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Nobel Prize Winner In Literature Afraid To Go Home To Romania
This must be the best day ever for all you Herta Müller fans! In case you're not caught up on modern literature, Müller is the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, announced this morning in Stockholm.
Müller lives and works in Germany now, but grew up in Communist Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and many of her books describe the plight of young people in a controlling regime. She revealed in an essay penned earlier this summer for the online magazine Sign and Sight that she is afraid to travel in Romania even now because she believes members of the government are still following her.
Tags: New Routes / LCCs / Wizz Air / Romania Travel / Italy Travel / → All Tags
Romania's Wizz Air Keeps The Cheap Italy Routes Coming
How about heading to Romania? It's like Italy, but cheaper! And further east! And they spell "pasta" like "paste!" With all these charms, how can you not give up some Milan action for Transylvania? Now thanks to the Wizz Air, you won't have to decide between the two since you can have both.
The European low-cost carrier, which already offers some tempting routes between Italy and Romania, is adding even more to continue the stream of tourism. Beginning on September 21, you'll be able to hop between Catania, a major Sicilian city, and Bucharest. Then, on October 28, Bucharest will also welcome flights from Bologna-Forli.
Although the flights will only be twice a week, it's a huge improvement over the state of Italy-Romania flights only a few years ago, when we were dying to get from Rome to Cluj-Napoca without, well, dying on government-owned Romanian airline TAROM. That route is also available now on Wizz Air, and even from Rome's main Fiumicino airport and not the dinky, Ryanair-happy Ciampino airport. Anyways, we digress. Get thee to Romania cheaply!
Related Stories:
· Wizz Air Opens New Routes To Italy [Easier.com]
· Wizz Air Coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Ati977]
Tags: Low Cost Carriers / LCCs / Europe Travel / Blue Air / Romania Travel / → All Tags
European Low Cost Carriers: Blue Air Flies the Blue Skies
Up there, where the air is blue, that's where Romanian low-cost carrier Blue Air flies. Despite flying since 2006, they've only just popped up on our radar because of a rumor they're starting London Stansted to Brussels flights--a slightly odd route for a Romanian-based airline.
But it's cheap: For the launch of the London route, they're offering some €1 tickets (plus taxes, of course). Other routes are also going cheap--if not for a euro.
Blue Air have got just eight aircraft at the moment with at least two more on order, and passenger numbers are up over 20 percent on the same time last year. But we don't have any personal experience yet, so all we can hope is that flying on Blue Air doesn't leave you feelin' blue.
Related Stories:
· Blue Air [Official Site]
· Blue Air Reports 49 Million Euros in Turnover [Financialrul.ro]
· Low Cost Carriers coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Andrei Dimofte]
Tags: Romania Travel / Animals / Bears / Restaurants / → All Tags
Romanian Restaurant Needs a Bear Menu
It's definitely bear season in the northern hemisphere. Over at HotelChatter they've been spotting bears taking dips in hotel swimming pools in Orlando and Colorado. But in Romania, bears are going beyond cooling off in the pool.
In Sinaia, a whole family of bears recently ambled into a restaurant and, well, sat down at the tables. When they didn't get any service--everyone fled the restaurant--the brown bear and two cubs found the kitchen and ate their fill.
Police and rangers were called out, but the bears had gone before they arrived. They didn't even leave a tip.
Related Stories:
· Bears Sit at Restaurant Table [Ananova]
· Hotel Bears Might Be the Next Hot Trend [HC]
· Romania Travel coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: hasan_e_beton]
Tags: 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]
Tags: 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]
Tags: Romania Travel / When Animals Attack / Animals / → All Tags
Bear-Aware in Romania
Hanging around in near Romanian county of Brasov has become a bit creepy not only because Dracula's Castle is there. Now there are insane bears roaming hospital corridors, too.
As if we weren't already considering striking Europe off our list after the whole Bruno the Bear saga in Germany, now we've got to watch out in Romania. Reports say that a hungry bear who'd got his head stuck in a large tin broke into a psychiatric sanatorium in Brasov county and went wild. It had to be tranquilized, hunters used some slippery grease to get the can off its head, and released it back into the wild. For now.
Related Stories:
· New York Is Selling Dracula's Castle [Jaunted]
· Bear Breaks Into Hosptial [Ananova]
· Beware of Bruno's Brothers [Jaunted]
[Photo: Carly&Art]
Tags: 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]
