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Bucharest (București)

Bucharest is a fine old city in decay, like an aging courtesan.  For me Bucharest is best represented by its trams. These are great grey thundering monsters that clank heavily and slowly down the streets with no apparent suspension, unlike modern trams elsewhere that glide almost silently along.  They are fundamentally shabby yet practical and somehow confident, in a tank-like way, as they force their passage through the unruly traffic.

The hotel we stayed in in Bucharest was once a mansion and has been scrupulously restored to its former glory.  It is not an insignificant establishment.  But alarmingly the taxi driver bringing us from the airport could not find it on his GPS.  When I looked at Google Street View the reason became evident.  In July 2014, when the images were captured, the Grand Boutique Hotel was still a construction site, like the similarly grand building on the corner of Strada Negustori that is now undergoing renovation.

 

Grand Boutique Hotel
Bucharest Bucharest
Grand Boutique Hotel Grand Boutique Hotel
Grand Boutique Hotel - part of our room and a fraction of our bathroom; one of the bars and reception

 

 

Thus Bucharest, with a population of just 1.9 million that feels bigger because of its grand old semi-vacant buildings, is slowly recovering some of its former glory.  But it's off a low base - there's a long way to go. 

 

Bucharest Bucharest
Bucharest Bucharest
Bucharest Bucharest
Bucharest Streets

 

In Ceaușescu's time a large part of the old city was demolished to build a grand boulevard, headed by the vast Parliament building and lined with matching office blocks.  The Palace of the Parliament is the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon and the fourth largest building of any kind.  We got to see it on our second visit as foreign visitors have to surrender their passport and be accompanied at all times but we had left them in the hotel first time around.  We didn't get to visit all eleven hundred rooms nor even either of the two parliamentary chambers but we did see several of the vast halls part of the rooftop and even a cellar.  Photographs were prohibited inside.

 

View from the Palace of the Parliament
Ceaușescu's grand boulevard from the Palace of the Parliament balcony

 

To achieve this he knocked down a good deal of he oldest part of the city which leaves a picturesque remainder that has become a walking shopping/dining precinct.  It's adjacent to the university and museums and is quite bohemian with several conspicuous brothels.  Local people there, or were some tourists, looked well dressed and prosperous as they promenaded past the Irish Pub or café we happened to be eating or drinking at.  

 

Irish Pub
One of several Irish Pubs in the Old City

 

At the National Museum of Romanian History the principal reference to recent history is the trappings of monarchy, the crown jewels and so on.  The Roman occupation also receives a good deal of attention, particularly the time of Trajan whose column is reproduced in plaster.  I was a bit bemused as to what it's doing here. It's very lonely as the only exhibit of this genre.  The plaster replicas of this column in Rome item occupy most of the building - a collection of one. It's not unique there is similar plaster copy, among thousands of exhibits, in the V&A in London and of course the one in Rome, so I suppose this has been singled out to benefit Romanian scholars of Roman history. A controversial post-modern bronze statue of Trajan stands on the steps outside and passers-by keep his penis bright with frequent fondling.

 

Trajan
Trajan on the steps

 

In addition to trams and trolleybuses, Bucharest also boasts a metro dating from the Ceaușescu era, with four lines and 51 stations.  More are planned. 

There is a lot to see around Bucharest from Roman ruins to various churches and museums.

 

Bucharest Bucharest
Bucharest Bucharest
Some other places of interest around Bucharest
Roman ruins; a 'Capitoline Wolf' statue, with Romulus and Remus, beneath her; and two Romanian Orthodox churches
The Wolf is one of five copies of the Roman original given to Romania by Italy in 1921
She represents the new unity of Romanians and their 'Latinity'
 

 

We didn't use the public transport but walked to the nearby old-city or used cabs further afield.  This was a lesson in itself, as the cab drivers are skilled at exploiting tourists with two quite different fee scales and are best hired by the concierge at one's hotel.  As mentioned above we also hired a car and I had the fun of driving in and out of the city.

Using the car we headed to Brașov 270km to the north, enjoying the motorway that extends for a good part of the way.

