I was supposed to go to Romania this summer to celebrate my parents’ 80th birthdays (they are on different days, but both in the same year). I was hoping to take the boys for a hike in my beloved mountains, but instead will have to make do with these pictures instead. The first few pictures are from places that were within easy travel distance from Bucharest, so I used to go hiking and skiing there at least once a month when I was a pupil and a student. The last batch show the four seasons in different parts of the country.
N.B. I left Romania in the mid 1990s because it had a corrupt government, merciless exploitative capitalism combined with nostalgia for communist strong men, and because young people seemed to have no future there to fully develop their talents. There are still plenty of things wrong there, but I’m seriously thinking of moving back there in retirement at the latest.
findingtimetowrite 
What a beautiful looking country. I hope you fulfill your desire to move when life allows you to.
So sorry you’re not able to celelebrate properly with your parents, Marina. I still plan to visit your gorgeous country at some stage although I won’t be climbing that ladder!
Stunning scenery! I feel for you, I also have not seen my one son and his family since Christmas… I’ve not been back to Greece for eight months either. This feels so weird, and there’s no end to it.
Just keep looking at the pictures, time will pass quicker and you’ll be seeing your relatives…For me it’s been a year since Chicago to see my daughter, and it’ll probably be another year ….
Sigh…
I usually only get to see about once a year, but as they get older, I’m aware more and more that the clock is ticking…
Have you thoughts you would like to share on why you might retire there?
Because the UK has now become the country that I was fleeing back in the 1990s… Only half-joking, sadly. I suppose because I will always be a ‘foreigner’ anywhere I go, even in Romania.
It’s hard when you live in more than one place. You are never quite sure if you have 2 (or more) homes or none. My partner is UK and he strongly doesn’t want to go back there. It’s so sad that it’s like this.
Stunning! I’ll pass on the ladder, thank you 😊
I was hoping to replenish my own store of Romanian photographs and memories this year, but it will have to wait. I hope you’ll have a lovely time when you do get there, whenever that is.
Whereabouts do you like to go in Romania, then? I still have so many places where I’ve never been, like Cluj or the Danube Delta.
Mostly in Transylvania (of course! I’ve lived in Hungary long enough that yearning for “Erdély” has become second nature!) though so far the only way I’ve made it to “Kolozsvár” is through the Bánffy books. Would love to go there, also to the Danube Delta, and to Moldavia, and to go back to Bucharest.
Oh, how absolutely beautiful, Marina Sofia! I can see why you’re homesick, even as you acknowledge why you left. Those are such lovely ‘photos, too, and I love the change of seasons – I miss that where I live. Thanks for sharing and I hope you get back there for a visit as soon as it’s safe.
Spring, autumn and winter in the mountains all so beautiful. Happy birthday to your parents.
Thank you!
Your yearning for Romania reminded me of this exchange between mother and daughter in The Land of Green Plums where the mother after moving to Germany misses her life in Romania:
They have good streets here, but everything’s so spread out. I am not used to asphalt, it makes my feet hurt, and my brain. I get as tired here in a day as I do back home in a year.
That’s not home, other people live there now, I wrote to Mother. Home is where you are now…
And Mother wrote back to me: How would you know where home is? The place where Toni the clockmaker tends the graves, that’s home.
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Hope you are able to meet your parents soon.
Such beautiful images of a beautiful country, Marina – I can understand why you would miss it and want to go back. So sorry you can’t visit right now…
I think we do retain strong connections to our homeland – I was born in Scotland, left when I was 6 and had only visited once in the interim. Yet when went back for a trip a few years ago it was as if I’d never been away…
Beautiful! It makes me want to go too! x
Hope you get to visit your parents soon – is Romania one of our “air bridge” countries?