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Published: June 24th 2017
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Old Town (Lipscani)
Old Princely Court Church I arrived in Bucharest on a sweltering hot afternoon in June. My guidebook had said there was a bus from the airport to the city where my cousin Lynn had rented an apartment in the old quarter. After paying a modest 9 Lei, I boarded the bus with my suitcase, hoping that it would become obvious where I was to alight. A young man gave up his seat for me and I asked him where the old quarter was. The terminus, he said so I sweated gently for 40 minutes before the bus came to a halt at Piatra Unirii, Union Square.
After consulting two policemen and a couple of waitresses, I eventually found Lynn at the Grand Van Gogh Café where I drank two glasses of lager to cool off. She had rented an Air B and B flat on the 6th floor of a two bedroom apartment block, big enough for us and her son David who had come in from Constanta on the Black Sea where he had spent the last year as a Fulbright Scholar. Lynn had arrived the day before and the plan was to spend two days in the capital before taking the train
Bucharest
Palace of Parliament to Brasov in Transylvania.
The old town is a lively area full of cobbled streets with multiple cafes and restaurants where the young hang out. My son had recently been here for a weekend celebrating a friend's stag party and you could imagine it was the perfect area for such an alcohol-soaked event. As for Lynn and me, having consulted the inestimable Trip Advisor app, we found a charming restaurant a few streets away called Aubergine, a two storey building where the rough walls were clad with old distressed doors set at various angles, creating a colourful and funky effect. The delicious meal cost a fraction of the price a similar meal would have cost in the UK, £20 in total for a starter, Main and a glass of wine. The only reason neither of us took photos was the fact the restaurant was full and we did not want to embarrass the other diners. That night I didn't get much sleep not only because of the heat but also because the noise from the neighbouring cafes rose up and continued blaring out pop music till 4am!
The top item on our list of things to do the
Bucharest
Lynn and Jenny on the balcony of the Palace of Parliament following day was a visit to the Palace of Parliament so after breakfast at the Van Gogh Cafe, we made our way to the monumental parliament building built by the dictator Nicolas Ceausescu. Walking through the old town we first took in the small and beautiful Old Princely Court Church, Bucharest's oldest church dating back to 1559. Romania follows the Greek Orthodox tradition so all the interiors are illuminated with painted frescos and are full of gold icons of the Virgin Mary. Censers holding incense are suspended from the ceilings and over the years have blackened the walls with their smoke. It was an intimate space and priests in long black robes were there to listen to the faithful coming in to make their devotions.
We had booked a tour late morning tour which was going to last 90 minutes, ten minutes of which was spent showing our passports and having our bags put through a scanner while being hectored about all the rules and regulations of the tour. A poster of these regulations in comical English was stuck on the wall so Lynn took a photo of it as it was definitely worth a chuckle!
The palace,
Bucharest
The set of rules at the Palace of the Parliament built in white stone, sits on a hill and was commissioned by the former megalomaniac dictator although he never lived to see it completed, having faced the firing squad along with his wife in 1989. From the outside it is vast and is indeed the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. It has twelve storeys, four underground including a nuclear bunker, a 100 metre lobby and 1100 rooms covering 330,000 square metre. Now housing the Senate and the Parliament, plus international conferences, only a fraction of the rooms are used, 30% of the total. Our tour took in 4% and the overall impression was of lavish interiors built of different coloured marble, gold leaf and native wood. Chandeliers abound. Apparently Rupert Murdoch bid for it after the dictator's death to use as a casino but it was rejected. The funniest story our guide told was of the visit of Michael Jackson to the palace. He stood on the balcony overlooking the cits and said the immortal words, "Hello Budapest!" The capital is known as the Paris of the East and looking down the central boulevard it did indeed remind you of the Champs Élysé.
After lunch
Bucharest
The Romanian Athenaeum we cooled off in the beautiful Romanian Athenaeum, the city's main concert hall with a 41 metre high dome and a small concert hal decorated with frescos where we had hoped to get tickets for a concert that night. They were sold out but we did get the consolation of listening to three brass players rehearsing Bach for a concert a few days later. Wandering around the centre, a contrast of communist-style buildings, tiny old Orthodox churches and modern shops and cafés, we took in Revolutionary Square with the Rebirth Memorial, a white obelisk piercing a basket- like crown (referred to as a doughnut on a stick by my Lonely Planet guide) commemorating those who died in the 1989 revolution. We also identified the balcony of the communist party building where Ceausescu made his final speech before escaping (briefly) by helicopter from the roof!
Our second supper was not such a success! The Swiss restaurant was quite pricey with extrfor side dishes and although the food was good, we paid double that of the previous night. Another stuffy night but the music was more muted so I did get more sleep. But it was very cheap and central so
Bucharest
The Rebirth Monument no definitely worth the mild discomfort. Lynn and I were due to catch the train to Brasov late morning so we had a final wander round the old quarter, discovering a delightful small church with tiny courtyard filled with tombstones and round the corner the much photographed statue of the Emperor Thracian holding a wolf in front of the History Museum. David took our photographs in front of the statue and then it was time to take a taxi to the railway station. We would be returning to the station 10 days later, arriving on the overnight train from Suceava having visited the painted monasteries of Bucovina.
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Jackie Harrison
non-member comment
Romania!
Yay! thanks Jenny! x