Rolling on the Rhine: Weekend in Transylvania

The week of Mardi Gras is traditionally one of the biggest holidays/celebrations in Cologne. Schools close, people take time off of work, and there are non-stop parties. Since my German classes were cancelled for a few days (and we weren’t quite sure we were up for so much celebration), we decided to take a long weekend trip to…ROMANIA! After doing some research on google.com/flights (a really cool site), we found round-trip tickets direct from Cologne to Cluj-Napoca, Romania for 20€ per person. Since that price was too good to pass up, we decided to go for it and visit someplace that was never even on our radar.

Cluj-Napoca is located in the Transylvania region of Romania and is the second largest city in the country, second to the capital, Bucharest. Romania is historically rich country and was conquered and ruled by the ancient Romans. Although Romania is surrounded by Slavic language countries, Romanian is a Romance language, related to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (Wikipedia).

Even though we weren’t sure what to expect and we certainly don’t speak any Romanian, we were pleasantly surprised. The city center was made up of a mix of small shops, charming buildings, old churches and trendy restaurants. Of course some of the area outside of the center is more rural and the country as a whole is still developing. It was still a wonderful place, with friendly people, good food, and interesting sites.