Bucharest Romania - Brights Lights, Big City!

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Travelling up from Sofia to Bucharest in Romania was quite an enjoyable journey. There was some beautiful scenery along the way to admire and it also gave me some ‘me time’ to catch up with reading after a busy time in Sofia pottering about. We travelled first class and before you conjure up images of fabulous décor with champagne and wine on demand; take a nostalgic moment to wander through the corridors of your mind and picture what CIE trains looked like in the 1970’s & 1980’s in Ireland and you’ve got the idea of what first class was like.

If you have any preconceived notions about Romania and Romanian gypsies think again! After arriving in Bucharest train station and being dumped out on the platform at 6:30am, we made our way to town via taxi. The taxi driver took great pride in stopping outside the Central Committee Building and telling us the bullets were still visible in the wall from the Ceauşescu revolution.

In 1989 Romania, like many other Eastern bloc countries, was becoming dissatisfied with communism which was starting to fall like dominos across Eastern Europe. Often in periods of discontent whatever ideas are lying around become popular. The people in Romania joined the dots between A to B to C and a revolution took place overnight. I am NOT Google so if you want to learn more you know where to look!

Luckily for us we were staying in the Ramada Majestic “Downtown” as the locals call it. (Well it was my birthday after all!). We checked in at 7am to the hotel which raised some eyebrows as we were 5 hours early. However our forceful attitude of: ‘well your country’s train got us here early’ - lead to ‘welcome to Romania’; ahh tension eased; Ireland 1 - Romania 0.

You’d be forgiven for thinking at times you were in New York City with the flashing banners and the massive billboards, Yes indeed Bucharest has come of age and with that all the trappings of wealth have also arrived. Bucharest is on par with any other city in Europe. Many of the old buildings in the city centre seem to either have been torn down or in the process of being demolished. Roads have been dug up and there are many hotels that would rival Dublin standards.

The people in general were very friendly and there seems to be a lot of young people in the city with an official population of over 3 million. The bars and restaurants were full with no signs of the credit crunch evident.

The shops downtown were fairly full and Bucharest has the very same feel as the Celtic Tiger in Ireland in the early 1990’s.… translated verbally as ‘we want it all and we want it now!’ - Yes indeed; Silicon-Sally and Credit-Card-Charlie have arrived!! The young people seem to shop til they drop and all the big name chains are here. Prices seem to be half what they are in Ireland in many places but rivalling Ireland in others. Forewarned is forearmed.

The Poverty of the old Bucharest is still on view in all its forms and it is heart wrenching to see such poor people in the midst of the young affluent Romanians. Yes in some parts of the city it has its Ballymun flats area’s and Moyross type estates, beggars, traffic, warts et al… none of which seems to have been addressed as of yet and as we found out taxi overpricing is common for tourists. Caveat emptor!!


Some Trivia

•The Romanian Revolution of 1989 ripped the city to shreds and toppled the government of Nicolae Ceauşescu. He and his wife were executed several days later. The total number of deaths in Romania during the revolution was over 1,000.
•Bucharest is Europe’s most crowded capital, with over 8,000 people per sq. kilometre, about 10 times more packed than Paris.

Onward Journey
We are heading to Belgrade in Serbia on Wednesday on the overnight train again to see what’s on offer there.

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