REPOST: Bucharest’s new Old City

BBC Travel’s Mark Baker believes that travelers ought to give the Romanian capital “more than just a passing glance on their way to the more storied destinations of Transylvania, Bulgaria, or Istanbul.” He points out some of the reasons Bucharest is a city worth visiting these days.

 

Lipscani Quarter: A bustling hub of bars and clubs (Image source: bbc.com)

Travellers often only give the Romanian capital, Bucharest, a passing glance on their way to the more storied destinations of Transylvania, Bulgaria or Istanbul. The typical (and outdated) take on the city is that it is dilapidated and dirty and there is not much to see except for the outsized architectural ego of former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. It might merit an overnight stop, so the conventional wisdom goes, but that is about it.

Today, however, there may be more reasons to linger. In the past year, authorities have completed refurbishing Bucharest's historic core, the Old City, adding a previously missing element to the urban fabric: a charming, walkable quarter with enough worthy distractions to keep you occupied for the day and enough bars and clubs to ensure you never have to sleep.

Years of work
Renovating the Old City was no easy feat, taking nearly a decade of agonizing stop-start work during which cranes and bulldozers were idled for years at a time. The city and construction companies squabbled over both money and corruption allegations, as well as how to resettle the area’s poorer residents, including many Roma families. Between 2007 and 2011, the Old City was effectively a no-go zone, with minimal street lighting and gaping holes in the pavements, papered over by rickety plywood bridges.

Stroll along the quarter’s narrow lanes on a warm summer evening now, however, and those old days seem far away. While many of the buildings are still in a perilous state awaiting suitors with deep pockets and big dreams, the streets are pleasantly cobbled and lined with quirky art and antique shops, bookstores, theatres, and block after block of cafes, bars and clubs. Indeed, the Old City appears to have succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.

Where it all began
The Old City, as the name implies, occupies some of Bucharest’s earliest settled ground. The oldest structures date from the 15th and 16th Centuries, when the city edged out early centres of power – including the first capitals Curtea de Argeş and Târgovişte – to become the main town of the principality of Wallachia (later Romania). In the 18th and 19th Centuries, the area developed into a warren of craftsmen, plying trades like leather and metalworking.

Modern times were less kind. While the Old City thankfully survived Ceaușescu’s grandiose 1980s plan to raze much of old Bucharest and build a new Socialist capital, the area devolved into something of a slum. Most of the investment at the time went to the northern half of the city. Ceaușescu had little use for the historic core, and many of the crumbling older buildings were used to house the impoverished Roma minority. That all changed, though, once the area’s historic and geographic value was finally fully recognised just more than a decade ago.

Where Dracula once ruled
Start your exploration along Str Franceza, on the southern edge Old City, where you will find the remains of the Old Princely Court and Old Princely Court Church. The court served as the early seat of the Wallachian princes, including for a time a ruthless young ruler named Vlad Tepes (aka Vlad the Impaler), who later served as the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The city has ambitious plans for the court, including building a meeting centre and a museum, and much of it is still a construction zone. But for the modest sum of three lei you can poke around in the dusty old chambers and see the excavated remains of the former court. There is also an impressively spooky statue of Vlad Tepes standing outside the court complex. The church here is Bucharest’s oldest, dating from 1546 and the reign of Mircea the Shepherd. It is free to enter and the frescoes next to the altar are 16th-century originals.

Wend your way northward following quirky streets like Str Covaci and Str Smârdan or the more conventional Str Șelari. Most of the buildings date from the latter 19th and early 20th centuries and are marked with information plaques detailing when they were built and how they were used.

Toward the northern edge of the quarter stands arguably Bucharest’s most evocative (and possibly tiniest) house of worship, the Stavropoleos Church, built in 1724. Though the church is perched precariously just a block away from clubs and bars, it retains a feeling of holy tranquillity. Take a look inside to see lovingly painted frescoes and an ornately carved iconostasis.


For the full version of the article, click here.

Herve Sedky is a seasoned traveler who relishes discoveries about the places he visits. Read more about the joys of traveling from this blog.

REPOST: Berlin Wall's most iconic paintings under threat from property developers

Berlin Wall murals by the French artist Thierry Noir, who has joined protesters fighting to preserve the wall. 'All th paintings have become a symbol of freedom,' he said. Photograph: Action Press/Rex


The artworks that remind Germany’s heritage are facing threats from property developers. But the lovers of the arts retaliate.

Spilling out of the Eastern Comfort hostel, which floats on Berlin's river Spree, a gaggle of Spanish tourists in town for a week of clubbing poses for the customary snapshots at one of the city's most iconic images. The painted mural of former Soviet and East German leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Eric Honecker in a passionate clinch is one of the star attractions of the East Side Gallery, the longest-remaining stretch of Berlin Wall and the second-most visited site in Berlin.

But the 1.3km-long outdoor gallery, which is covered in paintings by artists from around the world, is now threatened by the city's strident advance of gentrification, with a significant section of it due to be dismantled soon to make way for a luxury block of flats.

"Our guide book describes it as an unbroken length of wall," said Coco García López, a 21-year-old art student from Madrid. But the gallery, she notes, already has a gaping hole after a 50-metre section was removed some years ago to provide access to a boat landing stage and an open view on the river for the 02 World arena, which dominates the land adjacent to the gallery. "If Berlin's not careful, it will lose all of this beautiful structure," she said.

