Balkans day 27: Romania

I’d wanted to start today with a trip to the National Village Museum, but when I set out it was raining heavily, so visiting a mostly-outdoors attraction didn’t seem very clever. Instead I turned to Ceausescu’s mansion. Located in a leafy area on the edge of the city centre, this building was only recently opened to the public.

Peacock mosaic in the swimming pool

Infamous golden bathroom

Spread over two floors, there are some excesses – like the golden bathroom above – but nothing like the scale of the Palace of Parliament. On the whole I thought it was a pretty nice rich person’s house. (Plus I’ve never liked it when people project someone’s moral or ethical failings onto their sense of taste; I’m sure people wouldn’t hesitate to declare Ludwig II of Bavaria’s grandiose construction projects to be sickening if he were a mass-murdering authoritarian like Ceausescu, but as it is they’re mostly considered quaint.) Scattered around the walls are photos of Ceausescu meeting various powerful figures over the years: Mao Zedong, Mobutu and Saddam Hussein, but also more than one US president. The guy liked his peacocks: art featuring peacocks is everywhere, and there are fifteen live peacocks around the grounds, who occasionally disturb the urban monotony with their yowling cries.

When I’d finished, it was still raining, but I didn’t want to miss the Village Museum, so I splashed across Herastrau Park to get there, and roamed around taking photos of interesting buildings while dodging school trips. Most of the buildings in the museum were physically transported there from their original locations across Romania – from the Banat to the Black Sea via Transylvania – during the twentieth century.

Cute house

Painted shutters

Church

By this point I was wet and hungry, so I got a late lunch – a coclinta, a type of pie from the Maramures region – and then settled in a coffee shop to charge my iPad. This Romanian sleeper I’m on may be the nicest sleeper yet – it’s very spacious, with a comfy pre-made bed and a power socket. As I write this we’re beginning to ascend into the Transylvanian mountains, and I’m watching the sun set outside my window. Onwards through the night!