Transylvania

Prince Charles & Romania

by Craig Turp May 16, 2011 Romania

 ‘Eco-hypocrite’ Prince Charles, who a couple of weeks ago told people in the United States that they should eat fewer steaks for the sake of the planet (this from a man who reportedly has 82 servants) is this week on a private visit to Romania, where he owns property. Tomorrow he will apparently meet Romania’s [...]

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New Poland Express 22/10/10: On hardships, both real and imagined

by Craig Turp October 23, 2010 Romania

 This week’s column, as first seen on Friday in the New Poland Express: We are fairly certain that just about every expatriate reading this column has at one stage or another greatly exaggerated their suffering at the hands of Poland’s weather/bureaucracy/infrastructure to the good people back home. We have. It’s part of the attraction of [...]

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Almost six months on, Top Gear is still causing offence amongst Romania’s ostrich population

by Craig Turp April 15, 2010 Bucharest

 Oh dear. It appears that some Romanian with a grudge against the Daily Telegraph, Top Gear and Britain in general successfully hacked into the Daily Telegraph’s website last night, replacing a sub-domain page with his (or her) own rant about how Britain continually misrepresents Romania’s image. The hacker, or hackers – calling himself RNS: Romanian [...]

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Ever heard of market forces?

by Craig Turp March 29, 2010 Bucharest

 We caught the fag end of a debate about occupancy rates in Romania’s hotels and pensions yesterday afternoon, a debate held on the – in our opinion – rapidly deteriorating Realitatea TV news channel. (Given that we consider the standard of reporting on Realitatea to never have been all that good, you can imagine how [...]

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Romanian Tourism Ministry gets it (partly) right. At last

by Craig Turp March 26, 2010 Bucharest

 Now there’s a nice surprise. News reaches us today that everybody’s favourite Tourism Minister, Elena Udrea, has taken the sound advice offered here by our good selves (and, we doubt not, in many other places by many other people) and finally realised that Romania – as a tourist destination – cannot be all things to [...]

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Let’s make life in the countryside worth living. Then we can worry about preserving it

by Craig Turp May 22, 2009 Romania

 If you follow us on Twitter (and you really ought to) then you would have noticed we had a thing or two to say earlier today about Prince Charles, currently visiting Romania to launch a programme dedicated to ‘preserving Romania’s rural traditions and village culture.’ According to this Associated Press report the Prince views Romania’s [...]

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Haydn’s Back

by Craig Turp March 23, 2009 Romania

 We really must get up to Brasov and see our dear friend Haydn Deane very soon. Meantime, he’s been back on Happy Hour singing about Brasov. Funny how people never write songs about Bucharest…

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