What I did last Saturday
Sep. 21st, 2006 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienA whirlwind tour of Romanian history and geography, with pictures.
One of the main attractions of Sinaia is Peles Castle, an ornate pile built by Romania's first imported German king at his own expense. He kept adding to and improving it for forty years, stopped only by his death in 1914, and it was the most modern castle in Europe, with electric light, running water, elevevators and central heating built in from the start, as well as its own small movie theater. In the last few months, the surviving but no longer reigning King Michael won it back from the Romanian government in a lawsuit -- and promptly sold it back to them for a large sum of money, so that it could continue to operate as a museum. Perched up at the top of the hill, the castle is surrounded by lesser but still ornate buildings, many of them hotels. The grounds seem to be haunted by feral dogs -- a litter of dirty but cute roly-poly puppies followed us around, pausing occasionally to scratch for fleas.
The inside of the castle is visited strictly by guided tour; visitors are required to shuffle around wearing felt slippers to protect the floors, and photography is forbidden. The upper floors are not considered robust enough to sustain the tramping of tourist feet, so only the lower floor, with its stone floors, is open. There's a lot of dark, ornate woodwork, mostly in the German style, much of it lime or walnut. The royal library has a secret (but not terribly well concealed) door leading to a staircase up to the bedroom. Some of the rooms are decorated in foreign styles -- a room with lots of Venetian glass and giant mirrors that were brought in very slowly and carefully by oxcart from the Danube, a Moorish room; a cosy Turkish smoking room.
The first King, Carol I, was a Hohenzollern prince who accepted the invitation to rule the newly unified Romania,a nd did so, it seems, to general satisfaction. Sadly his only child, a daughter, died at the age of four, after which the Queen took to writing children's books, and the throne passed to the King's nephew, Ferdinand, who caused some problems in his German family by eventually coming down on the Allied side in WW1. The King collected weapons, many of which -- including several suits of armour and a horse-armour -- are on display in the castle.
On the terrace outside is a statue of Queen Elizabeth as an old lady, sitting with her feet up and doing some kind of work on a large lacy thing that's spread across her knee. I think she's tatting, in fact. For some reason, it's guarded by a soldier in uniform that would make good camouflage against a partly-cloudy sky, or maybe a trampled snowfield.
The next stop on the tour was the Sinaia monastery, founded in the late seventeenth century by a returning pilgrim from Sinai, and the reason for the town being there in the first place. It has two churches, the original seventeenth-century one and a larger nineteenth-century one. It's still in use as a monastery, and I saw a few of the monks in their black robes, beards and rimless caps. I could smell their lunch cooking, as well! The cloisters were pristine in whitewash, and the place was bright with flowers, even at the tail-end of summer. The assassinated Romanian leader Ionescu is buried at the monastery.
More pictures of Peles and the monastery
After that, there was a long drive to Bran, over winding mountain roads and past peasants digging potatoes by hand and ploughing with horses, as well as citydwellers picknicking by the side of the road. The pastures had no fences to speak of, and herds of cows wandered freely across the road. Along the way, our guide lectured us on some more Romania history and ethography -- incidentally betraying a strong prejudice against the Gypsies. This area of Transylvania was ruled by Saxons, who oppressed the native Romanians. Since the 1989 revolution, apparently, most of their descendants have left for Germany, leaving empty villages now occupied by Gypsy squatters. Despite being advertized as 'Dracula's Castle', Bran castle has very little connection with the historical Vlad Tepes -- who our guide assured us was actually a good and well-loved ruler who only impaled enemies and criminals; the whole bloodsucking thing was just propaganda put about by rivals whose trade he disrupted. We also got a run-down of the goings on of the last two kings, Carol II who seems to have been a thoroughly bad lot, a gambler and womanizer, and his son Michael who's still alive. I must admit to having lost track of how many times each was deposed in favour of the other -- and that must have been mostly in the interbellum period, which was a kind of golden age for Romania.
