Over the Carpathians
February 2019
I will be reviewing the Belgrade Inn separately for an external website. Suffice it to say here that the hotel is a little jewel. They do get pretty much everything right; there is no doubt that I will go back there. As with most jewels, there may be one or two imperfections to point out. The requested morning call did not come. Lucky I had overcome my reluctance to keep mobile phones on overnight and had set an alarm as a backup.
Milan, the taxi driver, was at the foyer before the appointed time. The car-hire representative, on the other hand, was not in his office. I had to make a call to drag him out to work. When the tall man, more Dracula-esque than anything to be seen in Transylvania, eventually turned up, Milan engaged him in a discussion of the finer points of my hire contract. It became clear that to buy additional insurance would be a good idea. Count Dracula would not be drawn on what exactly this additional insurance would cover; he only repeated “full insurance!” in answer to my questions. When I saw the car, it turned out to be an inferior vehicle to the one I had reserved. I had chosen a Skoda Yeti, for old times’ sake, but got a Dacia Duster instead; a far cry from a Yeti – and it was falling apart in places. But time pressed and I couldn’t stop to argue. The Romanian substitute would have to do.
The drive proved much longer than Google Maps had estimated. One of the problems turned out to be that I did not use Google Maps for navigation. I used a supposedly more upmarket application, Here, from which I had downloaded Serbian and Romanian maps to ensure I would not get stranded in the middle of nowhere with no signal and no directions. In the event, the posher tool turned out not to know some of the newer roads, and it didn’t know the older ones much better either. When I found myself in GPS no man’s land, with the screen showing a lunar emptiness and no voice instructions to tell me how to get back to civilisation, I decided to go back to Google Maps, and this did the job reliably and according to its own estimate. I got to Cluj with no greater hitch than a severe delay and a missed dinner gathering.
In fairness, part of the delay was due not to faulty navigation, but to the rather arcane border crossing practices on the Romanian side, near Foeni. The Serbs wave you through on a straightforward passport check, but the Romanians make you queue in slow moving traffic for an eternity. When you get near the front of the line you discover that what had been holding the traffic up was not a meticulous customs inspection, but a Ro-vinieta. This is a road permit you must acquire if you are going to use Romanian roads. Which would be fair enough, if the Ro-vinieta dispenser were not a lone individual working with a distinct lack of alacrity, oblivious to the mile-long queue of frustrated hopefuls relying on him to get through. When you finally come to his hut, you have to bend down to see him and to make yourself heard through his low, narrow window. The resulting ticket looks like it has been printed from a computer, incongruous with the time it had taken to be produced – you could be forgiven for expecting a quill-penned writ on ancient parchment.
The road took me through fields and villages, just as I had hoped. There were farmsteads with sheep grazing in the fields, and more modest versions where a few hens pecked in what looked like the houses’ gardens. Hardy women stood by the roadside next to a table displaying apples and bottles with a yellowish liquid. I did not have time to stop to find out what it was.
Timișoara is not far from the border and the recommended route goes through the city. Nothing particular to remark on, other than the knowledge as you drive through that momentous things happened here thirty years ago. One of the main arteries you drive on is named 16 December 1989.
The part of the Carpathians I crossed was less spectacular than the pictures. Clearly this was not the scenic route.
My accommodation in Cluj is in my trusted Opera Plaza Hotel, where I was put in room 310, the same as back in Belgrade. Most of the staff were new, so there were no flickers of recognition from them. But the place itself and I gave each other silently a warm welcome. Having had no food or drink all day, I devoured one of the those unforgotten roast duck dishes, washing it down with a glass of Feteasca Neagra. A pleasant interruption was the brief visit by the bride and the groom, who brought me a traditional Romanian shirt to be worn at their wedding tomorrow.
Originally published in Diary of Exile
