Product Description

Make the most of your time with The Rough Guide to Romania, the ultimate guide

to one of the most beautiful countries in Southeast Europe. The full-colour section introduces the country’s highlights, from the monumental Palace of Parliament in Bucharest to the majestic Bicaz gorges. Using informed accounts, clue-up on all the top sights from the marvellous wooden churches of Maramureş to the romantic Danube Delta and the best beaches of the black sea coast. The guide takes a detailed look at Romanian history, literature, politics and cultural life with expert background on everything from the painted Monasteries of Bucovina to hiking in the Carpathians. There are plenty of practical tips on bird-watching, information on all the best accommodation, transportation and restaurants and lively reviews of hundreds of shops, bars and clubs. Discover every corner of Romania with the clearest maps of any guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283823 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781858283661
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Library Journal
A trip to Romania may be made with confidence using either of these reliable, up-to-date guides. Though Williams's volume is more detailed overall, Burford and Richardson's covers pop culture especially well. Lonely Planet helpfully lists regional highlights at the beginning of each chapter and includes coverage of neighboring Moldova.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Tim Burford studied languages at Oxford University. He first visited East-Central Europe in 1988 and has travelled widely in the region ever since. Dan Richardson started as an author at Rough Guides in 1984 and has travelled extensively in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Tim Burford studied languages at Oxford University. He first visited East-Central Europe in 1988 and has travelled widely in the region ever since. Dan Richardson started as an author at Rough Guides in 1984 and has travelled extensively in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The best of Romania, though, is its countryside, and in particular the mountain scenery. The wild Carpathians, forming the frontier between the province of Transylvania and, to the east and south, Moldavia and Wallachia, shelter bears, stags, chamois and eagles; while the Bucegi, Fagaras and Retezat ranges and the Padis plateau offer some of the most undisturbed and spectacular hiking opportunities in Europe. In contrast to the crowded Black Sea beaches along Romania’s east coast, the waterlogged Danube Delta is a place set apart from the rest of the country where life has hardly changed for centuries and where boats are the only way to reach many settlements. During spring and autumn, especially, hundreds of species of birds from all over the Old World migrate through this region or come to breed.

Few countries can offer such a wealth of distinctive folk music, festivals and customs, all still going strong in remoter areas like Maramures and the largely Hungarian Csango and Szekelyfold regions. Almost any exploration of the villages of rural Romania will be rewarding, with sights as diverse as the log houses in Oltenia, Delta villages built of reeds, watermills built entirely of wood in Maramures, and above all the country’s abundance of churches, which reflect a history of competing communities and faiths. In medieval Transylvania four religions (Roman Catholic, Reformat, Lutheran and Unitarian) and three "nations" (Saxon, Hungarian and Szekely) were recognized, a situation stigmatized as the "Seven Deadly Sins of Transylvania" as the Romanian majority and their Orthodox were excluded.

In Moldavia and Wallachia Orthodoxy had a monopoly, but the clergy were as likely to be Greek as Romanian, and as late as the nineteenth century held services in incomprehensible Slavonic rather than the native tongue. This religious mix, together with the frequency of invasions, accounts for Romania’s extraordinary diversity of religious architecture. In Moldavia and Wallachia masons and architects absorbed the Byzantine style and then ran riot with ornamental stone facades, most notably at the monastery of Curtea de Arges and Iasi’s Three Hierarchs church, and in Oltenia, where the "Brâncoveanu style" flourished, with its porticoes and stone carving derived from native woodwork motifs. The frescoes so characteristic of medieval Orthodox churches reached their ultimate sophistication on the exterior walls of the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina, in northern Moldavia, which are recognized as some of Europe’s greatest artistic treasures. Fine frescoes are also found inside the wooden churches of Maramures, with their sky-scraping Gothic steeples. The Orthodox Church maintains dozens of monasteries (many in fact nunneries), the most famous, after those in Bucovina, being Snagov, where Vlad the Impaler is buried, and Horezu, Brancoveanu’s masterpiece.

WHEN TO GO
The climate is pretty crucial in deciding where to go and when, since life can be literally at risk during winter unless you come fully equipped. Even in the capital, Bucharest, it’s not always easy to find hotel rooms where the heating functions properly and, in winter, temperatures regularly fall well below freezing. Conditions improve with spring, bringing rain and wildflowers to the mountains and the softest of blue skies over Bucharest, and prompting the great migration of birds through the Delta. By May the lowlands are warming up and you might well find strong sunshine on the coast before the hordes arrive in July. Summer or early autumn is the perfect time to investigate Transylvania’s festivals and hiking trails, and to see the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina, while flocks of birds again pass through the Delta towards the end of autumn.

Customer Reviews

The Best Guide to Romania Currently Available
This book is the best general guide to Romania presently available. The book contains good background information and tips, as well as practical information that is invaluable. The book is many times better than the Lonely Planet guide for this country -- more deep and perceptive coverage, and more consistently accurate. This book was an invaluable companion during my stay in Bucharest last fall.

A good guide to an interesting country
I used the "Rough Guide" for a visit to Romania in 2003. Traveling mostly by train, without any pre-arranged plans or reservations, we found this guide accurate and up-to-date. Few Romanians speak English or other world languages, so it's a bit more of an adventure traveling on the cheap than in most of Europe. You may need to resort to the 2 pages of Romanian words and phrases in the guide. Given the sorry state of the US dollar, Romania is also one of very few European countries which is still relatively inexpensive for Americans.

As a country Romania is scenic and pleasant, much sunnier and more open than the legend of Dracula portends. We visited most of the places associated with Dracula and enjoyed looking into the country's rich history and ethnic background: Romanian, Hungarian, Turk, and German. Other than complaints about unemployment and corrupt politicians, we didn't encounter much to suggest the country's well-publicized dark side.

The "Rough Guide" was a competent guide to most of what you would like to know about Romania. For example, among the interesting tidbits in the book, is the sidebar about the beginning of the Romanian revolution in 1989 in the city of Timisoara, a place worth visiting.

Smallchief

Excellent Book
The Rough Guide to Romania is outstanding. It is intelligently written and comprehensive in its coverage. A few more maps would help, but I'm still glad to have chosen this book over the Lonely Planet book.