An Interesting Website

I stumbled across a very interesting website today, actually an "electronic archive" from the University of Washington, which is written by James Samuelson, and it is about Romania Past and Present. The archive lists:

Chapters

• I. Geographical and Descriptive

• II. Geographical-Archeological

• III. The Navigation of the Danube

• IV. Topographical, ETC.

• V. Topographical-Commercial

• VI. Agricultural and Pastoral-The Peasant Proprietary

• VII. Educational-Ethnographical

• VIII.Judicial

Part II
Historical

• IX. From the gate (about 335 B.C.) to the close of the Roman domination in Dacia Trajana (about 274 A.D.)

• X. From the evacuation of Dacia by Aurelian (about 274 A.D.) to the end of the barbarian rule (about the close of the thirteenth century)

• XI. From the foundation of the principalities, between the middle of the thirteenth and of the fourteenth centuries, to the accession of Michael the Brave, A.D. 1593

• XII. The times and career of Michael the Brave

• XIII. From the death of Michael the Brave (A.D. 1601) to the deposition of Prince Cuza (A.D. 1866)

• XIV. From the deposition of Prince Cuza (A.D. 1866) to the coronation of King Charles (A.D. 1881)

• XV. Present Romanian leaders and their policy

And


APPENDIX

• I. Movements and settlements of the nationalities and barbarian tribes

• II. The 'Capitulations'

• III. The Romanian constitution

• IV. The peasant proprietary of Romania

• V. List of works (with references to text)

• Classified Index

Also make sure to have a look at their List of Illustrations.

I will be spending a lot of time reading through the archive, and I hope you will too.

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Sinaia

This is an extended post about the city of Sinaia, Romania (I have already written a little about it in the Transylvania post/section)

The city of Sinaia is located approximately 148 KM from Bucharest, and 45 KM from Braşov via E60 or by train. If you choose to drive to Sinaia from Bucharest, you can expect to spend at least four hours getting there. Navigating through the city of Ploieşti is difficult, and it is easy to get lost. On a weekend with heavy traffic in Bucharest, the time will be increased significantly. Leaving from Gara de Nord (the north train station) in Bucharest, the train ride is approximately two and a half hours.

Once you are in the city of Sinaia, both Peleş Castle, and the Sinaia monastery (for which the city is named), are within walking distance from most of the cities hotels and restaurants. If you are in the mood for a little more adventure, you can rent ATVs throughout the city, visit a casino, go to a disco, or ski the downhill slopes above the city in the Bucegi Mountains. In the summer time, the Bucegi mountains are a popular place for hiking,.. beware of bears if you choose to go hiking there. There are a few places to rent skis along the city's main street, and ski gondola lifts nearby to take you right from the city to the slopes, there is also an ice skating ring located in the city park during the winter. If you are in need of an internet cafe, there is one located at basement level on the main street, and it is easy to find. I love Sinaia, and can't wait to go back.

A postcard of Sinaia, Romania, from the year 1890.



Peleş Castle (below) was the summer home of King Carol I of Romania, and I read somewhere that Ceauşescu used it to entertain foreign dignitaries.



Sinaia monastery,.. there is a legend attached to it, that whoever is married there, is sure to get divorced (I do not know how this legend/curse came about, but I would like to know).

This is a great little restaurant called "You Cafe." They serve very good pizza and pasta. This picture was taken on the coffee and pastries side of it.



The train station in Sinaia. From here you can take a taxi to the city's main street, or walk up some steep steps to where all of the hotels are located. If you have luggage, it is worth taking a taxi.



And finally, the old steam train at the train station, which I posted in the section/post about Romanian trains (with a picture of the train station).

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Quick Update

I have been hard at work creating a new photography blog that will be centered around helping people who are interested in photography. I have also created a new photography message board for people to share their photos, ask advice, and share advice with others. As soon as I am done putting the finishing touches on them, I will return to posting about visiting Romania. Look for a new post about the city of Sinaia, Romania, and a new photo feature on this blog soon.

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Free Pictures Of Romania

This past weekend while surfing the net, I stumbled across a fantastic website that offers beautiful free pictures of Romania (along with a few other countries), from Romania photographer Husac Lucian. Higher resolution pictures can be bought, and all that Husac Lucian asks in return for use of the free pictures is that whoever uses them, link back to his site, and mention his name as the photographer who took them. It was really hard deciding which of his pictures to use here,.. to show how nice the pictures are, and what a beautiful country Romania is, but I finally chose just a few of my favorites from his website.

For those of you who have visited this blog before, you may have noticed that I like to change things around often, right now I have a portion of one of the free pictures from Husac Lucian in the upper right corner of the blog, please visit his site to see the full picture (I will probably replace the picture in the future, which will not be because I do not like it).

The pictures below were all photographed and are copyrighted by Husac Lucian http://freeartisticphotos.com/ Again, please visit his site to see the rest of his pictures, and to read their terms of use in full.









These are just a small example of the quality of images on the website, perhaps it is a little easier to understand why it was difficult to chose which to show here now. Romania is a very beautiful country, and it is a outstanding
place to spend a vacation.

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Bucharest Hotel Prices Drop

Bucharest ranked 15th in the world for hotel prices, right after Vienna, Berlin, and Lisbon. According to hotel.info who did a survey based on 210,000 hotels throughout the world. New York City is the most expensive place to stay with hotels averaging 151.33 Euros ($223 USD) per night, and the following four most expensive cities, all in Europe, were Moscow at 149.32 Euros ($219 USD), Oslo at 132.52 Euros ($194 USD), and Copenhagen at 127.66 Euros ($187 USD) per night.

According to the survey, prices for Bucharest hotels fell by 20.6% in the 3rd quarter of this year to 77.97 Euros ($115 USD) per night, which is down from 98.22 Euros ($144 USD) per night in the 3rd quarter of last year.

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Rasnov

Râşnov, Romania is located about 15km S/W from Braşov on E574, and it is about half way between Braşov and Bran. Râşnov has a population of around 16,000 people, and the main attraction in the area is the fortress that sits up on a hill overlooking the city/village. The fortress was built around the year 1215 by the Teutonic Knights and it was mentioned for the first time in 1331. The citadel was conquered only once in its history, around the year 1600 by Gabriel Báthory who was the Prince of Transylvania from 1608 until his death in 1613.

A myth attached to the fortress is that two Turkish soldiers were captured and forced to dig a well in the center of the fortress. The two soldiers were told that they would be given their freedom once the well was completed. According to the myth, it took them 17 years to finish the well, and they were still killed afterwards. The well is still at the fortress and is 143m deep. A very similar myth is attached to the castle in Hunedoara, Romania.

If you visit the fortress, it is possible to park a car up on the hill, and close to the entrance. The parking nearest to the fortress is very limited and many people choose to park in the larger parking lot at the bottom of the hill, which has small gift and food kiosk. If I am not mistaken, the tour buses that visit the fortress are limited to how close to the fortress they can park, and it is a rather long distance to walk from where they are made to park.

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