S M F G · A Counter-Clockwise Trip Around The World

Time travelling in the wild west

Aug 1st 2008
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On the train from budapest to Sighişoara, trying to sleep — with no success at all — I look over the window every now and then. I can assure you that Romania looks like you travelled in time kind of a century. In the past!

My camera battery is empty so I can’t take pictures, thus you somehow has to believe me.

Apart of breath-taking landscapes — like moving 19th-century paintings — my attention is captured by farm workers.


An elder man is picking up with his hands the hay he just cut using a sickle. The most used transport — at least in Transilvania — seems to be the horse-driven cart, and crossing the countryside your sight may stumble upon semi-demolished warehouses, 18th-century houses and haylofts, women wearing traditional costumes for their daily life as well as some luxury-SUV waiting side by side with a horse cart at the rail-road crossing.

This really is the wild-west of Europe.


I’m now writing this notes sitting in front of my 0.71 EUR half liter of Ciuc beer (pronounced as in Italian) in a small deserted cafe in Braşov, listening to traditional music.

And no, I’m not in the 3rd stage cantos regionales!

Oh, and by the way, don’t ask me about Sighişoara, because — not having sleeped all night — I fell asleep just during my station stop, proceeding happily to Braşov!

Notes to self

  1. always have the camera batteries fully charged.
  2. be aware of time-zone changing when setting the alarm to your scheduled train stop.
  3. don’t try to write about farm life, hay and the like, because you don’t know this kind of words in English!

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7 Responses

  1. camcam says:

    …my dear prg…i notice two things…: the first is that the name of the beer seems coming out from an Alan Ford’s book. The second is that the girl in the photo beats you 3 beers against one….maybe you are getting too old…:)

  2. Ally says:

    P. your descriptions are perfect and made me think of a travel to nowhere I once had in Poland!!

    Go on you will find better places… xxOx

  3. Pi says:

    Ha ha ha! LOL!

    I’m afraid that you are the one getting old: the bottles are not in the girl’s table (she’s the bartender, actually), neither are beer bottles, and she’s drinking water — do you know water? Is that thing for washing things (they told me! :-)

    Those happy days are now sadly over: I reached Greece, where the Euro curse had already spoiled all the beauty of our days (1993): now a beer in a bar is 6 EUR worth! (six! exi! sei!)

  4. Pi says:

    Help! Ally? Some hints?

  5. Ally says:

    Pi,
    I have used Ally because in one of your posts you wrongly wrote: “ally it means I was there (for just one night): it kinda not suited me, for so to speak . . .”

    Just a Joke!
    British humor comes with wet weather!
    CIAO

    ALLY, (other name for ALI, used by UK relatives for the more common and more widely used: ALE!)

  6. CAMCAM says:

    Prg..i take a deep breath…you haven’t changed for few days travelling…but what’s water? i use beer to wash myself…leave the skin softer.
    but is Ally the englishman that doesn’t drink tea?
    and what does it mean LOL?

  7. camcam says:

    I WAS RIGHT!

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