14th of July in Luxembourg

Of course you know what is on July 14th, so I won't go into detail, but I have to say that Luxembourg has gone a long way forward. I remember that 4 years ago July 14th was celebrated only at the French embassy so no fireworks, no public celebration, but now even with the rain they organised something in Place Knuedler. There was live music, drinks and food and overall a great atmosphere, ideal for a Friday evening.

There was also a stand of the weekly "Le Jeudi" which apparently celebrated 20 years in Luxembourg and had a photograph who was taking pictures of the people using little props such as the hats and the moustaches, also a little funny.

I have to say that the coat I'm wearing is not mine. Luxembourg turned into Ireland or something and when I left home was sunny and warm and in about one hour it was raining and the temperatures dropped. I usually have a jacket in the car, but this time I knew I've left it at home. So a big thank you to our friends who brought us the jackets so we could enjoy the July 14th celebrations and another thing which I will tell you about next. So stay tuned!

You can find me on my Facebook page, Dichisuri.ro 

Raluca

Italian holiday from Luxembourg

It takes about 6 to 7 hours, by car, to reach Northern Italy from Luxembourg or you could fly to one of the many airports in that region and start your Italian Holiday at the lakes. If you are flying there I would recommend to rent a car cause there are so many small towns to enjoy and why not Instagram. I do have to tell you though  that the roads are a little bit narrow and dangerous sometimes, but drive as slow as you need, cause everyone is in the same place and no one will rush you.
That being said, I've spent a week travelling around the lakes in Northern Italy and I really liked it. I went first to Lake Maggiore and then to Lake Como and in between I've managed to visit Turin and Milan and Bergamo.
Italy is one country everyone should have on their bucket list and going to Northern Italy is possible from Luxembourg, by car. Here are my pictures from the trip:

Lake Maggiore

I loved the balconies with flowers, we had one at the hotel and I spent a lot of time there

Yellow houses in a small town called Orta San Giulio

On one of the three isles on the Maggiore Lake

Duomo di Milano

Isola Bella

A small island on Orta lake

Turin

Last time on Maggiore Lake

Canoeing on Como Lake

Lovely small town on Lake Como

I hoped you liked my photos. You can find me on my Facebook page, Dichisuri.ro 

Raluca

Luxembourg - Belval - Haut Furneaux

I've studied for a year in Belval and I would have passed the furnaces daily, but I was never curious enough to visit them, I don't know why. All it took was a conference which offered a free guided visit to this unusual museum, to mind the courage to climb all those stairs and reach the top. If you are interested in this industrial architecture and the integration of old and derelict structures into contemporary landscape, maybe you should visit Belval. They are not to my taste, but I do admire the Luxembourgish people for their creativity and the desire to make a link with their industrial past.

The visit to the Old Furnaces left me with the question: what would they do with the Kirschberg area once the banking industry would decide Asia is more profitable? I'm mean, I know, but still the question is valid.

Since I'm not even remotely interested in this sort of architecture, I won't say anything about what I think of it, but you can guess. Still, just to confirm some theories (such as "Belval is ugly as hell") you should visit the Old Furnaces, climb to the top and enjoy the view!

If you liked my post you can find me on my Facebook page, Dichisuri.ro 

Raluca

Romania - Bucharest - Village Museum - New wing and a donkey

If you ever go to Bucharest, you have to visit the Village Museum and even the Peasant Museum. And if you are passionate about ethnographic museums as I am, I can almost guarantee that you won't be disappointed. The two museums are very different so if you manage to visit both you will learn a lot about Romanians, their culture, their way of life, their traditions and everything.

As the Peasant Museum was closed when I went to Bucharest, I will post just one picture from its shop. Even the shop is a museum on itself, so do go there and see it.

The Village Museum in Bucharest is one of my favourites in Europe. It consists of houses which were brought brick by crick from Roumania's villages and reconstructed within the museum. I've even heard that when it was first opened, the museum was even inhabited. That leaves place for a lot of questions, but I don't know if the story is true or not.

The houses in the Village Museum are placed as they would be in a real village, but they come from all the regions of Romania. Since I've last visited, the museum gained a new wing with more than 20 new houses and now it hosts live animals. 

The houses in the new wing are more of service houses, such as the house of the people who take care of the forest, the house of the shepherds and so on.

Just a week before I went to visit the museum, I've read a story about the donkey escaping the museum and wondering on a main boulevard in Bucharest. He is funny and so gentle, I hope he has a good life in the museum.

All in all the new wing brings the third church to the museum, about 20 new houses and live animals, so even if you are familiar with the museum, it's worth another visit. If you go there on a weekend close to a religious celebration you might even find a market with peasant merchandise. I love the markets at the Village Museum in Bucharest!

If you liked my post you can find me on my Facebook page, Dichisuri.ro 

Raluca

Romania - Bucharest - Kitsch Museum

What is a kitsch? I still don't have a proper definition for this notion, besides the one provided by wiki. I would say that it depends on a person's taste and it changes its meaning in different contexts. With this in mind I started the visit at the Kitsch Museum in Bucharest. As a Romanian I would say that I share certain similarities with other Romanians in the matter of the kitsch, but even I found in the museum items that I do not consider kitschy.
Because we are all different, I think it's worth a visit to this museum in Bucharest, the newest one in town. You can find all the information you would need online because the museum is present on all social media channels you could think of.

A lot of the items were from the communist period in Romania. I assume they are considered kitschy by the young people, but as a person who experienced those times in Romanian history, I feel rather nostalgic. I suppose the fact that everyone had the same items in their houses can be considered kitschy, but I know for a fact that those items were present in most of the communist countries houses, so I would not dismiss them so easily. Still, the letter send by Salvador Dali to Ceausescu congratulating him for having a presidential sceptre, was one of the finds I did not know. Apparently learning a little bit of English would have saved Ceausescu and his gang from being ridiculed at an international level. Fortunately for him, Romania was a closed country at that time and not so many Romanians knew about the letter.

As the first section of the museum was communist kitsch, the second one was gypsy kitsch. Again, I consider this kitsch because it has flashy colours, but since I was not exposed to this culture, who am I to know what is kitschy and what not?

On that bed one can bathe in fake money and I even heard that one can rent a night in that same bed in a museum. Could be an interesting experience!

The cat of the museum. 

She followed us throughout our visit, but she did not want us to touch her.

When I was little we had this exact type of phone. 

I think it's called disk phone or something. I consider it more of an antique than a kitsch, but that's just me.

The craziest kitsch ever is this raffia bag. 

I first saw it on the people coming from the Republic of Moldova to sell something in my hometown markets, now is everywhere. I could identify with this because when I first left my hometown to go to Bucharest my parents could not find a bag big enough for my pillows and blankets and other stuff and they bought me a raffia bag. I used it as a wardrobe for about six months, because the room was so small that it would not fit a proper wardrobe. So, I can imagine a lot of Romanians and Moldavians migrating to Europe with these raffia bag. I've heard that one of the big designers even introduced it into his collection, not to mention that the raffia IKEA bags are the greatest. So without even knowing Romanians became trend setters in Europe with their raffia bags.

All in all you should go and visit this museum in Bucharest. It is called the Kitsch Museum, but I saw it more as an ethnographic museum.

If you liked my post you can find me on my Facebook page, Dichisuri.ro 

Raluca