With the strapline ‘1000 ultimate
travel experiences’, the second edition (2012) of the Rough Guide compilation Make the Most of Your Time on Earth: The
Rough Guide to the World consists of personal recommendations contributed
by Rough Guide authors. Each entry is a
couple of paragraphs, with a link to brief further information.
There are four entries relating
to Romania: ‘Tracking carnivores (i.e. wolves and bears) in the Carpathian
mountains’; ‘Journeying to the end of the Danube’; ‘Riding on horseback through
snow in Transylvania’ (a somewhat waffly entry, perhaps because there is not
much to write about riding a horse in the snow, even in such beautiful
surroundings); and the outstandingly predictable ‘On the Dracula trail in
Transylvania’.
There is also an entry for
Moldova, ‘Nightclubbing back in the (old) USSR’; it makes the valid point that
Moldova does not have a reputation as an oasis of hedonism. The writer did find some nightlife though at
the Military Pub in Chisinau, notable for having an ex-Soviet tank in the
middle of the dance floor to house the DJ.
As far as I can tell the place no longer exists, which is a great shame.
Such a volume has to be
subjective, and a travel experience one particular type of reader will love is going
to leave another one cold. Whatever type
of trip one favours, it is easy to agree with the aim expressed here of moving
beyond the familiar, even if in the age of mass mobility it is increasingly
difficult to find ‘authentic’ experiences, and these suggestions only patchily
fulfill that aim.
