….. Romania, that is.  I received my regular e-mail update from Google news (keyword "Bankruptcy") and they had a link to "COFACE: Western Romania Has Lowest Bankruptcy Rate."

The Western part of the country saw half as many bankruptcy cases as Bucharest, i.e. 914 against 1,931. The county with the fewest cases of bankruptcy is Calarasi, just 41 cases, i.e. less than 0.4% of the 10,431 cases reported so far. Bucharest is followed by Bihor (with 5.5%), Brasov (with 4.95%) and Galati (with 4.1%). The study took into consideration companies undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, those under administration and also companies for which bankruptcy proceedings have ended, irrespective of the year when the proceedings were started.

I post this only to note that if anyone wants a great vacation, fly into Budapest and then take a car or train ride over into Timisoara, Romania (keeping in mind the lower rate of Bankruptcies there).  I have done this on two occasions and it is a great trip: Centuries old churches and castles, old villages, Roman ruins (watch for rattlesnakes), the Timisoara square (the site of the start of one of the last Revolutions against the Soviet Republic in 1989) and the Danube River that splits Buda and Pest.  You can go further into central Romania to Transylvania, the home of Dracula (so the story goes). 

In modern culture, for fans of Borat, the home village of the character of Borat was the real village of Glod, Romania.  The scenes were actually filmed in the Village with the real residents.  The villagers were not happy (after they were informed so by a lawyer) and filed a suit later dismissed as "vague."  Sadly, the Roma people (generally referred to as "gypsies") are still treated far worse than minorities in the United States.

Here is a picture taken in the village of Petris, north of Arad.

These are trips you don’t often see on Rick Steves or the Travel Channel, but they provide a glimpse into history.  Now back to Bankruptcy news….