It seems to me that the city of Iași gets overlooked when people visit Romania, most deciding instead to visit Bucharest and towns in the Transylvanian area of the country. Whilst there are good reasons for going to these places, I think that Iași is definitely worth a place on anyone’s itinerary. Here are a few reasons why.
- Such a green city with an abundance of parks full of trees
- A wonderful botanic garden
- A good public transport system including local trains, trams and buses
- Some inspiring architecture especially in the old town / city centre
- A young city with a student population who like pubs, malls and modern restaurants
- Easy to visit other places in the East of the country and the gateway to Moldova
So given those are the main reasons for visiting, here are some of my experiences after staying there for 3 weeks in May / June 2024.
As some of my long term readers know I am a tree lover – I wrote a blog post about them early on in my journey in Ireland which can be accessed here. In a lot of the cities I have been to I’ve visited arboretums, botanical gardens and parks in order to marvel at some of the beautiful trees and so jumped at the chance to visit the Iași Botanical Gardens. My Airbnb was nicely located … for shops and restaurants but it was way on the other side of the city from the gardens. It took a bus and a tram to get there … not to worry as I am a big tram fan as well. After about an hour’s travelling I found myself outside a park. But this was almost a tree park as instead of being full of lawns and flower beds it was a grassy area full of trees … and it seems there are several like this in the city. As it was a really hot day, many people were taking the time to sit in the shade and there were plenty of stalls selling ice-cream and cold drinks. But as enjoyable as it was, this was not the Botanical Gardens that I had come to see.
So a long walk down the edge of the gardens. A little frustrating to be able to see in but not get in, especially as I passed a couple of locked gates. They obviously only want people to go through one entrance so they can charge you. 10 Lei which is about £2.00 or $2.60 US – given that they have to pay someone to sell the ticket and another to check it … I think they would be better just charging more for coffee in the small café there – but that’s just me.
Anyway, I would say that a visit is really worth it. There is perhaps more emphasis on flowering plants than on the trees, but at the lower level (it’s on a slope) the trees take over. There is also an indoor arboretum which is difficult to get into because of the lack of space to move around and the only commentary is in Romanian, but I managed to sneak in for a photo.
From the botanical gardens it is only a short tram ride to some of the monastery’s and churches which are all over the city. The trams are a delight and such a mixture of old ‘bone rattlers’ and modern sleek new versions. Of course you know which I prefer! Inside the monastery grounds there are often older and taller trees which add to the peace and stillness of the place (although they can attract a good many noisy rooks.) If churches are your thing, Iași doesn’t disappoint as there are more than 100 in the city (Romanian tourism site.) There are also many ornate public buildings as well, such as the Palas which contains museums and art galleries and the town hall which has it’s own special tree at the front. There is also a theatre and an opera house which are interesting architecturally.
I took a trip to the art gallery in the Palas, and it is a chance to see into the Palas interior which is pretty amazing on its own count. The art gallery less so. This was just 3 or 4 rooms in a corridor, loosely connected. What made the situation stranger was that there was an international convention of young inventors happening in said corridor. No why an international convention was only given a corridor to display in was the first mystery, and why the corridor that was connecting the modern art was the second as there were plenty of other corridors around. It also meant that most of these young souls were being hounded out of the galleries because they hadn’t bought tickets (surely they could have been allowed to look for free as international guests!) Anyway, it did mean that I got the run the gauntlet of free leaflets and samples of things such as a new way of clearing blocked drains and removing dirty marks from bath tiles. I am not sure these young people would believe that I do not own a house of my own.
So my stay in Iași soon came to an end, but one of the things I needed to do was to find out how to escape from there. My next destination was to be Chișinău in Moldova and my options were either an occasional bus or the one train a day provided by Moldovan railways. Now as my regular readers know, I prefer trains, not least because they almost always have a toilet, however this decision was a little more tricky as the one train left at 5.30 in the evening and the journey takes nearly 5 hours which means that a lot of the trip (through Moldova) would be in darkness. The bus alternative could be access throughout the day and only took 3-4 hours, so I could be sure of seeing more and arrive at a more comfortable time. The only way I could think to choose was to go and look at both beforehand. So the journey to the train was not to the station I had arrived in, but to a small one on the outskirts of the city, but luckily relatively close to my airbnb. The reason for this is that the Moldovan rail network uses the Russian gauge of tracks which are slightly wider than the European standard gauge. The only part of the Moldovan system that extends out of Moldova is to this small station in Iași and the goods sidings nearby. I arrived there a few days before I was due to leave and saw the train ready to go. It looks fairly new but is actually a 1970s diesel multiple unit which has been refurbished. It looked okay and had toilets, but the access would not be great for my heavy suitcase.
The next day I went to the bus station – and soon made up my mind. The bus was a 25 seater minibus which was packed out with no air-conditioning in over 30 degree heat. It was the train for me.
I will write about my train journey to Chișinău in my next blog plus some thoughts about the 9 days I spent in the city. I look forward to seeing you there.
