Last Updated on July 12, 2019 by PowersToTravel
In planning a trip to a new country, I often start by searching for trips offered by local travel agencies, even if we aren’t intending on being accompanied. What sights do the locals want to show off? What sights do they find people want to see?
If I search in a website similar to TripAdvisor, I find that every town has something to offer. Every city has its parks, every reviewer has his preferences. The website doesn’t rank the regions well enough, help me find where to go among the thousands of parks, towns, cities. I’ll go to TripAdvisor once I have an idea of the itinerary, as I need to refine the trip, but in creating the structure itself? I go to local agencies.
And so I found Compass Travel, and stuck with it, through the thick and thin of investigation. They offered the Romanian Rhapsody, an eleven day tour which incorporates scenic area, historic towns and castles and current culture. (https://www.tours-of-romania.com/romania-tours/the-romanian-rhapsody-best-seller-11-days)
“HEY LADY!”
My thoughts are jarred with a memory of our tour guide/driver Iulian.
“HEY LADY!” as his arms leave the steering wheel, gesturing like a New York City cabbie.
The car jerks from side to side, front to back as he jams on the brakes.
“She’s supposed to look before entering the zebra crossing!” Did he say “zebra” or is that my own interpretation of the upset of the moment?
I knew we were in for it the first day, the moment we had to park in downtown Bucharest, to get to the local exchange office for money. A dichotomy of kind service and conversational insensitivity, Iulian lurched the car up halfway on the sidewalk in clearly a no-parking zone. As Greg and I tried to scramble out of the car, a nearby official of some sort yelled at Iulian to move the car.
Iulian yelled in Romanian, argued in Romania, gesturing. Was this a normal Romanian exchange? Were they inquiring about each other’s health and family happiness, in an exuberant fashion, or were they letting each other know about how they felt about their sisters?
We’re rather quiet people and have heard enough stories of road rage in the US that we tend to be polite. “Oh? No parking here? Where can we go?”
Iulian backed off that bit of pavement and lurched us down to another spot. “Get out and go back a block for the exchange.” This time we got out of the car before the person tending that piece of sidewalk could engage with our driver.
The exchange office was a tiny window facing the street. We presented our dollars, and quickly received our pile of Lei. No passport was asked for, the transaction done in a matter of seconds.
We rushed back to our car, it still anchored to the pavement by the force of Iulan’s voice, and away we went.
Iulian turned out to be a very accommodating, eager to please, knowledgeable, New York City cabbie. Wildly gesturing at every other driver on the road who hit the brakes and turned without a signal, at every pedestrian who did not pause and look both directions when crossing the road. Hands were off the wheel about as much as on the wheel. “HEY LADY!” I guess I didn’t realize he had a problem with women driving, or walking, on the road, but Greg says he did.
For every sin he exclaimed about, he committed a dozen. JERK! went the brakes as we screeched to a halt. True, the car in front of us had hit his brakes, but that’s no reason we had to too, perhaps we could have had our eye on the road, and coasted in to a stop?
Did I say that I can get car-sick? Did I say I told Iulian too? Did I mention I told our travel agent Andrei at Compass Travel when booking the trip? Andrei must never have gotten into a car with Iulian.
Or is this just Romania?
We’re not quite sure whether to consider Romanian-normal the crazy driving, opinionated discourses about immigration, Trump, and the EU, and even our own digestive choices – we chose to drink liquids with our meal. Horrors of horrors, I chose to drink water with my meal, and Greg, a diet soda. We were treated to a long discourse on the unhealthy consequences of liquids with meals.
We can give as good as we get, but we generally don’t like to while on a vacation, yet soon I found myself yelling like a Romanian (?) from the back seat. I calmed down and told myself I would not engage in conversation the next day. My stomach could only take the driving experience if I calmed my nerves and let the peace flow through.
“HEY LADY!” The discourse once again jarred me. Greg stepped into the conversation and turned it to “yellow lines on the road.” Hopefully this would be non-political, non-economic, gentle conversation about how the yellow / white / dashed / continuous / lines on the road are different in Romania than they are in the US. Soon Greg was being berated for the ignorant and stupid way our lines are drawn. Ah, lines being drawn…
“What’s that word mean?” I asked as we passed a hotel. It was some Romanian word, I’d seen it several times before. Did it refer to the type of accommodation, or the quality of the food?
