The loulous carrés in Romania and Hungary - August 2006

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Romania
Hungary

The loulous carrés visited Romania and Hungary with a few friends: a friend, Catherine, who visited Romania a first time and really missed their Dacias, tuica, and four-legged chickens, and Loulou carré's boss as well as his charming wife and oldest daughter.

The travel was, as usual, planned in detail with the help of Loulou carré's family. Loulou carré's father who owns a 9-seat vehicle guided us through Hungary and Romania: half-Romanian, half-Hungarian, with an amazing culture of the history, geography, and traditions of these two countries, he made our trip particularly interesting. His bilinguism and ability to drive on the Romanian roads were more than necessary for our trip. His numerous contacts in Romania and Hungary allowed us to have a richer experience than with any other touristic tour. As you will see, our trip was full of surprises.

The trip lasted 10 days. 10 exhausting days. In order to cover as much as possible the interesting places of Romania, we often woke up at 6:00 and sometimes went to bed at 2:00. Applause for Loulou carré's father whose incredible constitution allowed him to drive us safely everywhere. He is a professional driver and retired military, but still, the energy he had and which allowed him to stand the rhythm was truly amazing.

Special thanks also to our so kind and lovely Gabi who cooked for us so much and so well. Her numerous dishes changed our trip into a gastronomic trip and are among our best memories of the travel.


Friday, August 4th 2006

We all met at the Luxembourg airport for the departure. Catherine was afraid of the flight since she usually feels sick. However that was not during the flight that she has been the most sick in the 10-day trip...
After 2 hours of flight, we landed at the Budapest Airport in Hungary. Loulou carré's father, Eugen, welcomed us heartily at the Airport and we departed for the parking where we had the pleasure to meet Gabi, his lovely partner. At 16:00 we left the Airport in Eugen's vehicle. We were still in the parking when Eugen started explaining us all about the Hungarian history (translation by Loulou carré).

4 hours of travel later, we arrived at one of Eugen's acquaintances in a small Hungarian city. We were welcomed in the guesthouse of the couple of Hungarian and were offered a delicious gulash made in a caldron in the garden accompanied with home-made Spätzle, home-made palinka (the local strong alcohol), home-made wine and home-made apple juice.

Right after the delicious dinner, we visited the cellar where they have produced their home-made red and white wine since generations. Our host wanted us to taste all of them, but of course we couldn't. Unlike him, we weren't able to drink the whole pipette ;) It is a tradition that his guests stick a coin on the specific mushrooms growing on the ceiling above the wine casks. So we did...

Since there was a local party on the village marketplace, we joined to listen to some music and see the election of the most beautiful girl of the village.

We finally went sleeping in warm and comfortable beds.


Saturday, August 5th 2006

We woke up at 6:00, had a tasty breakfast and paid for our stay.

Objective of the day: reach Romania, eat at Loulou carré's grandmother's place at Hunedoara, visit the castle and reach the center of Romania where a former colleague of Eugen rents us his cabin in the mountain, at 15 kms of Fagaras (= 1h of travel by car...).

We reached the Romanian border after 2 hours of waiting time. We made some change, had sandwiches kindly prepared by Gabi and headed to Hunedoara.
Because of the delay at the border, we arrived at the Hunedoara castle at its closure time. Thanks to the insistance of Eugen, they let us visit it quickly.

We then met Loulou carré's extroardinary grand-mother. Extraordinary because of her age, energy, kindness and cooking skills. She welcomed us in her tiny, cramped and colorful appartment and offered us the dinner. Since she has worked her whole life as a cook, she prepared us an amazing dinner: we first started with home-made cherry liqueur, then we had soup, followed by three different meals (each composed of meat and accompanying vegetables, puree or applesauce - that was a really long time since we had not eat such a tasty and delicious potatoes puree). She also brought three different desserts (the kind of cake which you think it's impossible to prepare by oneself) accompanied with coffee and alcohol. The food was amazing (as well in quantity as in quality) and we learnt during our trip how the French cuisine is poor in comparison with the less famous but how tastier Romanian food. Eugen was surprised that we were so surprised by the Romanian food, but it really tastes a lot better: the difference certainly lies in the quality of the ingredients. The vegetables and meat mainly come from Romania, the varieties are different and you feel that you really taste the real taste of the fruits and vegetables.

