rupert's travel blog

Tag: Romanian tourism

  • Abolish The Ministry of Tourism

    This article also appeared in Romanian on the Contributors section of Hotnews.

    When I published my first article in the Huffington Post I was greeted by over 100 negative comments, all from people who passionately believe that cannabis should be legalised (my crime was to suggest that cannabis can cause psychosis).  Most comments on most articles in most news-sites seem to be negative and there is a phenomenon in UK (I’m not sure if it has reached Romania yet) called “trolling” whereby a group of like minded people, or “trolls”, bombard individual articles with negative comment, creating the impression that the people are against the point made by the journalist. It is a form of PR. (more…)

  • Prince Charles of Romania

    You can also read this article in Romanian, on the Contributors section of Hotnews. I don’t have a TV as I can’t stand the sensationalist nonsense pumped out by ProTV or the endless “analysis” the 24 hour news channels inflict on the public every evening.  But when something interesting does actually happen you get to hear about it (I was in a Romanian village in the early 1990s when a peasant told me the American’s were bombing Iraq. “Nonsense” I replied. But he was right, he’d seen it on his ancient black and white TV). (more…)

  • Doing the Transfag

    balea-lac-transfagarasan

    See my photos here

    When I first heard about the Transfagarasan road it was described with a sense of awe, as  “the higest road in Europe”, as an engineering miracle commanded by Ceausescu who ordered it as part of his military strategy.  A quick look on the internet shows that it isn’t the highest road in Europe, but neither is the Col de la Bonette, the French claim which is challenged by the Brits from the Hidden Europe magazine who say: “There are tarmac roads in the Alps which are higher, and if you are prepared to take gravel roads into account, then many are much higher.”  But at an altitude of 2000m the Transfag is no slouch and I reckon it is about the 5th highest road in Europe. (more…)

  • Traveling into the unknown

    Trying to compete with the west when it comes to tourism cannot succeed if the locations and infrastructure are as poor as they are in Romania. Romania’s beaches and ski resorts are promoted abroad even though they cannot possibly compete with what Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary have to offer – not to mention France, Spain and Italy. (more…)