There were just so many cafés now-bearing conceited names such as Charme, Rembrandt, La Muse-with their chairs and tables made of wicker, zinc, velvet, blond wood, and black metal, each establishment desperately trying to evoke Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm, or New York. Even the ashtrays bore edgy designer patterns evocative of Art Deco and the Belle Époque. And yet it has to be said that these new cafés of Bucharest lack the enfolding and layered elegance-and especially the intimacy-of cafés in Central Europe. I was still south of the Carpathians, in the former Byzantine and Turkish world. There was simply
( Robert D. Kaplan )
[ In Europe's Shadow: Two Cold ]
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