We felt somehow guilty: Loulou carré's grand-mother had waited for us the whole afternoon, had cooked days in advance, and did not wish to eat with us, her only pleasure being to serve and welcome us as well as possible. In addition, since we arrived late at her place and still had several hours of travel to reach the cabin where we were supposed to sleep, we left quickly after having taken many pictures and thanked her heartily. The short but energetic old woman however seemed really happy to have welcomed us. A short but really nice encounter.

We arrived at the cabin late in the night (around 1 or 2 o'clock if I remember right) but the cabin's owner, Ovidiu was still waiting for us. He welcomed us in French, offered us some tuica and showed us our rooms after a while.


Sunday, August 6th 2006

We woke up at a reasonable time and had a delicious breakfast prepared by Gabi: coffee, tea, sausages, cheese, sweet peppers, tomatoes, bread and marmelade. Delicious. We met the cabin owner's wife and discovered the garden and the surrounding mountains that we had not seen at our arrival in the dark. Ovidiu showed us the stream and how its water was brought to the cabin and was also used as a natural refrigerator for the vegetables.

We departed for Sibiu and its Village museum. It was quite difficult to leave the cabin since the vehicle has to go through a tiny bridge which was designed with only Dacias in mind ;) Fortunately Loulou carré's father perfectly knew the dimensions of his vehicule which matched perfectly the ones of the bridge...

We visited Sibiu's Village museum. You not only pay your entrance but also for the one of your camera and you have to spend a few Leis more if you wish to use your video camera. It seemed to be a common practice in Romania.

The Museum presents in a wooden park many traditional houses from different times and regions of Romania. You can also visit a church which has been moved from its original place to the Museum. Such churches were separated into two parts: one room at the entrance for the women, and then the main part for the men. The women used to attend the service behind two small wooden-barred windows.

The park includes a lake around which a national contest of traditional Romanian music and dances was organized. We attended it, eating some corn cobs. It was the occasion of nice pictures of singers dressed with traditional clothes waiting to do their show.

We then visited the city center of Sibiu and there was a traditional dance contest there too. Sibiu was chosen to be a European capital for culture in 2007 and therefore large renovations had started in the city center... In particular on the main place. The renovation had not reached the surrounding streets however ;)


Monday, August 7th 2006

At 8h30 we left our cabin, went through the bridge, and headed to Brasov. We met Loulou carré's brother who came also from France to spend his vacations in his family in Romania.
We visited together the city of Brasov and Eugen kept giving us a lot of explanations about the history of the city.

We visited briefly the Black Church. The exterior of the church is indeed black because the church has been burnt by the Turks. The interior of the church was surprizingly decorated with carpets. We were lucky to find a schoolwork exposed in the church: children had realized a mockup of the citywalls of Brasov. Eugen explained us all about the role of the citywalls and of the different towers places regularly on the wall. Those towers were built to protect the city from invaders. Each tower was taken care of and manned by a different guild (boot makers, barrel makers, etc.). Each guild was responsible for the protection of their part of wall, which led to a strange organization of the defense: even if this led to emulation and competition between the different guilds and therefore to the improvement of their defense methods, when one part of the wall was attacked, the guild responsible for that part of the wall was receiving no support from the other guilds.

We then visited the main place and the main street: many shops, many cafés and people. We arrived in front of the cityhall and also in front of a building which was still bearing bullet marks from the 1989 revolution against Ceausescu. At that time, the revolution caused a great deal of confusion. This, and the fact that the military gave out weapons to citizen who wanted to "protect the revolution", caused many deaths from "friendly-fire".

While returning to the main place, we observed the people surrounding us. We observed how fit the young people were in comparison to the ones in western Europe. As we mentioned earlier, the food is certainly healthier in Romania. Men in our group were happy to see how the Romanian girls were pretty, while the girls of our group observed how the Romanian men were bad looking ;)

We entered a luxury commercial mall: we wondered who could buy there. It was clear that inhabitants of Brasov and even us could not afford the luxury products available there.

