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Bucharest
We travelled by train through the Carpathian Mountains to Bucharest, a city of 8 million. It’s quite a contrast to the other places we have seen in Romania. It’s unkempt and uncared for, with angry graffiti and parks filled with weeds to complement the massive Communist era buildings. We went for a tour of the Palace of Parliament, the second largest government building in the world, after the Pentagon. It was built under the direction of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the 1980’s but has never been finished. It has 1100 rooms decorated with chandeliers and gold. A palace nearby was also built for his wife and second in charge Elena.…
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Bran Castle and Brasov
We left a previous century in Viscri to join a traffic jam going to Bran Castle. Vlad the Impaler may or may not have stopped here once, but it’s known as Dracula’s castle. It’s very popular, with tours for Halloween and princes from the Middle East renting it for parties. It was hard to move inside the castle for all the tourists, and even in the many shops outside. We got through the traffic to the nearby town of Brasov. It has a beautiful town square where our hotel is located. There is a funicular up the hill to the Hollywood style town sign, and the area where Vlad impaled…
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Sighisoara and Viscri
We travelled into the Transylvania area, through hills and forests. We stopped in Bistrita for lunch, where the Roma or gypsies were making themselves known. They were the last of the Asian people to migrate to Europe, were originally enslaved, then freed with nothing and nowhere to go, without status or citizenship. I bought a pasty for lunch while a gypsy with babe in arms touched my arm to beg for it. On to Sighisoara, a picturesque medieval hilltop town with pastel homes and cobblestones. Its claim to fame is that Vlad Tepes, of the Dragul family, was born here. He became known as Vlad the Impaler, sticking his enemies…
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Eger and Maramures
We took a tram then train to Eger, in wine country, and stayed in a pension, a local home made into suites. I lost the coin toss, so I could choose either the bed in a dark cubbyhole behind the bedroom door, or the bed in the kitchen by the balcony. Kitchen it is! We walked around the town, which is the centre of traditional Hungary, where the first Magyars came from Asia and settled. The Hungarian language is known as Magyar. It’s a small city but has massive churches and a castle. Lunch was goulash and lemonade, which is made with many flavours in Hungary. After a supermarket dinner…
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Budapest to Bucharest
Budapest in September is beautiful! I was last here in May 2010 and didn’t see much because of driving rain that turned your umbrella inside out. This time it’s around 25, sunny and green. After a day to get on the right time zone, I met my tour group. We went to a street festival with dozens of food trucks for dinner, then to the Jewish quarter to a ruin bar. Szimpla Kert was the first of these popular clubs, built into abandoned buildings and decorated with thrift store furniture, cars, or whatever, then just add a few bars and bouncers at the door to control the lineups. The next…
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Mazunte
We had an 8 or 9 hour ride along winding roads through mountains to the coast to our final stop. Surprise, we are staying in Puerto Angel, a port town close to the beach towns of Zipolite and Mazunte, where we were supposed to be staying. The dive hotel here is the only accommodation for miles due to the Easter holiday and an obvious failure to book ahead by the tour company (Intrepid Travel, who has agreed to a partial refund of the tour price after a month to review my complaint). I’m pretty low maintenance, but I have my limits and this hotel went below them. In the morning…
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Oaxaca
Arriving in Oaxaca late in the evening, we stayed in a hotel with cute courtyard half an hour’s walk from the old town. We went for a cooking course the next day in this culinary capital of Mexico. After we were treated to a breakfast of delicious tamales, cooked inside corn husks, then went to market with Oscar the chef to pick out chilies and other fresh produce to make the menu we had decided on. After a couple of hours of chopping, peeling, rolling, stuffing, etc. we sat down with our creations with beer and mezcal served by a handsome helper. We had many courses to our gourmet meal…
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Puebla
We left by van in the late afternoon to Puebla, an industrial city of three million, with a beautiful old town centred by a massive church and zocalo (town square). We had some mollettes (deep fried tortillas filled with whatever) as street food appetizers, then tacos at taco joint. We made our way to the arena for Lucha Libre. We were late and had to stand for two hours to watch the matches. I first saw this sport a couple of years ago in Mexico City. It’s like wwe in Canada I think. Some of the fighters are enmascardo, masked characters. They aren’t seen in public without their masks. Lucha…
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Mexico City
I checked out three museums within a few blocks of my hotel in the Centro Historico Saturday morning, sometimes dodging the homeless who seem to be set up permanently in their spots down the side streets. Muse de Arte Popular, with fantastic folk art, Museo Mural Diego Rivera, art and displays of the famous muralist, and Museo Memoria y Tolerencia, with disturbing displays of genocides around the world. I took a taxi to a hotel in the more upscale Zona Rosa, nicer but much further from most attractions. Here I met my tour group, and first on the agenda was a “taco crawl”. This consisted on one taco joint. We…
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Teotihuacan
My free day in the historic centre was spent in museums and shopping. The museum in the National Palace in the Zocalo, the largest square in Central America, has murals of Diego Rivera. He is Mexico’s most famed artist, except maybe for Frida Kahlo, who he married twice. The first marriage ended when he slept with her sister. He really got around considering he was not incredibly attractive.He and Frida lived in her Blue House in separate areas until her death. I saw the museum now there on my last visit to Mexico City. The museum in the Palacio de Bellas Artes also has murals by Rivera and others. There…