The Transylvania Joem: A Young Peace Corps Volunteer in Romania

My last few travels through Bucharest (Bucuresti), Romania’s capital, have brought me to what I consider the best place in the city: Lipscani.

Lipscani was the commercial center of Bucuresti during the middle ages, and its glory days continued onwards into the 20th century. All of Bucuresti was heavily bombed by the allies during World War II, however, which affected Lipscani’s presence as a commercial district. In 1977, a massive earthquake rocked the south-eastern part of Romania, during which much of Lipscani fell into disrepair. The entire area was tagged by Ceaușescu (Romania’s communist dictator until 1989) to be destroyed and rebuilt into the cookie-cutter ‘blocs’ that cover so many other places in Romania.

Fortunately for Romania, this never happened, and the area stayed ‘asleep,’ and untouched for a few decades.

Now, Lipscani is waking up, and is seeing massive restoration efforts. The result is some of the oldest and most authentic architecture in the entire city. Spires, twists, stones and domes everywhere.

And Lipscani is, to this American-born boy, the most progressive part of the city.
In Lipscani, you can find expensive sushi restaurants, and underground German eateries.
In Lipscani, there are skate shops, tea huts, and importers of all sorts of beautiful paisley and tye-dyed things from Nepal and India.
In Lipscani, you can find dried quinoa, hookah bars, and Guinness on tap.
In Lipscani, you can bump into stumbling Scottish soccer hooligans rolling and cursing from one UK pub to the next.
In Lipscani, you can find alternative life-style clubs carefully tucked under black awnings next to massive wall-sized murals of street-art.

So, in Lipscani, you find the city-feel that pervades places like London, Vienna, and Berlin.
So, Lipscani is the place in Bucuresti that feels like other cities in the EU, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse.

From Piața Universitații, head south, towards Piața Unirii. Walk on the right side of the street. Across the street from the massive, glass-covered mall with large TV ’steps’ there should be a quiet, cobble-stone pedestrian street. Look for the massive cowboy sign (which may be removed soon) or a staircase disappearing down to traverse across the main boulevard. That’s where you want to be.

Lipscani is inside the red circle

Follow that little, cobbled street into Lipscani’s belly, and disappear for a long while.