We had lunch at the terrace of a restaurant of the main place. We had some "Gordon bleu" (the restaurant was obviously offering dishes from western Europe) and they were good but far from being as tasty as the Romanian dishes prepared by Loulou carré's grand-mother or Gabi.
We almost had some of our stuff been stolen: some poor Romanian were coming on the terrace to ask for money but some also entered the terrace to steal stuff of tourists. Fortunately the waitresses immediately notice such persons and repel them vigorously.

On the afternoon we departed for the Bran Castle. This castle, whose construction started in 1377 and which was at first designed to be a citadel, inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula novel. We arrived at the castle under ideal meteorological conditions for such a visit: a sudden storm with thunderbolts. Our shoes were not at all appropriate for the rain, so we ran along the souvenir shops and directly climbed at the top of the mountain where the castle was so conveniently located. The castle was wonderful in the dark sky and the mist. The interior was wonderful too. It is impossible to figure out the plan of the castle: it consists in a succession of lovely rooms, corridors, steps, hidden passages, half-levels, windows on stair cases, balconies, or interior yard. The interior of the castle is white with furnitures and decorations made of dark wood. The castle was used as a custom at the time when Romania was still divided in three countries. Then, it was given by the city of Brasov to the royal family of Romania who used it as a residence. The castle presents many pictures of the Queen Maria and her daughter. In the recent years, there was a controversy over who owned the castle. A far English relative of the royal family claimed possesion over the Romanian state.

On our way back, we stopped by the other grandmother of Loulou carré, who had invited us for a snack. Obviously, the snack turned out to be a rich meal: sausage, cheese, tomatoes, potatotes, meat, carrots, sweet peppers, ... The dessert was a romanian cake. We also met Loulou carré's uncle, aunt and cousin, who happened to stay with them for a few days before going back to the USA. After this rich snack, we came back to the cabin, where Gabi was waiting for us with ... anoter dinner.


Tuesday, August 8th 2006

We had planned to woke up at 4:00 but didn't manage to, so we only left at 6:45 to Bucuresti. We arrived at 11:45 in front of the Palace of Parliament of Ceausescu. The size of the building is impressive. We entered and got to know that the visit was at 13:00. We thus decided to eat after the visit (there was not enough time right now) and we spent the time turning around the building, taking pictures and eating our left over cakes. We spent time lingering in front of the palace and taking pictures without realizing that we seriously had to hurry up if we wanted to turn around the castle and arrive on time for the guided tour. The Palace in itself is huge but it is surrounded by a large ground and wall. So the perimeter of the Palace was at least 5 kms and we finished our 1-hour walk almost running. We took the time to notice however how the Palace is wonderful but how its surrounding "garden" is a mess. A playground for the military ;). In fact part of the garden is still under construction.

As usual, the visit is quite cheap, but if you want to take pictures it's a lot more expensive (and you can't afford making videos). The visit is very impressive. It goes from one giant room to another, through huge corridors, and each and every space is heavily decorated with carpets, marble pillars, crystal lustres, and beautiful furniture. The palace was intended by Ceausescu to host all the state services, but the revolution toppled the regime before the palace was completed. There was a brief controversy whether the palace should be kept or destroyed because it was built by the tyrant, but fortunately the new administration decided to turn it into the Parliament building. Today, it is mostly completed, and it is so huge (second biggest office building in the world, and third in volume; world record for the number of windows) that even people who work there still occasionally get lost (even though the floor patterns are supposed to be readable for directions). Strangely, the theater room is huge, but the stage is so small than no show can be held there, so the room is used only for presentations. The tour lasts about an hour, and is very impressive, including the visit of the grand balcony, with a great view over the surrounding buildings and the old Boulevard of the Victory of the Socialism (of course it's not called like that anymore). Ceausescu wanted "his" boulevard to be longer than the Champs-Elysées, and it is (6 meters longer exactly).

After the tour, we decided to go to the Herastrau Park, where we had a late lunch: we tasted a Romanian specialty, mici. These are mince-meat balls served with mustard and bread. We also wanted to visit a village museum but it was getting late, so we decided to have a drive around and see the sights. This was hard because of the very heavy traffic, and also because there is little to see... We headed back to the cabin.


