Jaunted

Airport WiFi / Airport-WiFi-Map / OTP / → All Tags

In Bucharest, As Much Coverage As A Leotard

If you wanted to follow in the path of this week's "Amazing Race" episode, you'd probably fly through Henri Coandă International Airport, the largest in Romania. From there, you could visit the Arcul de Triumf (a pint-sized version of the Paris landmark), take in some masterpieces at the National Museum of Art in Romania, or just put on a leotard and go to an all-night gymnastics party.

But beware, that coverage might not stretch the way you expect it to! The airport's website says a connection is available in the international boarding area at €5 for laptops, but one of our Twitter friends found free, if spotty coverage through an official-looking webpage. Have you visited Bucharest or other airports with hidden free WiFi? Let us know and we'll put them up on our Airport WiFi map.

Related Stories:
· This Week's "Race": "I'm Not Wearing That Girl's Leotard!" [Jaunted]
· Hillary Clinton Can Check Her E-mail at Ben Gurion Airport [Jaunted]
· Great Ballet Rip-Offs: Swan Lake with Fewer Swans [Jaunted]
· Airport WiFi Map [Jaunted]

Ballet / Romania Travel / Bucharest / → All Tags

Great Ballet Rip-offs: Swan Lake with Fewer Swans

Funny, we were just considering buying tickets to an upcoming performance of Swan Lake--it's an attempt to be cultured--but then we read about a Romanian version that's being investigated by the Consumer Protection Office.

In case, like us, you didn't know, there should be 24 swans on stage in the famous Tchaikovsky show. But recently at the Romanian National Opera House in Bucharest there were just 16, and one member of the audience made an official complaint.

As far as our rusty Romanian can translate, the Swan Lake show is still running, under the less romantic sounding Romanian translation of Lacul Lebedelor. If you go, you'll have to be prepared to make do with fewer swans than Tchaikovsky prescribed.

Related Stories:
· Swan Lake's Swan Shortage [Ananova]
· Romanian National Opera House [Official Site]
· Romania Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: rayparnova]

Bucharest / Romania Travel / Political Travel / → All Tags

Political Travel: Bucharest, Here They Come

Until now, our coverage of Bucharest has focused on Dracula, but come this April, there'll be more scary creatures there: lots of politicians. The 20th NATO Summit will take place in the Romanian capital between April 2 and 4, carefully avoiding the prospect of starting talks on April Fools' Day.

So who and what will we see in Bucharest this April? Well, surprisingly, Russian president Vladimir Putin has agreed to show up, the first time a Russian leader has been there in six years. Along with him, the usual suspects--that is, heads of government of NATO members--will be in town, too.

Whether they'll take a countryside trip to haunt Dracula's region or spend more time at some of the sites made famous during the 1989 revolution (remember Ceausescu?), we are sure to see some pretty Bucharest churches in the background on TV. If the delegates have too much fun, we'll just be grinding our teeth about where our taxes are going.

Related Stories:
· Putin Agrees To Go To NATO Summit [Moscow Times]
· Jack Bauer Travels In The Shadows Of Dracula [Jaunted]
· New York Is Selling Dracula's Castle [Jaunted]

[Photo: mircea tudorache]

Romania Travel / Dracula's Castle / → All Tags

New York Is Selling Dracula's Castle

Remember last year, when New Yorker Dominic Habsburg was celebrating getting the deed for Dracula's haunt? Well, fast forward a year and the castle is going back on the market.

If you're shopping for a $135 million house, you may have spotted a listing over the weekend for the 17-bedroom Bran Castle. The Romanian fortress is better known as Dracula's lair because its former inhabitant, Prince Vlad the Impaler, inspired Bram Stoker's vampire. It is situated on the border between the towns of Transylvania and Wallachia, on Highway 73.

The castle was put up for sale by its ancestral owners, the Habsburgs, to whom it was returned in 2006. Owner Archduke Dominic Habsburg must really want the place off his hands -- he offered to sell it to the state of Transylvania last year, but they turned down his bargain price of $80 million.

We hear Kiefer Sutherland is in the neighborhood. Maybe he should settle down in the 13th-century place -- it would make a great remote torture location for Jack Bauer, plus he'd have room for Chloe 'n' the gang.

Related Stories:
· Bucharest Travel [Jaunted]
· Hotels in Romania [HotelChatter]

[Photo: gus.k]

Celeb Travel / Keifer Sutherland / → All Tags

Jack Bauer Travels In The Shadows Of Dracula

A reader of the gossip site TMZ got mighty spooked the other day when he asked for a light outside a bar in Bucharest, Romania. Who came to his rescue? None other than Kiefer Sutherland, dressed in black! The "24" star acknowledged what a treat it was to come across other English speakers, then vanished in the night.

Sutherland is shooting a remake of a Korean horror movie called "Into the Mirror." For more Romanian experiences that give you the willies, we recommend the Hotel Lebada, a former Roman fortress and prison located on the spooky St. Pantelimon Island. Most people looking to get freaked out in the region will head for the Carpathian mountains on tours like Haunted Attraction Magazine's Dracula tour or the Company of Mysterious Journeys. Maybe next season on "24," Jack will hunt down and kill the descendants of Dracula!

Related Stories:
· Romania Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: The Lycos 50 Blog]

Castles / Dracula's Castle / → All Tags

New Yorker Takes Back Dracula's Castle

Over 60 years ago the Dracula Castle was seized by communists, and yesterday, the Romanian government announced they would hand it over to its former owner, a New Yorker.

Dominic van Hapsburg, (yeah, those Hapsburgs) a New York architect who inherited the pop tourist attraction way back when, will resume ownership and will not be allowed to make any changes to the castle for the next three years.

So for the time being, peasants can keep selling Dracula sweaters, hand-knitted from the thick wool of local sheep, and Vampire wine at the gates of Bran Castle.

First Rocky beats Drago, then the Berlin Wall comes down, now a New Yorker owns the Dracula Castle--ttthhheeee Yankees win.

[image via mgleaves/Flickr]

Related Stories:
· Dracula caslte returns to bloodline [CNN]
· Bran Castle [Wikipedia]

Europe / → All Tags

Cur Cul Cancelled

See what happens when a city gets profiled as the Paris of Southeast Europe? Living costs skyrocket. According to a survey by the Economist ranking the cost-of-living in cities throughout the world, Bucharest, of all cities, has jumped 14 spots, to 95th overall.

New York, the baseline, is 27th, while Oslo has passed Tokyo as the most expensive city worldwide. No word yet on whether Tokyo's slip has anything to do with a drop in the price of square watermelons.

Nonetheless, things aren't all peaches and cream in Bucharest. A man died this week from injuries he suffered after an attack by a feral dog. The bite cut through an artery in his leg, and he died before an ambulance arrived.

Feral dogs are a huge problem in Bucharest--Reuters estimates their number at 100,000, Bloomberg estimates it closer to 200,000---but efforts to thin their ranks last year were brought to a halt by Brigitte Bardot. She herself is a big supporter of the anti-immigrant (among other things) French National Front, and was convicted in France in 2004 of "inciting racial hatred". So, she may hate most people, but don't touch those wild dogs.  


[Image via majeztic/Flickr]