The Real Eastern Europe: Romania and Bulgaria

After travelling through Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, my impressions of Eastern Europe had been drastically changed. I'd always thought Eastern Europe would be poor and gritty, filled with grey ex-communist buildings, but these countries were quite rich. Then I travelled into Romania and Bulgaria, and they lived up to my expectations. Much more down-at-heel and a little frayed around the edges, they leave a little more grit under the fingernails when you come to grips.

Timisoara

They are much more affordable than the more "westernised" Eastern European Countries as well, so you can splash out. I've been enjoying tasting all the local cuisine, without blowing the budget. Romanian food was dominated by polenta, and I mean dominated. One meal had 800g of polenta - that's a lot of polenta!!! I was surprised by how Italian, Romanian culture is - the food is quite Italian, and the language sounds very similar. This is quite interesting, since a lot of the neighbouring countries (Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria) are slavic-speaking. Bulgaria is definitely Slavic, since they invented the cyrillic alphabet and everything is written in cyrillic. So, it's been good practice reading all the words for my Russian leg.

 Suceava and the Painted Monasteries of Southern Bucovina

Romania tourism is dominated by the myth of Dracula, or Vlad Tepes. Every city you go to has some site connected with Dracula. He was a larger than life character certainly, but no vampire. Nevetheless, he was a blood-thirsty buggar - he used to impale his victims for a most excruciating death - a stake was shoved up the bum, avoiding all vital organs (so you wouldn't die straight away), til it came out the mouth - a very slow, painful death. OUCH!

 Sighisoara

 Brasov

  

Sinaia

Bucharest

 

In Romania, the weather had turned a bit sour on me, with cloudy wet days. However, the weather spruced up in Bulgaria - it's been lovely, but it's made me a bit homesick. The climate reminds me of Melbourne in late October. Spring is in full bloom - you can smell the pollen in the air, and the temperature is just perfect, before the heat of summer sets in, with clear blue skies and cool nights. I've got this funny feeling that it's Xmas now, and it's time to hit the golf course for a cheeky 9 or 18holes after work!

Veliko Tarnovo

 

 

Plovdiv

 

Anyway, I'm leaving Bulgaria tomorrow, for the much more expensive Greece. *sigh* I'll have to tighten the purse strings again, and live like a pauper instead of a king. All that after a 15hr bus ride to Athens! Wish me luck!