The latest threat is from Living Levels, a 63-metre-high tower of 36 flats and offices, which its developers, Living Bauhaus, describe as a "totally new dimension of life and living" offering "breathtaking panoramic views".

But opponents of the plan said it would destroy the aesthetics of the gallery, which is visited by an estimated 800,000 visitors a year, as well as insulting the memory of those who were killed on the former death strip.

"In this very place people died, and the idea of building luxury flats here would be like erecting a petrol station in front of one of Berlin's museums," said Sascha Disselkamp, manager of the Sage nightclub, who represents several high-profile Berlin clubs, including Watergate, KaterHolzig, Tresor and Lido, which have taken a stand against the new development, saying it would "irreparably damage" the character of the area.

Kani Alavi, head of the artists' initiative East Side Gallery, who led a €2.5m (£2m) restoration project of the wall four years ago, and was one of the original artists to paint on the wall, said the whole of the structure was now under threat. "We see this act as a direct act of destruction towards the artwork, to the extent that you might as well tear the whole thing down," he said.

The parts of the wall that are to be removed so the flats' owners will have direct access to the water bear the famous colourful "heads with big lips" paintings by the French artist Thierry Noir. This week the 54-year-old artist joined protesters at the wall to fight for the preservation of his work as a part of the gallery and the wall's survival.

"All the paintings have become a symbol of freedom in Berlin and Europe," he said. "Unlike elsewhere in the city, where the majority of the wall has been removed, this is a unique opportunity to preserve a large section of what was once a death strip. If you remove the sections, you're destroying the authenticity of this place."

The district's mayor, the Green MP Franz Schulz, confirmed that parts of the wall would have to be removed: "The investor has a legal right to demand this, so we'll have to do it." But he insisted the removal of the wall sections would not only make space for the flats but would also enable the construction of a new walkway for cyclists and pedestrians, the so-called Brommy Bridge, which will be a reconstruction of a bridge that was destroyed in wartime bombing, as well as providing an emergency exit for visitors to the adjacent Spree park.

Pausing at another of the wall's iconic images – of an East German car, the Trabant, appearing to tear through the wall – García López, the Spanish tourist who was not yet born when the Berlin Wall was brought down in November 1989, said: "It's the best place for me to come and have any sort of an inkling of what it must have been like to live in a divided city. If this goes, then that opportunity goes too."

Herve Sedky is a traveler and a lover of histories enveloped in every country he visits. Know more about his adventures by visiting this blog.

Healthy kids are smart kids

Image Source: cdc.gov

Kids in good health get good grades.

This statement, while seemingly a no-brainer, is a lot more complex than understanding the connection among sound mind, good health, and academic and athletic performance in the educational context. Good academic performance is considered an indication of the overall wellbeing of young people. Likewise, poor health and health-risk behaviors often lead to poor grades and lower educational attainment.

Poor children’s healthcare can cause a significant decrease in academic performance for students. Reports suggest that poor health in students is a growing problem in the United States, with ethnic minorities being hit the hardest.

This health crisis, described as “staggering” by Charles Basch of Columbia University, must be dealt with through a concerted effort to address key problems simultaneously. Basch suggests a national strategic plan to help improve healthcare for school-aged children.

Image Source: harvardvanguard.org

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also emphasize the growing role of schools in promoting health and safety among students cultivating good health habits that they would follow throughout their lives; it points out that school health programs do improve academic performance and reduce health-risk behaviors.

Finally, organizations such as the Children’s Health Fund aim to provide and support healthcare programs for economically disadvantaged rural and urban communities.

Image Source: geelongadvertiser.com.au

Health and academic performance go hand-in-hand. Helping children stay healthy is one way a nation can protect the future of its workforce.


Herve Sedky is a member of the board of directors of the Children’s Health Fund. Visit this blog for more updates.

Andrew Zimmern: The ‘next big thing’ is Filipino food

“I want to go on record—[Filipino food] is not something that’s hot now somewhere and will get hot everywhere else.”- Andrew Zimmern

In the words of the food and travel connoisseur Andrew Zimmern, the cuisine that has long been unnoticed and almost nonexistent to the world of gastronomy is not Peruvian cookery or Korean dish: it’s the food from the southeast, the Filipino food.

Image source: npr.org

The Filipino cookery identity

To Filipinos, their dish is more about “practicality,” a characteristic that is very opposing to that of other countries’ cookery, which is about “flair.” Indeed, due to poverty that has long spread in the country for decades, and because of the numerous colonizers that invaded the Philippines, their cuisine has become a product of the profusion of these colonizers’ diet. Hence, there is no nucleus of uniqueness in what they call “Filipino food.”

Philippines’ famous pinakbet is just an obvious over-embellished Chinese dish chop suey, and adobo is the “soy-sauced” version of any Spanish viand cooked in vinegar, and its kakanin—rice cake—is an amalgamation of Eastern pao and Western cake.

Image source: theaseannewsblog.blogspot.com

Zimmern on ‘Pinoy’ food

But the American TV personality took pride in proclaiming the glory in Filipino cuisine. And he is no alien to Filipino food. For his cable TV show he has visited Manila and some Visayan region once and braved the challenge of eating balut and various Pinoy foods.

It’s been a year since Zimmern proclaimed that the Filipino food would be the “next big thing” and the food lovers would talk about it for six months, and now everyone’s waiting for the harbinger’s words to come true. Especially the Filipinos.

Image source: summitmedia.com.ph

Herve Sedky is a traveler and a lover of local delicacies. Know more about his adventures by visiting this blog.