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Icons and frescoes on the walls of the churches are major parts of Romanian cultural heritage. Heavily influenced by Byzantine art, they served as means of educating an illiterate population by depicting biblical scenes, our guide said.
In the open-air National Village Museum of the Herastrau Park I saw a Berbesti house that had beautiful carving at its entrance and a Marmures church with an impressive belfry and icons on its exterior walls.
We were reminded of the more recent history of Romania as we stood at the foot of a white obelisk that seemed to have a black bird’s nest near the top.
On its right was the legendary Hilton Palace Hotel where seemingly improbable scandals and political intrigues had been hatched. Shrewd political maneuvering is credited for the unification of Romania after World War One; by dizzying changes of position in WWII Romania managed to salvage its independence.
Our guide said, “the white column indicates the history of Romania with only one black mark for the Communist era. That is how the architect describes it. Facing us was the famous balcony of a building (the office of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party) from which on December 22, 1989, President Nicolae Ceausescu tried to speak before his supporters.
There were more than 50 other structures - windmills, watermills and farmsteads as well as houses and churches - from all of Romania’s main regions: Oltenia, Moldova, Dobrogea and Transylvania. “Don’t think all of Romania is like this, pretty and well-maintained,” I was told by a cynical observer. “In too many places there is still no running water or inside toilets. One must see the countryside.”
Revolution Square in Bucharest looked surprisingly quite. There was hardly anyone here except our small tour group. It was some time before a tour bus pulled into the empty parking lot that tastelessly covered most of this exceptionally prized space. Here was the Atheneum, the musical heart of Romania, where George Enescu had debuted his Romanian Rhapsody and where the national Philharmonic Orchestra that bore his name played.
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