Blog of Romania

When I left for Craiova on Saturday morning, my only thought was: “God, I want to kill the person who decided we’d take the 6 a.m. train.” I am not a morning person, and after waking up after 9 for a couple of years, being up at 5 is not my idea of fun.

I had only been to Craiova once, years ago, for a few hours. Things I remembered:
- the University was white and pretty
- the park was large and beautiful
- the locals could not give street directions.
I was to be proven correct on all three.

So, on Saturday morning, along with a sizeable section of the team at Bookblog, I got on a (remarkably new and clean) train. A couple of hours later, we got off in the middle of the Apocalypse, apparently: some sort of construction work was going on and the train station was surrounded by metal sheet.

We had 2 hours until another member was arriving, so we figured we’d just go to the hotel, leave our stuff and come back for her. We had a map and the city wasn’t large, what’s the worse that could happen?
(That question never has a happy answer.)

Apparently the map was not particularly detailed. So we naturally asked people. One lady told us the street didn’t exist (I don’t know how come she knew all the streets in town). Other people directed us to the Electroputere factory, since our hostel was on Electroputere street. Once we half-circled the factory, we decided to call the hostel and ask. The receptionist was sorry, but he couldn’t explain how to get there. Maybe we should just ask for Electroputere highschool.

Three people on the street later, we had a pretty good idea about how to get to said highschool. But, according to them, it was far away. Hmm, but another guy had said to just go round that building. We soon rememebered that what passes for a long distance in a small town is probably close for us (since we are all from large cities), so we walked. And, not long after, we finally spotted the big sign announcing the Griffon Hostel. Right next to the highschool gate. I have no idea why the receptionist couldn’t just have said that.

The place looked pretty deserted. The front door was locked, the secondary door was locked, there was a pile of dirt in front of the third door… Boy, were we amazed when we got in. I was expecting a hostel, one big room with many beds. We got double rooms, with new furniture, very clean sheets, bathroom (with the best ever shower stall I’ve ever used), cable TV… wow. Nothing to eat, though, so don’t count on a restaurant if you decide to stay here.

Of course, it took us two hours to get here, so we couldn’t get back to the train station to pick up our friend. She got there in 5 minutes by cab. (The taxis were cheap and the distances short.)

We’d already seen the industrial side of the city (where I loved this old sign spelling “Electroputere” - I assume it has or it used to have grass growing out of it in summer), so we decided to eat and see the sights.

We wandered around the center for a bit, found a restaurant, ate, then met up with a couple of locals. I admit I thought there was not much to see in Craiova, except for the park. I was expecting an industrial town, but I got a very modern central square (I understand it’s been redone recently) and beautiful buildings:

The Prefecture

The Museum of Art

We even got to see the inside of an old noble’s house, thanks to one of our Craiova friends. The owner invited us in and let us roam the place, then he even tried to buy us some cakes :D

But the Romanescu park is the best part. It’s big (96 ha) and we visited it at a great time, the beginning of spring. I was surprised to see how quiet it was, despite the amount of people walking or skating around. If you chose one of the more remote paths you could be sure no one bothered you. And this was on a Saturday afternoon!

The one part I didn’t like was the zoo. Depressing. Animals kept in really small enclosures, in bad conditions, looking extremely unhappy… However, it looks like it will be shut down because it doesn’t follow European Union rules.
(If you look at the large version of this photo of a lion, the sign says “Unauthorized location being shut down”)

Unfortunately, we had been walking for almost a day, so we headed off back to the hotel. Interestingly, one of the park exits leads to a graveyard. You just pass through it on your way in and out the park. A nice way of reminding people they will die one day…

We didn’t see anything new on Sunday, we only took another walk in the park, but I can’t finish before recommending Bistro Park, a very nice little place near the park entrance, with cheap and good food. Just avoid it on Saturday night (maybe the rest of the week-nights too?) because they have a very loud restaurand band. We had to yell to be able to hear each other. But the waitresses are nice and the food is served very fast.

All in all, Craiova was a very nice surprise. A walk in the park and on some of the more remote streets with old buildings is totally worth it.

Entry written for Blog of Romania.
Jen takes care of this website because she feels Romania is really beautiful if you get past the stereotypes.