PROGRAMME 6
ROMANIA

GETTING THERE & CLIMATE
Get there by air. No direct flights. Usually via Rome/Milan. Al Italia is the cheapest. Including a Saturday night in your stay you can get there for €158 + taxes. Allowing a stop over you can get there in 7 hrs. Nine airlines fly there 7 days a week summer and winter.

Car hire starts from approx €42 per day.

In short, public transport is not recommended, drivers don’t speak English and traffic jams during peak season. Taxis are available in all cities and towns, but can be more expensive for foreigners.

Best time of year to go is End of May to mid July

Worst time of year to go is July – Mid August, peak season, very crowded.

Romania's national airline Tarom flies at least four times weekly between Bucharest and the other major cities. Malev airlines have routes too but there is a stop over in Budapest.

Most Romanian roads are best suited to 4WD. They are in poor, potholed condition.

Similarly, if you want to cycle, the potholed roads makes the going tough for anything less than a robust touring or mountain bike. Boat is the only way of getting around much of the Danube Delta. Most towns within Romania have local buses, trams and trolleybuses, and Bucharest has a metro underground system.

The things that draw people to the region:- outstanding architecture, natural wonders, spectacular hikes, stunning countryside, rural lifestyle, friendly locals and a generally relaxed pace.

PROPERTY

Since 1989 the real estate market has developed quickly. Most Romanians had lived up to that point in homes that were registered as state property. They were then given the right to buy them. Others re-gained family-inherited properties taken by force by the former communist regime. Statistics for the last two years show that prices for both land and homes have doubled in some areas and specialists assume the market will follow the same course in the next five to ten years. This is due to the growing number of foreign tourists and to Romania's prospective European Union entry in 2007.

Average price of a house

Prime residential property in Constanta is very much dependent upon location. In June 2005, quality refurbished apartments in the city centre are being retailed for €82,000 ( 1 & 2 bedroom apartments) House prices for new build range from €100,000 to  €220,000. The prospect of finishing the highway between Bucharest and Constanta will make the seaside area more accessible and thus more attractive for investments in residential projects and seaside holiday houses

The average price for a house in Constanta is of €150,000 - €200,000, depending on the area, year of construction and available land surface. Five years ago the average price for a house was of €55,000 - €65,000, and three years ago about €85,000 - €95,000.

Architectural style
The mixture of architectural styles and edifices is a unique feature of Constanta, which can only be a particularity of an area so highly disputed and circulated, with Greeks, Romans, Italians, Turks, Bulgarians and Romanians leaving, each of them, their cultural print on its landscape.

The architecture of the city changed dramatically during the communist era, when the buildings’ individuality and charm was replaced by the bleakness and greyness of standardized blocks of flats, a phenomenon undergone by all Romanian cities during that period. The density of the population is, thus, very high.