Timișoara

I don't think I've ever seen so many people addicted to ice cream before. And I'm from Wisconsin. Oradea had an ungodly amount of ice cream shops and were doing good business. But Timișoara (TEE me show AH ra) is over the top. Granted its 33 today which is about 93 degrees Fahrenheit and it's Sunday.

I just spent a couple hours walking around town. People were eating ice cream in the afternoon. People were eating ice cream before dinner. And people were eating ice cream after dinner - over a thousand of them walking around the piatas with their partner, their children, their parents, whomever. The main takeaway here is that they were all eating ice cream at some point during the day.

It was beautiful. It wasn't a festival or anything special. it was just a summer Sunday. And while I'm sure there were many tourists here, the vast majority were locals.

Timișoara is as big as Madison, Wisconsin where I'm from - 300,000ish people. But because everyone is strolling in the central piatas (plazas) it seems so much larger. The Old Town is car free and it's about a half mile by half mile circle. It makes sight seeing so enjoyable.

This is where the Romanian revolution began in 1989. My hotel is near the piata where it all started. The room is a modern, luxurious room for $60. It comes with air conditioning. In Europe you always have to look for that because it's not necessarily standard.

I checked in and had lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. I ordered Goulash and a local red wine. I'm right near the Serbian and Hungarian border so those cuisines are found in many restaurants. For $3 a glass, the wine was a steal. The menu translation said it was a "black girl" wine. I definitely had to look that one up! The
Fetească Neagră is a local grape translated as black girl, as in a very dark grape that is considered precious or delicate.

I took a bus to the north side of town and went to one of those traditional rural village museums. About 50 years ago some people started collecting old houses from the countryside, took them down, shipped them here, and rebuilt them. At the oldest of them, I couldn't stand up in either room. People were short! And as I went on and the houses were newer you could tell that the nutrition got better over the centuries because the ceilings and beams got higher.

The next day I went to the Revolution Memorial museum. In December 1989 people gathered to protest the removal of an agitator priest. A couple days later it turned into a real revolution. Troops showed up and opened fire and even killed children on the steps of the cathedral. Within 2 weeks, Caucescu was dead and it was over. They're very proud to have been the flash point.

Architecture here? There are many beautiful Secessionist buildings here, just like in Oradea. Timișoara is a larger city and the buildings are spread out a little bit and they're not quite as grand. Some still need a lot of work, even though Timișoara was declared a Cultural Capital of Europe in 2023. But there are some real gems here and in the Old Town most of them have been gussied up.

So far I'm absolutely impressed with what Romania has become in the 37 years since that revolution. This is only my second city but I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the country. Color me impressed.

More photos and videos are here

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