Poland where we had booked a steam-train experience for Dad and to see some cities and museums for me. We did well at achieving both these aims.

We used our local airport, London Southend, an anachronism as its in neither London or Southend, which was really helpful seeing as the flight was early and it was the end of the Olympics. The flight was speedy and soon we arrived in Amsterdam and grabbed some much needed caffeine next to a sex museum which offered to ‘tell you the history of sex throughout all time’ for the small some of 4 euros, needless to say we declined.

(Even Mona gets thirsty!)

A long rail journey to Berlin followed, our first brush with the slower pace of interrail travel, feeling we stopped at every hamlet between Amsterdam and Berlin, but appreciating the countryside nonetheless. After a brief mix up, we got off the train at ZooGarten instead of Hauptbahnhof, we met the lovely Lalo Calado who had made us hand-drawn maps and found us some metro maps. A very gracious host had prepared a spacious room, complete with German flat-mate to await us. We had a swift Italian near his house and I ordered all the food in German, colour me smug!

The next day after an incident that I can only call miraculous, Dad and I did a quick swoop of Berlin before heading for Poland. Dad stood by the Brandenburg Gate looking at the site of the Berlin wall for a full five minutes just saying, ‘wow’. My Dad was 12 when the Berlin wall was constructed and it was still standing when I was born; he felt the full weight of ‘history as current affairs’.

The train to Wolsztyn was a definite upgrade on the day before, only an hour and a half and in compartments. Acknowledging Leighfield’s truth, ‘you are quiet but you are there, you are whispering through the world’ (Whispering) I really enjoyed our trip into the unknown. Poland struck us immediately with its flat immenseness. A land very much under-construction, but still featuring tractors on the highways. We were picked up by a slightly dubious chauffeur, who knew you could text and drive at the same time (!), and driven to the village.

Dad was in heaven, surrounded by Prussian steam engines and free to roam the engine shed. We enjoyed getting to know the little town of Wolsztyn with its cheap eateries, newlyweds taking their wedding photos infront of engines and complimentary wifi (in the middle of the lake – something makes me think they were trying to get rid of the teenagers!). We made the most of the Goulash soup (cue, ‘its never Goulash day!) and the local beverages.

(One of three couples I saw posing near the hulking beasts!)

The next day, having had our original steam plans thwarted by a ‘fault’, we got the modern train to the local city of Poznan. On the train we were travelling through ‘Great Escape’ territory and it struck me that you would have to have run a long way before you were safe in that flat, agricultural land. It was also on the train we heard about Claire’s A level results and Dad noticed, with much nostalgic sadness, that the stations were in disrepair.

(Station Demise)

Poznan is a city on the move, it is expanding all the time. It has got a very pretty town centre dating back centuries and  including a picturesque town hall (16th century), the main feature of which is a pair of rams which butt-heads at 12 noon. We enjoyed some pretty looking coffees in a garden cafe but I got bitten to shreds. We visited two museums in Poznan, the first was a traditional town museum at the Town Hall, think Cologne or Dusseldorf Statt Museum but less interactive. The second museum blew our minds. It was hidden in the base of the new cultural centre at Poznan and concerned the Poznan Uprisings particularly, 1956 when many people lost their lives in the protest. There were two things that struck me about the exhibition, the first was that neither me nor Dad knew anything about it, and the second was how effective the museum was; it featured a variety of media from propaganda museums to mock-up cells and original artefacts. All of the audio was available in four languages including German and English and the layout was imaginative making use of old tram cars and hiding speakers in blocks of concrete. Made the single use of my ‘Polish’ app in order to ask the lady where the toilet was and took a rather emotional father back to the railway station. Poland is not England, heath and safety does not exist, so when we needed to change platform to board our train the only thing to do was jump off the platform, cross the tracks and climb the other one, quite a feat when you’re wearing a dress! Returning to more depressing news about the ‘train fault’ I wondered whether we’d been fooled into a con; we made conversation with our host who had lived in Great Wakering, this would not be our last brush with Essex in Poland.

(Poznan Town Hall)

Despite the initial problems Dad did get to drive his steam engine in Poland but not until Friday afternoon; impatient to meet Berlin in more detail I went on ahead. On the platform I was nervously waiting for the train in the Polish lady, making conversation with the lady (phew!) who had driven me to the station. A hopeful, tired man and his bike rolled towards us asking, ‘Do you speak English?’. This man turned out to be Mel, he’s a teacher in Southend who was cycling from Southend to St Petersburg who’d had a bad run of luck. We spent most of the trip to Berlin praying we were on the right train (the station commander only spoke Polish) and marvelling at the small size of the world; even the train had gone through Sopot (twinned with Southend!).

Tune in on Monday for Part II. Berlin.