Wednesday, August 9th 2006

After a day of mostly travel, we decided to have a quiet Wednesday. We woke up late, had delicious (huge) blueberries for breakfast, and lingered a little bit around the cabin.

In the morning we visited the monastery of Sîmbata. Eugen, as usual, provided many explanations. As an orthodox monastery, it has suffered from the religion wars (catholic vs orthodox), and was burned down. It was then rebuilt in the 1920s and and restored after 1989. We visited the different places of the monastery, including the central church and the well that supposedly has healing water. We even had a personal tour in the reserve of the museum, where they have clothes, books, icons and other religious artefacts going back to 1500.

We then came back to Fagaras, the closest city to our cabin. We sent postcards and visited the citadel of Fagaras. The visit of the museum was quick, and we lingered outside, taking pictures. The citadel is in pretty good shape considering that it was founded in the 14th century. It used to be a stronghold during the wars with the muslims. Today it contains an upper-class restaurant that is used for many weddings in the city. After the visit, we came back to the cabin.

We decided to go walking around the cabin in the afternoon. Since some of us wanted to go up and some preferred going towards the nearest village, we separated into two groups. The group going up could not find a proper path to go much higher, and had to stop anyway because of the rain - they came back to have a nap at the cabin. The second group reached the village despite of the rain. On their way back, they met Eugen driving back to the cabin accompanied by young people. Without asking questions, they all came back to the cabin. The first group got back to the living room after the nap and were surprised to see so many unknown young people in the cabin and 2 meter high loudspeakers in the entrance and the living room. Eugen told us that he had prepared a surprise: our own very private traditional dance show!

There were five couples of dancers and two singers, one of which is nationally renowned. All wore traditional and colorful outfits. The show lasted for about half an hour, during which the singers sang very nice traditional songs and the dancers performed either along or by themselves. At the end, they invited the girls from our group to dance, and they made a big circle. Dancing or watching, we all had great fun. We were deeply moved by Eugen's surprise. After the group pictures, the dancers left while the adults stayed for dinner. We learned that they were all former colleagues of Eugen's (back when he was still in the Army), and now they are all friends. The nationally renowned singer owed Eugen a big favour, so at his request she organised our show. She has recorded with the biggest national records company and is very famous in Romania. The dancers are also quite renowned, they performed several times abroad.

The dinner was very good too, Gabi had made sarmale for everybody. These are wine or cabbage leaves stuffed with hacked meat, rice and spices. As many local specialties, they are delicious!


Thursday, August 10th 2006

We started the day by going to the region of Covasna. En route Catherine was trying hard to sleep, but it was difficult because of the bumps in the road. She finally solved the problem by tying herself to her seat in a nice imitation of a hostage situation.

In Tîrgu Secuiesc, we met Kalman, a cousin of Eugen's, who owns a leather factory. We toured the factory, and Kalman offered us to take samples of the production. They make shoes, coats, bags, and leather pieces for auto manufacturers. After the tour, we went to his place, where we met his family. Of course, we had a snack... The whole city (Tîrgu Secuiesc) looks a bit cleaner and better maintained than most parts of Romania. The inhabitants of the region take pride in this and also like to remind that they are of Hungarian and/or German origin.

Eugen wanted to show us some of the springs that litter the region. Most of them have healing properties, and have been used since the Roman times. We tasted different waters, each of them being supposedly good for a different part of the body: eyes, teeth, ... They all have a rather strong taste. One of them was fizzy, another one made our feet feel suprisingly nice after a few minutes. Until the revolution, the area hosted several spa hotels which welcomed guests from many countries. Today, most of these hotels were sold and the new owners don't want to invest money. As a result, there is a ruin feeling all over the place, and the basins are slowly turning into ponds. We left for the St Anne Lake, and on our way we stopped to admire a very nice view over the valley.

The lake was formed in an old volcano crater. It is a tourist spot in the region. We just enjoyed the shore, and rested a bit, but Eugen wanted to show off, so he swam back and forth across the lake. Louloute carrée wanted to show off too, so she mimed swimming.

