I was amazed to find your site. Anyway here are some reminiscences of Mamaia in a quite different time.
My family went on holiday to Romania in August/September 1981, staying at the Hotel National. I was 11 at the time. The photo of the National on your site looks very similar to how I remember it.
We were not communists or anything. Both my parents were British governent employees and we were singled out at the airport to have our luggage searched.
Things I remember from our stay are the black market money-changers (I won't say who we dealt with) and the plain clothes police with their American accents, offering to change money. It was clear people were not well off. There were other things which I won't mention, out of respect for people's feelings.
Also there was a little nightclub on the sea front just along from the National. In the National's own bar there was a singer called Stella. Someone else I remember was a young guy with a motorbike who spoke perfect English, can't remember what his job was though. One of the lift operators was unbelievably sexy and whenever anyone said thank you she would reply "it's a pleasure". Some of the other operators were quite surly so we tended to use the lift with the sexy one.
On the beach there was a hut selling beer and they weren't bothered about selling to children (me and my mother were thirsty one afternoon, the daily consignment of Coca Cola had not arrived to the hotel bar, and apart from the disgusting watery "orange" drinks, beer was the only cool drink we could buy).
Other things were the park with its train, the dolphinarium and planetarium, the naturist beach in three sections (is it still there?), and the trolleybuses going into Constanţa. Also the pedal boats on the lake. One of the islands on the lake was claimed to have a mad man with a knife living on it.
When we arrived home we discovered the travel company had gone bankrupt and there were no more package tours from the UK to Romania.
I expect that the time we were there was the last happy time for many Romanians until you managed to get rid of the CeauÅŸescu regime. Hopefully, life is happier now.
I would very much like to return to Mamaia sometime to see what has changed and perhaps might even stay in the National, who knows? |