We had lunch at a restaurant in Bran before seeing the castle. There was chicken-and-matzoh-ball soup, kebabs, salad, and pastries for dessert, all quite good if a bit greasy. (At least the salad was innocent of dressing.) We were also served small glasses of a clear but highly alchoholic local plum brandy; I only managed a couple of sips of mine, but a lady at the table shared a bottle of very pleasant red wine from Georgia, a vintage favoured by Stalin, which I enjoyed rather more.
The castle itself is quite charming, with conical, tiled turrets and rooms opening off galleries around a central
courtyard. The place was given to Queen Maria, wife of Ferdinand, in recognition of her nursing work during WW1, but her furniture was mostly destroyed in the Communist revolution, and what is there now is just an approximation put together from pieces of similar age and style. There are some rather attractive fireplaces, some with blue-and-white tiled stoves, and a lot of dark oak furniture, as well as floral paintings on the doors and a narrow secret stairway linking the first and third floors. I paid the 10 lei (about $4) extra for the privilege of taking photos inside, and I think it was worth it. Like Peles, the castle has just been won back by the royal family, but they haven't yet decided what to do with it.
More pictures
Around the castle gate is a souvenir market full of carved and painted wood, embroidery, crochet and tatting, beadwork, beautifully dressed dolls, and plastic fangs. I bought an embroidered and lace-edged runner, a couple of tatted mats and one crocheted one.
The neighbouring castle, a day's journey down the trading route, has been bought by an Italian businessman. After he invested a lot of money developing it as a hotel and restaurant, however, the government decided they wanted it back, and it's still been being litigated.
Since the fall of the iron curtain, Romanian wildlife has suffered from over-hunting, which is only now starting to be got under control. Attempts to re-introduce Romanian animals to Germany's orderly and rather artificial forests have not been a success. Dire as Romanian agriculture is, with peasants struggling to make a living off the tiny farms that were given back to them after the fall of Communism, it's still the largest contributor to GDP.
One of the main attractions of Sinaia is Peles Castle, an ornate pile built by Romania's first imported German king at his own expense. He kept adding to and improving it for forty years, stopped only by his death in 1914, and it was the most modern castle in Europe, with electric light, running water, elevevators and central heating built in from the start, as well as its own small movie theater. In the last few months, the surviving but no longer reigning King Michael won it back from the Romanian government in a lawsuit -- and promptly sold it back to them for a large sum of money, so that it could continue to operate as a museum. Perched up at the top of the hill, the castle is surrounded by lesser but still ornate buildings, many of them hotels. The grounds seem to be haunted by feral dogs -- a litter of dirty but cute roly-poly puppies followed us around, pausing occasionally to scratch for fleas.
The inside of the castle is visited strictly by guided tour; visitors are required to shuffle around wearing felt slippers to protect the floors, and photography is forbidden. The upper floors are not considered robust enough to sustain the tramping of tourist feet, so only the lower floor, with its stone floors, is open. There's a lot of dark, ornate woodwork, mostly in the German style, much of it lime or walnut. The royal library has a secret (but not terribly well concealed) door leading to a staircase up to the bedroom. Some of the rooms are decorated in foreign styles -- a room with lots of Venetian glass and giant mirrors that were brought in very slowly and carefully by oxcart from the Danube, a Moorish room; a cosy Turkish smoking room.
The first King, Carol I, was a Hohenzollern prince who accepted the invitation to rule the newly unified Romania,a nd did so, it seems, to general satisfaction. Sadly his only child, a daughter, died at the age of four, after which the Queen took to writing children's books, and the throne passed to the King's nephew, Ferdinand, who caused some problems in his German family by eventually coming down on the Allied side in WW1. The King collected weapons, many of which -- including several suits of armour and a horse-armour -- are on display in the castle.
