Standing at Bucharest’s Baneasa Airport we could be forgiven for thinking little had changed since Louis Blériot’s first flight in 1909. The interior of the terminal was a souhk of humanity: those arriving thronging with those gathering to depart. Our car hire kiosk was vacant. A phone call and half an hour later, the car appeared. The open road beckoned.
Isabel and I had come to visit our son who works in the oil industry in Constanta but not for a couple of days. First we would return to Craiova where 35 years ago we met while working on an irrigation scheme in the south of Judetul Dolj. A lot of water has flowed down the Danube since then and we were keen to see how Romania had changed. Well first off, did I say the open road beckons? Bucharest has traffic jams to match Mumbai and the ring road is still a succession of wheel crunching potholes. Clearing the city an hour later the motorway to Pitesti and the road to Craiova were fine; the frequent and random unmade sections a thing of the past.
Our visit to the Sadova-Corabia Irrigation Scheme was pure nostalgia. The canals are still there but sadly neglected; the control gates, weirs and pumping stations long since abandoned. The slab factory I managed with conscript prisoners grafting for remission has disappeared without trace. Ocolna, the village where we lived and a former hunting lodge of King Carol later became an army training camp and is now home for Roma people. Peasant farmers still bring in the harvest with wooden carts but at least the wooden wheels and oxen have been replaced by pneumatic tyres and donkeys or horses. Dogs roam freely, feral but not intimidating: the direct descendants of dogs liberated during Ceausescu’s ‘systemisation’ when villages were cleared and the inhabitants re-housed in towns to work in factories.
On day three we left Craiova, drove back to Bucharest and eastward crossing the Danube at Cernavoda, past Romania’s only nuclear power station and on through the vineyards of Murfatlar to Constanta on the Black Sea coast; a journey of 400 km. Constanta is Romania’s second city and principal port and now the hub of the country’s oil exploration. Immediately to the north along an 8 km spit squeezed between sea and lake lies Mamaia. With hotels lining both sides of the road this resort hosts over half a million visitors in the summer. Most are Romanian since NATO operates the airport and restricts its use for charter flights. Constanta itself is a modern, cosmopolitan city with international shopping malls, hotels and restaurants. The National History and Archaeology Museum is a real gem with hundreds of ancient artefacts from the Greek and Roman periods. The Carol 1 Mosque is the largest in Romania and the minaret provides great views of the city. Further afield we visited Histria, the Greek colony; the fascinating Danube Delta and the enormous Limanu Cave near Bulgaria. The Black Sea coast has much to offer to the independent traveller and the experience is well worth the effort.