Near Brașov we saw the first of Transylvania's many fortified Saxon towns and churches. In the twelfth century the Kings of Hungary settled German colonists in the area against the expansion of the Ottomans and Tartars (Turkic Muslims).  From the 13th to 16th centuries there around 300 such Christian fortifications were constructed against these 'heathen hordes' that had overrun much of what today is modern Romania.  There remain 130, once Saxon, towns and villages in the Transylvania region each with a fortified church.

Obviously the fortified churches were originally Roman Catholic but with the Protestant Reformation they seemingly universally saw the error of their theological ways and adopted Lutheran theology.  They remain so today.   Their congregations have dwindled over the ages and now a small minority adhere to the Lutheran religion while the great majority of modern Romanians now follow the Eastern (Romanian Orthodox) Rite.  Nevertheless the Saxon churches are significant points of interest on the tourist agenda and a number have world heritage listing. 

They are also fascinating reminders of the mega-litres of blood that have been shed in the name of conflicting human imaginative conceptions of the divine.

 

 

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Travel

Denmark

 

 

  

 

 

In the seventies I spent some time travelling around Denmark visiting geographically diverse relatives but in a couple of days there was no time to repeat that, so this was to be a quick trip to two places that I remembered as standing out in 1970's: Copenhagen and Roskilde.

An increasing number of Danes are my progressively distant cousins by virtue of my great aunt marrying a Dane, thus contributing my mother's grandparent's DNA to the extended family in Denmark.  As a result, these Danes are my children's cousins too.

Denmark is a relatively small but wealthy country in which people share a common language and thus similar values, like an enthusiasm for subsidising wind power and shunning nuclear energy, except as an import from Germany, Sweden and France. 

They also like all things cultural and historical and to judge by the museums and cultural activities many take pride in the Danish Vikings who were amongst those who contributed to my aforementioned DNA, way back.  My Danish great uncle liked to listen to Geordies on the buses in Newcastle speaking Tyneside, as he discovered many words in common with Danish thanks to those Danes who had settled in the Tyne valley.

Nevertheless, compared to Australia or the US or even many other European countries, Denmark is remarkably monocultural. A social scientist I listened to last year made the point that the sense of community, that a single language and culture confers, creates a sense of extended family.  This allows the Scandinavian countries to maintain very generous social welfare, supported by some of the highest tax rates in the world, yet to be sufficiently productive and hence consumptive per capita, to maintain among the highest material standards of living in the world. 

Read more: Denmark

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Meaning of Death

 

 

 

 

 

 

'I was recently restored to life after being dead for several hours' 

The truth of this statement depends on the changing and surprisingly imprecise meaning of the word: 'dead'. 

Until the middle of last century a medical person may well have declared me dead.  I was definitely dead by the rules of the day.  I lacked most of the essential 'vital signs' of a living person and the technology that sustained me in their absence was not yet perfected. 

I was no longer breathing; I had no heartbeat; I was limp and unconscious; and I failed to respond to stimuli, like being cut open (as in a post mortem examination) and having my heart sliced into.  Until the middle of the 20th century the next course would have been to call an undertaker; say some comforting words then dispose of my corpse: perhaps at sea if I was travelling (that might be nice); or it in a box in the ground; or by feeding my low-ash coffin into a furnace then collect the dust to deposit or scatter somewhere.

But today we set little store by a pulse or breathing as arbiters of life.  No more listening for a heartbeat or holding a feather to the nose. Now we need to know about the state of the brain and central nervous system.  According to the BMA: '{death} is generally taken to mean the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of capacity to breathe'.  In other words, returning from death depends on the potential of our brain and central nervous system to recover from whatever trauma or disease assails us.

Read more: The Meaning of Death

Opinions and Philosophy

On Hume and Biblical Authority

 

 

2011 marks 300 years since the birth of the great David Hume.  He was perhaps the greatest philosopher ever to write in the English language and on these grounds the ABC recently devoted four programs of The Philosopher’s Zone to his life and work.  You will find several references to him if you search for his name on this website. 

 

Read more: On Hume and Biblical Authority

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