Transylvania

Ploiesti
Transylvania
Slanic
Brasov

I mentioned to Radu that I wanted to take a two day trip into Transylvania. He wrote up a very specific time table. Leave Bucharest at 7:30; 120 minutes to Simaia; 45 minutes from Simairi to Bran (9:30 to 11:30- home of the "Dracula's Castle" perhaps visited by Vlad the Impaler but once); In Bran eat lunch at Wolf Supermarket. One hour and fifteen minutes in Bran. Twenty five minutes from Bran to Brasov. Arrive at 3:30 before the closing of the Black Church. I actually arrived in Brasov at 5:30 PM after all the attractions had closed. (There is a little "c" hook under the s which gives the "c" an "sh" sound and the last letter sounds a little more like an "f" to me- so like Bra- shoff.) I am getting a little ahead of myself.

Because the rental car arrived late, 9:30 AM, I got a late start but the car deliverer (another Radu) dropped off the car and actually drove the card though the worst traffic in Bucharest. My first stop would be Ploiesti, wealthy city of oil refineries. I parked near the center and like most Romanians- half on the sidewalk. I was with just a few yards of the at museum. I have written little about Romanian art up to now and saving it for another blog. But I am simply crazy about Romanian painters, very loose, painterly style. They paint with thick liberal impasto. They paint with confidence. My friend Euwen, said, "Yes, they are different, because they never made any money when they paint."

One of the things that I love about going to place like Russia and Romania, is that I see works of art that I have never seen before. My favorite thing is to take photographs of the paintings and then study them later on. Unfortunately there is either a charge to photography or photography is banned. I paid 100 Lei (about $30) to photography in the Romanian National Gallery of Art and it was well worth it. But it also cost 100 Lei to photograph in this little museum. I was tempted. There were some really beautiful pieces by Ion Tuculesu (1910- 1962), Francisc Sirato (1877- 1953), Conelu Baba (1906- 1998 Jean Alsteriadi, Nicolae Darascu (1883- 1995), Iosif Iser (1881- 1958), Stefan Dimitrescu (1886- 1933), Nicolae Tonitza (1886- 1940), Nicolae Grigorescu, Stefan Popescu, Ipolit Strambu and Gheorghe Petrascu (1872- 1948).

I specifically asked in my best Romanian "Unde este..." OK, my Romanian is not so hot. And I did not realize that I had such a good map of Ploiesti in my Lonely Planet guide. But two people pointed in the exact opposite direction. I wanted to see the Muzeul de Istorie si Arheologie (get it?). The Clock Museum was really not on my list. And I would have loved the open market but directions gave a place somewhere off the main drive and I was on a mission, to get to Brasov before 5 PM.


I knew that the next place I was headed for was a city beginning with the letter "S". I saw a sign for Slanic and it sounded familiar, so I follow those signs. The city that I was really looking for was Sinaia. What I missed was Peles (hear "Palesh")Castle, a palace, with great turrets and grand halls- recently begun in 1875 and completed in 1914, in time for World War I. Quite pituresque I have heard.

Where I ended up, and I am glad that I did was in the town of Slanic. I had mentioned this place to Radu. He was afraid that I would probably get lost, but it wasn't really very difficult finding it- the largest underground salt mine in the world. The elevator down is the original 1945 elevator that brought the miners down- small, rickety, noisey and shaking the whole 10 stories down. I thought the cavern was manificent- despite it being man-made. It reminded me of large cathedrals with vast arched ceilings. The 23 Celcius temperature mixed with the salt air was to have salutary effects. Dotting he underground-scape playgrounds, benches, swings, venders, and various kinds of salt sculptures. I went on a photo-taking mania trying to capture something that caught the massiveness of the mine. (One other thing- This public tourist attraction had possibly the nastiest toilets I had ever seen in my life. I will spare you the description.)

(More later)