First city tour bus in Bucharest

The first double decker tourist bus line in Romanian capital Bucharest, called Bucharest City Tour, will be inaugurated today.

The bus will ride daily between 10AM and 10PM around downtown. Tourists will be able to see several landmarks in Bucharest while riding the double decker. The new route will be served by four double decker buses, each with 77 seats. The route is 15 km long and should take 50 minutes. Buses serving this new line will arrive every 15 minutes.

The price of a ticket on this line is around 6 euros. It is valid for 24 hours and can be bought from the bus.

Source: Romania Business Insider and Adevarul

Exhibition on Romanian prehistorical civilization

Before the establishment of the first cities in Mesopotamia ca. 4500 BC, highly sophisticated societies with advanced technology and complex systems of symbolic representation had emerged in the southeastern part of Europe.

The Neolithic people of the Balkans were the first in Europe to adopt of a new type of economy, based on agriculture and animal breeding. This happened in the 7th millennium BC and marked a radical shift in the way humans interacted with their environment. After a million of years of nomadic life – during which little had changed – people settled in permanent habitations and started developing new skills and modes of social interaction.

By the 5th millennium BC, the thriving cultures of the Balkans were among the most advanced in the Old World – featuring densely populated settlements, a sophisticated system of social hierarchy, highly symbolic cult rituals, complex long-distance exchange networks, and an amazing copper- and gold-working industry.

By the mid-4th millennium, however, this brilliant world came to an abrupt end. The reasons are not clear: Invasions? Climatic changes? Overexploitation of natural resources?

The unknown world of “Old Europe” is revealed in this exhibition, which features more than 200 Neolithic objects from Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova.

The exhibition The Lost World of Old Europe, which is organized in Athens (October 2010 - January 2011) by the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, in collaboration with the National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest and with the participation of the Varna Regional Museum of History, Bulgaria, and the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova, Chisinau, demonstrates that during the Neolithic the various regions of Southeastern Europe had more things in common than differences.

Source: Cycladic Art Museum

Bukovina monastery on Russian stamp

Since June 2008 stamp collectors are able to include in their collections a beautiful (and probably first-time!) philatelic Romanian-Russian joint issue regarding monuments listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Romanian monastery of Voronet (right side) in Bukovina, famous for its unique predominating blue color, is depicted in a Russian stamp of 12 rubles.

Jewish Bukovina: against forgetting

Jewish Cemeteries of the Bucovina, a new guidebook-brochure to Jewish cemeteries in the Bukovina region of Romania and Ukraine, has just been published by NOI Media Print and launched last week in Bucharest.

Simon Geissbühler, a Swiss diplomat based in Bucharest, is the author of the text and most of the photos; Adrian Manafu is the editor of the book; most interesting forewords are signed by the author himself, by Aurel Vainer, current president of the Romanian Jewish Federation, and by Ruth Ellen Gruber.

The publication is available in English, German, French, Romanian or Ukrainian.

Easter in Bukovina 2009

On April 19th the Christian-Orthodox church will commemorate Easter this year. For this occasion, the Romanian Ministry of Tourism has just launched the campaign "Easter in Bukovina", which will be developed in the period 10-23 April 2009 in Suceava county. The program includes several thematic manifestations as well as folk music shows throughout the county. During the same period, monasteries, churches, museums and memorial houses will be open according to a special schedule.

You may watch below the spot made for the Ministry of Tourism in order to promote Easter in Bukovina:

There is a place in Romania where tradition is kept with dignity, where people are inspired by the holy places' beauty, where the holiday's magic means goodwill, faith and family. Anyone can call this place "home". Easter in Bukovina. A project supported by the Ministry of Tourism.

Blessing of the house

On November 8th, the day of St. Michael and St. Gabriel according to the Christian-Orthodox calendar, we organized a religious ceremony among relatives and close Brazilian and Romanian friends in order to bless, with the local priest, the building that serves as the seat of Fernando's Hideaway in Draguseni, Suceava county. The guest of honor was H.E. Vitor Gobato, the Ambassador of Brazil in Bucharest, whom we afterwards guided to the towns of Târgu Neamt, Gura Humorului and the monastery of Voronet, part of the UNESCO world heritage.

Cruise on the Black Sea

On June 13th it was inaugurated the first regular cruise line linking the Romanian harbor of Constanta to Odessa in Ukraine and Varna in Bulgaria.

The Ukrainian-flagged ship Krymskaya Strela normally takes 6 hours between Odessa and Constanta, and almost 4 hours between Constanta and Varna.

Detailed information can be found on Navlomar website.

