“They are wild places. Please come home now.” Those were the
words we heard from Peter’s 97-year-old mother prior to heading to Romania,
Bulgaria, and Turkey. Despite that, we crossed the border from Hungary into
Romania today, 20 miles into our 71-mile ride. This goes to show that there’s
no age limit on acting out to assert your independence from your parents.
While our first day’s experience in Romania hasn’t turned up
anything wild yet, we did notice a clear drop in apparent prosperity as soon as
we crossed from Hungary to Romania (just as we did when we crossed from
France/Germany/Austria to Hungary). Buildings and towns in the Romanian
countryside are quite dilapidated, and people’s clothing is often drab and
ill-fitting. Our impressions were corroborated when we checked GDP per capita
information (2013 International Monetary Fund data, measured in “International
Dollars”): Germany 40,000; Hungary 20,000; Romania 13,400. Bulgaria and Turkey,
the final two countries on our trip, are both at about 15,000, quite similar to
Romania.
Things changed entirely when we reached our destination town
of Timisoara, Romania, whose population of 320,000 is the third largest in
Romania. The main square in the town is full of trendy shops and restaurants,
and, based on dress and use of electronics, the people in the square look
indistinguishable from those in Western Europe and North America. Timisoara is
the main social, economic and cultural center in the western part of Romania
and is a candidate to become the European Capital of Culture in 2021. The
European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a
period of one calendar year during which that city hosts a series of
cultural events with a strong European dimension.
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| In Hungary this morning, on route to Romania |
Biking in Romania today:
In the main square of Timisoara:
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