“It means HOTEL. What do you think it means!?” Iulian put me in my place. Clearly Romanian was a universal language, at least to some tour guides.
Each night I would fume about the arguments of the day, the patronizing tones of voice, the things I did or didn’t say, the things I would or wouldn’t write to the owner of the agency. Every morning I would start the day fresh, with excitement for our next adventure, and the thought that I was simply letting Iulian get at me, and that today would be different.
We wandered around a citadel, and passed through a labeled doorway. “What does the sign mean?” I asked.
“Kitchen of course! What do you think it means!?” My eyes searched the room we had entered, seeing nothing but empty walls. Of course.
Screech, jammed the brakes. “HEY LADY!”
My stomach lurched, and the cycle went ‘round again.
Our journey through Romania was memorable. It was also eleven days of increasing aggravation. Was Iulian typical of a Romanian? What are Romanians really like? He was kindly, believe it or not from my previous paragraphs. My shoulders suffered terribly from the rock-hard beds throughout Romania. He talked (gesticulated with raised voice!) with the hostesses at the hotels, got them to put extra comforters on the beds. However down comforters just flatten into hard rocks if you lay on them. I needed foam. Iulian took us to several local stores looking for a mattress topper. We got well acquainted with the chain of “Lidl” stores. No foam, anywhere.
Finally Greg spotted a sports store, and we headed in for a yoga mat. Well, the yoga mat didn’t look thick enough to do the job, but they had a self-inflatable air mattress. My new air mattress just barely cut the pain enough to let me sleep, the entire rest of the trip.
Did I mention Iulian was kindhearted? He really did want to make us happy.
Would we like to go see the Alba Iulia Roman / Medieval / Vaubon fort, or the Turda Salt Mines? I saw the interest on Greg’s face as he learned that the Alba Iulia fort is a Vaubon fort, from the Napoleanic times. Greg is a tour guide himself, at Fort Adams in Newport Rhode Island. The fort there is the largest in North America, and one of the finest examples of the Vaubon architecture. “Vaubon?” Greg inquired wistfully.
“We’ll go to the fort.” I decided, even though I had arranged the itinerary originally for the Turda Salt Mines. Iulian knew that I originally wanted the salt mines. He managed to arrange the time such that we saw both, with a lunch in between.
Did I mention Iulian really did want to make us happy?
Screech, halt, swerve from side to side. HEY LADY! See that old factory? See, that’s another example of the EU ripping off Romania! Communist? We weren’t Communist, we were Socialists. It wasn’t all bad during the Socialist times…
My mind wandered to the Ceausescu period, I thought of the poor Romanian orphans, such as the one a friend of mine adopted. Is Obama really responsible for secret courts and oppression in Romania even today? Are the gays and the fact that they don’t conceive children responsible for the immigrant problem in Europe today? Where is the truth in Romania? Fake News? Oh, no, not that too…
We visited castles, and medieval citadels, walled towns with historic clocks. We saw the incomparable Buchovina and Maramures monasteries, mountain vistas, and gorges. We strolled in town plazas, and ate delicious local food. Our itinerary was incomparable, and the sights, sounds and tastes were out of this world.
Were we sorry we went? Did we feel we didn’t get value for our money? Oh, no. Every trip is like a child, each unique and wonderful, no favorites. Romania too was unique and wonderful.
Do we want to pass on to you some lessons learned? You betch’a. The Compass Travel itinerary was out of this world. The hotels were historic and appreciated. The price was reasonable.
There are windy mountain roads in Romania. It seem as if you have to keep crossing the mountains. The views are great, but if you get carsick, know that the bad stretches aren’t too long, a couple of hours at most. If you get carsick, dare I suggest, as a conclusion, perhaps request a different driver?
HEY LADY!
Yes, we certainly experienced a “cultural connection,” as promised by Compass.
Map
Related Links
Our chosen trip, from Compass Travel
In case Compass changes their itinerary in the future, here’s the brief itinerary: Bucharest > Sibiu > Alba Iulia > Turda Sand Mines > Cluj-Napoca > Sighet > the wooden churches of Maramures > Gura Humorului > the painted monasteries of Buchovina > Bicaz Gorge > Sighisoara > Bran Castle > Brasov > Peles Castle > Bucharest