On the terrace outside is a statue of Queen Elizabeth as an old lady, sitting with her feet up and doing some kind of work on a large lacy thing that's spread across her knee. I think she's tatting, in fact. For some reason, it's guarded by a soldier in uniform that would make good camouflage against a partly-cloudy sky, or maybe a trampled snowfield.
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The next stop on the tour was the Sinaia monastery, founded in the late seventeenth century by a returning pilgrim from Sinai, and the reason for the town being there in the first place. It has two churches, the original seventeenth-century one and a larger nineteenth-century one. It's still in use as a monastery, and I saw a few of the monks in their black robes, beards and rimless caps. I could smell their lunch cooking, as well! The cloisters were pristine in whitewash, and the place was bright with flowers, even at the tail-end of summer. The assassinated Romanian leader Ionescu is buried at the monastery.
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More pictures of Peles and the monastery
After that, there was a long drive to Bran, over winding mountain roads and past peasants digging potatoes by hand and ploughing with horses, as well as citydwellers picknicking by the side of the road. The pastures had no fences to speak of, and herds of cows wandered freely across the road. Along the way, our guide lectured us on some more Romania history and ethography -- incidentally betraying a strong prejudice against the Gypsies. This area of Transylvania was ruled by Saxons, who oppressed the native Romanians. Since the 1989 revolution, apparently, most of their descendants have left for Germany, leaving empty villages now occupied by Gypsy squatters. Despite being advertized as 'Dracula's Castle', Bran castle has very little connection with the historical Vlad Tepes -- who our guide assured us was actually a good and well-loved ruler who only impaled enemies and criminals; the whole bloodsucking thing was just propaganda put about by rivals whose trade he disrupted. We also got a run-down of the goings on of the last two kings, Carol II who seems to have been a thoroughly bad lot, a gambler and womanizer, and his son Michael who's still alive. I must admit to having lost track of how many times each was deposed in favour of the other -- and that must have been mostly in the interbellum period, which was a kind of golden age for Romania.
We had lunch at a restaurant in Bran before seeing the castle. There was chicken-and-matzoh-ball soup, kebabs, salad, and pastries for dessert, all quite good if a bit greasy. (At least the salad was innocent of dressing.) We were also served small glasses of a clear but highly alchoholic local plum brandy; I only managed a couple of sips of mine, but a lady at the table shared a bottle of very pleasant red wine from Georgia, a vintage favoured by Stalin, which I enjoyed rather more.
The castle itself is quite charming, with conical, tiled turrets and rooms opening off galleries around a central
courtyard. The place was given to Queen Maria, wife of Ferdinand, in recognition of her nursing work during WW1, but her furniture was mostly destroyed in the Communist revolution, and what is there now is just an approximation put together from pieces of similar age and style. There are some rather attractive fireplaces, some with blue-and-white tiled stoves, and a lot of dark oak furniture, as well as floral paintings on the doors and a narrow secret stairway linking the first and third floors. I paid the 10 lei (about $4) extra for the privilege of taking photos inside, and I think it was worth it. Like Peles, the castle has just been won back by the royal family, but they haven't yet decided what to do with it.
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More pictures
Around the castle gate is a souvenir market full of carved and painted wood, embroidery, crochet and tatting, beadwork, beautifully dressed dolls, and plastic fangs. I bought an embroidered and lace-edged runner, a couple of tatted mats and one crocheted one.
The neighbouring castle, a day's journey down the trading route, has been bought by an Italian businessman. After he invested a lot of money developing it as a hotel and restaurant, however, the government decided they wanted it back, and it's still been being litigated.
Since the fall of the iron curtain, Romanian wildlife has suffered from over-hunting, which is only now starting to be got under control. Attempts to re-introduce Romanian animals to Germany's orderly and rather artificial forests have not been a success. Dire as Romanian agriculture is, with peasants struggling to make a living off the tiny farms that were given back to them after the fall of Communism, it's still the largest contributor to GDP.