Tag: Romanian tourism

Prince Charles of Romania

Most people — Romanians and Brits — that I have discussed this issue with seem rather suspicious of the fact that Prince (now King) Charles owns property in Romania.  Many Brits don’t like Charles as he makes challenging comments about architecture, agriculture and the environment, and is generally considered eccentric. He also owns a lot of land in England and is very rich. (more…)

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…)

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…)