Timi, Timi, Timișoara
You know what I love? Travelling (obviously), but even better, travelling on the cheap. Check this, the flight and accommodation cost myself and my friend under £100 each altogether.
How to travel like this? Two things:
Ryanair
Airbnb
Why Romania and why in January? See above. It’s literally no deeper than that.
But I loved Romania,…Timisoara to be precise.
Favourite things
The peace and tranquility of the place was definitely a winner for me, there was hardly a soul in the city centre and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. It later transpired that for two out of the three days we were there it was the Bank Holiday which was why no-one was about, but that is besides the point.
The pastries yes God the pastries. Funnily enough I was a bit reluctant to try these and didn’t until the last day (more fool me) because these hips ain’t lyin’ like they used to no mo’, but in retrospect I was needlessly denying myself for a short period of time. When it came down to it, I bought in multiples, tasted the goodness, bought more in different places and in greater numbers. I’m screaming with laughter as I write this, but they were so delicious.
There were meat, vegetable and fruit and cream options and because they all looked the same and/or we didn’t speak Romanian, we had to point stuff out and take a risk that we’d like them.
The conversion of pounds to lei. We were eating and drinking like Queens. My eyes nearly watered at the exchange rate in Timisoara. Don’t change your money in England (or your country of residence) you will get chiefed. It was literally about 5 lei to a £1 and I got about 5/6 little pastries for 3 lei. Yeahhh….
Timisoara is the only place in Europe where i have seen the least amount of black people ever (I think we saw 3), yet also for me personally the place where I have felt most comfortable as a very distinctive minority. Unlike in other countries (where they have black people in substantial enough numbers I might add), we didn’t really get stared at, and no-one treated us in that often condescending you’re-clearly-a-tourist way.
You can get by with not knowing Romanian, but as always it’s good to know a few words. We hastily looked some up on Google Translate when we arrived, and rinsed them. People seemed impressed though lool.
Memorable moments
Going into Timisoara Orthodox Cathedral and observing the religious rites of the people going in to pray. Most people did a kneeling several times, making the cross sign several times, and kissing the picture sequence before each of three pictures placed about two feet in front of the altar. Then they went to the altar to pray. It’s always interesting to see how other people worship God in different environments, and we were nonplussed and bemused at the lengthy process, but also impressed with the evident level of devotion.
Coming out of the cathedral to be met by a guy who said hello to us in English in a very jolly manner. He asked us where we were from and it turned out he was a half-Romanian half-Greek cab driver from Croydon visiting as well. We were reduced to laughter when he said we looked like London girls so that’s why he had said hello, and when he half-asked half-stated that we probably came to Timisoara because of the cheap flights. He couldn’t understand why we were in Timisoara of all the places in Romania, as there’s very little to do or see…which to be fair we’d discovered by that point.
Being accosted by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city centre, and having a really long and decent chat with them about the location of the new heaven (I know I know we got caught but it was also really interesting), politics, the merits of voting in-spite of predestination, youth unemployment in Romania, their Nigerian friends, the hope of God, and why we would’ve been better off visiting Transylvania (this became a common thread throughout our stay). Emmanuel and Laura were their names and they were the nicest people we met in Timisoara.
Ordering Romanian kebabs in broken French as that was the common language between us and the woman serving. It was deliciously painful and delightfully hilarious. We got there in the end.
Watching La La Land and then Collateral Beauty in a cinema in the mall (the subtitles were in Romanian) because it was so cheap, and drinking the strongest cocktails I have ever tasted before that. Stronger than in the Caribbean yo. For real!
Greedy fat pigeons attacking us in the square because we had pastries in our hands and they are used to being fed by people.
Things to note
As alluded to before, there’s not so much to see in Timisoara. We had run out of places within two hours of our first whole day there. We spent a lot of time chilling in a really cool cakery called Senneville. However the next day we discovered the Iulius Mall which is huge, and we did some window shopping, ate in the food court, had drinks, and went to the cinema. We realised that this was where all the people we couldn’t see on the streets, were hanging out.
A lot of people recommended we go to Transylvania to see where the legend of Dracula comes from, but our stay was too short for that. I personally really liked Timisoara, but I would say it’s probably best to go in summer, as it’s the kind of place you can chill in and enjoy the sun. You can also hire bikes to ride, but we didn’t see any…perhaps because it was winter.