We had planned to stop at the Prejmer fortified church on our way back. We did, but the church was already closed. We just took a tour. The church is very impressive, it has huge walls going all around which are 10 meter wide at places. It was used as both a storage place and a defensive structure since its construction (1225). Nowadays it still serves as storage.

The trip back was uneventful, except for the one stop where Eugen wanted to buy some truffles from a guy who was selling them on the roadside. We also stopped at Eugen's appartment, where Gabi had made, besides the usual snack, a very nice cake (she told us it had taken five hours). We had to carry it with us to the cabin, which is a very hard task on the Romanian roads. Luckily Gabi seemed accustomed to this sort of things, and she kept it at arm's length during the one-hour trip to the cabin. After dinner, Eugen wanted to cut it into parts, but he did it more like a soldier than like a cook. The cake was still very good!


Friday, August 11th 2006

Our breakfast included spaghetti with cheese and shaved truffles. Eugen insisted that we taste the latter, because they are quite rare and expensive. So he served us a good portion that we ate heartily.

The goal for the day was Sighisoara, a very nice and well-preserved medieval city. So we left as usual after breakfast. A few minutes after the departure, we grew silent in the car. There was a feeling of uneasiness among us, when suddenly Cecile, sitting behind Louloute carrée, threw up. This in turn made Louloute Carée sick, and we had to stop on the roadside. Cecile got quickly better, but Louloute carrée kept being sick. In the meantime, Eugen felt he had a kidney stone about to get out, so he went behind some bushes and we heard him groaning in pain. We must have looked like a driving hospital, given the number of sick among us... Finally Eugen got better and decided to go the nearest pharmacy to get some medecine for Louloute carrée. Meanwhile Loulou carré stayed with her and tried to help her. Finally the rest of the group came back from the pharmacy and she took the medecine. We headed back to the cabin, driving slowly to avoid making things worse. When we finally arrived, the Loulous carrés went to rest. Gabi told us that she had been sick too. We supposed it was coming from the truffles, because it was the single food we had had for the first time that morning. We all rested that day, and woke up in the late afternoon. We had to change plans for the remaining days because we now had to skip one of the objectives. After much discussion, we decided to still go the Sighisoara the next day, and to skip the trip on Mount Fagaraseanu.


Saturday, August 12th 2006

We had decided to go to Sighisoara instead of the mountains, so we left in the morning. The old city of Sighisoara is located on a hill, with a fortified church at the top and city walls all around. In between there are many medieval buildings. We first visited the Clock Tower, which hosted a museum and some very noisy, fat and stupid Italian tourists, blocking the narrow stairs, shouting to each other from one room to the other. Furious, Loulou carré shouted on them without success. When we finally reached the top of the tower, we had a look at the city. The streets were crowded with tourists, and we also saw two weddings. We had lunch in a restaurant, and to our surprise the food was not as good as Gabi's. After lunch, the group split, and we went for the top of the hill. To reach it, there is an ancient wooden-covered stair going up the hill. Later, we came across the statue of Vlad Tepes, inspirer for the character of Dracula. The statue doesn't portray him as an easy going man, to say the least, so we had to get in the same mood before getting a picture of us by a bewildered German tourist. We finished circling the city and had a drink at a nearby bar. Finally, we all regrouped and left for the cabin.

Needless to say, everybody was quite tired by the time we arrived, but we still took some weird-looking pictures in the dark before going to sleep.


Sunday, August 13th 2006

As we were supposed to leave the next day for a 800 kilometer long trip to Budapest, Eugen wanted to take some time to prepare the car, so we enjoyed a free morning in Fagaras. We didn't have much to do, so we just wandered around the Citadel, had a drink at its bar, and went to a nearby Internet café. By noon, Eugen had joined us and we went to a fish farm for lunch.

The place is made of several wooden cabins around a lot of ponds where fishes are grown. They have a hotel and a restaurant, and the whole place is a very nice setting for a good lunch. They even have a swing :) Of course, the restaurant has mostly fish dishes, but they also make other Romanian specialties.

After lunch, we toured the place and had a (short) walk before heading back to the cabin. As the trip to Budapest was about to be long and tiring, we packed our bags and went to bed early.



