Agreed, it sounds like a romanticized version of what the author would like to be true. A bit like the 'noble savage' myth. Life in Romania can be pretty harsh. I lived for two years in Bucharest, have seen most of the larger cities and a good bit of the countryside as well. Romania has some incredible wealth, a very rich culture but also terrible poverty and with every change in government things seem to oscillate between bad and terrible.

It is frustrating because the country has enormous potential but unlike say Poland or Czechia it hasn't managed to really capitalize on that potential. Still, it is doing substantially better than its Southern neighbor.