Romanian artist promotes MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art from New York hired Dan Perjovschi to create a page promoting the museum for the daily paper The New York Times

The March 12, 2008 edition of the American daily paper includes in the special "Museums" section a page of drawings by Dan Perjovschi. Selected by the Museum of Modern Art to present the image of the institution in this edition of The New York Times, Perjovschi started his work with a modern comment referring to contemporary art and to the manner it is presented today by the great museums (including the Museum of Modern art), a list including "Cubism, Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Modernism, Cafeteria, Shop." Last year, the Museum of Modern Art hosted the first individual exhibition by Dan Perjovschi in the United States, entitled "What Happened to US?" In front of the audience, for several days, Perjovschi sketched graphic comments on the relations between present social and political circumstances and art on one of the walls of the Donald B. & Catherine C. Marron Atrium.

Global warming, violence in schools, freedom of expression and even the role of the United States in the world – were themes of the exhibition presented by Perjovschi at the Museum of Modern Art from Manhattan. In a declaration for HotNews.ro, in April 2007, Dan Perjovschi mentioned:

"All my works are inspired by reality because I follow a line of graphic comment – a highly personal graphic comment. It is not a detached graphic comment, and it is definitely not a comment dedicated to the beautiful side of life or to the things most people consider as beautiful. It is a statement of commitment. I feel like a citizen, not like a bystander. I am a man of the city, and I care about the issues it is dealing with, regardless if this city is New York, Sibiu or Bucharest. Drawing is my personal manner to respond to the city."

Source: Article by George Grigoriu on Nine O'Clock

Maramures guidebook

The Finnish publishing house Metaneira has just launched the most detailed travel guide to Romania's region of wooden churches: Maramures.

The travel guide with more than 750 full-color photographs, 100 drawings and 24 maps shows the best of this little known corner of northern Romania. Geographic and historic overviews with plans, maps and timelines are followed by a portrayal of the traditional way of life and the wooden architecture typical to the region.

Photographs, drawings and texts guide the reader through 500 pages around 47 wooden churches built in the Maramuresean gothic style. Due to their uniqueness, eight of them are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Transylvanian fortified churches

In June 2007 it was launched in Bucharest the multimedia CD-ROM Saxon Fortified Churches of Transylvania. This a result of the successful collaboration among Mioritics Association, the German World Heritage Foundation and the UNESCO Office in Venice.

The CD includes an interactive map, sketches, descriptions and photo galleries of 44 fortified churches, local tales and glossary, all accessible through an intuitive and user-friendly interface.

The history of the fortified Saxon churches started in the 12th century, when King Geza II of Hungary assigned more than 2500 German colonists to protect and develop the southeastern part of Transylvania. A document issued in 1224 by King Andrew II gave to these colonists special rights and privileges which ensured their autonomy and significantly influenced the development of their villages.

As a sign of recognition to their uniqueness, seven out of the over 150 Saxon churches are on the UNESCO's World Heritage list. Other organizations are currently trying to restore several sites so as to rescue as many remnants of the Saxon civilization in Romania as possible.

World Philatelic Exhibition in Bucharest

This year there will be celebrated 150 years from the issue of the first Romanian postal stamps, the famous “Bull Head”. To celebrate this, between 20-27 June, Romania will host in Bucharest, at Romexpo, the “EFIRO 2008” World Philatelic Exhibition, followed on the 28th June by the 70th FIP Congress.

The exhibition will be organized by the Romanian Post Office together with the Romanian Philatelic Federation, under the patronage of Fédération Internationale de Philatélie (FİP), which was granted at FIP Singapore Congress of 2004, under the patronage of International Association of Philatelic Journalists (AIJP) and also under the high patronage of the Romanian Presidency.

Source: EFIRO 2008

TouristClick listing

Our blog has just been listed on the worldwide travel web directory TouristClick, a comprehensive online travel destination guide and travel directory, where you can find information from local people, cheap airline tickets, booking hotels online, cars hire cheap from local services, cruises and vacation packages, all in one place, including user and expert advice from travel forums, local weather, currency information and much more.

Romanian Carnival in Venice

Romania will participate for the first time officially, as guest of honor, in the traditional Venice Carnival between January 25th - February 6th 2008. The event will be marked by large-scale cultural manifestations showcasing Romanian culture.

Some of the artists who will represent Romania at the shows in Venice are actor Dan Puric, Olt county folk dancers, the Sukar Collective Gypsy musicians, the Masca theatre group, the Philarmonia chamber orchestra, the bands Nightlosers, Marius Mihalache, Amadeus and Nicolas Simion. Inside the traditional space of the Venice Biennale, the Venice City Hall offered Romania Italy's Pavilion.

NATO Summit Bucharest 2008

Since yesterday, all information regarding the NATO Summit which shall be held between April 2^nd and 4^th 2008 in Bucharest can be accessed through this official site. It is still under construction, so that more information will appear in the near future. The website contains a detailed presentation of Romania and also a brief description of Bucharest, currently the sixth biggest capital in the European Union.