My life on this, and other, enchanted isles
Like many Romanian cities, in Oradea the atmosphere is relaxed and the economy is on the up. But Oradea’s ghosts at the table are the Synagogues. Recent travels in central and eastern Europe have brought home the holocaust in a way that somehow I wasn’t expecting. You know about the camps but visiting cities where […]
Read More Oradea Part ThreeIf you are visiting Oradea you can stay at the (very) faded original Art Nouveau ‘Park Hotel’ for a handful of lei…
Read More Oradea Part TwoThe city of Oradea in Northern Romania has the most exuberent and extensive surviving Art Nouveau cityscape in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. This last extravagent flourish of belle epoque has survived not just in the main square but out into the side streets. The anti-glamour of the eastern bloc flat blocks mass and glower at […]
Read More Oradea Part OneBus station cafes are not renowned for their imagination or attention to detail – and they don’t usually make many design concessions to the mode of transport their customers departed and arrived on (unless its some faux references to Greyhound buses). However in Szekelyudvarhely (Ordorheiu Secuiesc) which is in Szekely Land in Translyvania in Northern […]
Read More Cool bus station cafes of Central and Eastern Europe: an occasional monograph
Enchanted Isle 