Monday, August 14th 2006

There's not much to say for Sunday. The whole day was devoted to the trip to Budapest, so we set up in the car as comfortable as possible and waited to get there. On the way, we saw a really heavily loaded car (probably a farmer going to sell his sweet peppers production in the northern part of the country).

Just before the border with Hungary, a stone cracked the windshield, and we were wondering whether the border guards would let us go through, but there was no problem.

At night, we arrived at the hotel and asked about nearby restaurants. The hotel receptionist indicated two of them, and we went to the closest one, which looked more like a bar where they also serve food. The owner told us that the only food he had was some gulash, a typical (and spicy) Hungarian dish. We ate (or tried to), but it was so spicy that we barely tasted it. Loulou carrée started feeling sick again... The Loulous carrés thus decided to go back to the hotel, while the rest of the group stayed a bit more.


Tuesday, August 15th 2006

During the night and in the morning, Catherine was sick, probably because of the gulash. She decided to stay at the hotel for the day. Louloute carrée went at the reception to find some food and drinks for Catherine but the smell from the breakfast room made her stop and go back to the room. She carefully decided to skip the breakfast but left with the rest of the group for our visit of Budapest, starting with the Citadel hill. The Citadel is now a museum of the history of Budapest. On the outside, there is an exhibition of artillery guns, and several monumental statues going back to the communist era. The hill also has great views over the city and the Danube and its bridges. Vladi bought a russian chapkra from the souvenir store, where they even had a russian cosmonaut helmet. In the meantime Louloute carrée managed to eat a few cakes.

As Eugen wanted to have his windshield replaced, we went to a garage outside the city where they could make it in the morning. Eugen and Gabi decided to stay at the garage while we went to a nearby underground station and took a train to the city center.

The city center is very nice, there are several pedestrian streets and many shops. The architecture is very monumental, buildings are often impressive, and the many plazas allow a clear view. There are also great views of the Danube and the bridges. Across the Danube, the Gellert hill is clearly visible, with the statues we saw in the morning and other monumental buildings.

We had a nice stroll around the center, but Louloute carrée was feeling very weak. We carefully decided to stop and eat at a fast food restaurant in order to eat something we all are used to. Cécile gave some medecine to Louloute carrée and then we made it to the Central market, where the crowd was very dense. We had a hard time making a way through all the people gathered there, either visiting of buying stuff, and by the time we were out Louloute carrée was feeling bad. We decided to go back to the hotel, while the rest of the group kept visiting. As we went to rest, they went to the Fishermen's Bastion, on the other side of the Danube, where they could get into a public bath. Budapest is renowned for its baths, which go a long way back. Most of them are in huge and beautiful buildings, even though some of them could use some refreshening. They also went to visit the Bastion itself, which looks a bit like a fairy castle: dungeons, walls, turrets and yards made of white stone, statues and sculptures,... Besides, the view over the Parliament and the other half of Budapest is beautiful.

They all got back to the hotel late in the night, and quickly went to sleep. Catherine and Nathalie had a sleep frequently interrupted by visits to the bathrooms.


Wednesday, August 16th 2006

The next day, Catherine was finally feeling better. Our last day in Budapest was devoted to packing and, for Louloute carrée to make a best use of the toilets till our departure, as she was even sicker than the day before.

We left the hotel for the airport, and Louloute carrée made us stop at the first rest area equipped with toilets. She was very sick, and we had a hard time getting to the airport, where Loulou carré had to call for the doctor. When he arrived, he gave her a pill which mended her stomach quickly and efficiently. However, as she was very weak and tired, she had a few hours of sleep, during which we said goodbye to Vladi (he took off on a flight to Paris), then prepared for registering and boarding.

Finally, the doctor came again and allowed Louloute carrée to fly, but she was so weak that she had to use a wheelchair. This allowed us to go to the plane in an ambulance and to be the first to board. The flight was OK, we were just in a hurry to get back.

In Luxembourg, we had a wheelchair too, even though Louloute carrée was feeling better. We got to the car, and headed for our appartment. The following days, we stayed at home and rested.

In a way, it's too bad that our trip ended in these conditions, but on the other hand, now we smile when we think back to it :)