Blogs from Muntenia, Romania, Europe - page 4

Today was our leaving the ship day; we had a few minutes in bed to have coffee, then coffee. We had (too) quickly packed the night before so it was only a couple of last minute things to add, bags out by 7:45. We had breakfast then left at 09:00 and boarded our coach to go to the famous overly rich, over the top Palace of the Parliament that was built by Ceausescu (and trust me I had to google how to spell that - I was WAY off!). The building itself is 2nd largest in the world, only after the Pentagon, and apparently only by a few feet. It’s enormous and while we only toured about 5% of it - I was exhausted just looking at it. Completely and utterly over the top, Ceausescu built ... read more

I've been living in Bucharest for 18 years and I tend to walk through it without looking around much. At some point, I noticed that there are some wonderful buildings in this city and that, even though most of them are not very well taken care of, there are still plenty of things to see here. This is more of a photo album than a trip and I hope it will grow over time. There are plenty of beautiful things in Bucharest that I haven't seen and plenty others that I've seen too often and became used to pass by without a second thought. I intend to change that.... read more

Since it was my grandfather's birthday, all the family went to Bunesti to celebrate. My dad borrowed a Dacia Duster to see how it drives. On Saturday morning, me and my cousin went for some offroad testing (he took the Duster and I took his car, a Cielo). It was so much fun! My car is very good on a smooth road, but it is worryingly low for offroad driving, so I don't get to experience this too often... All in all, we went around for about two hours before going back to Bunesti. I don't really like the Duster. It works ok offroad, but the steering wheel is a bit fiddly on a highway and the gearbox is awful when driving in a city. Also, although imo it looks very good on the outside, the ... read more

Um 8.00 war Abfahrt geplant, ich war fertig, da kam der Hausherr und bot mit einen Kaffee an. Als dann die Männer kamen, bekamen auch sie Kaffee - und wir fuhren noch nicht sofort los. Dann mussten wir zuerst ein Frühstück finden - in einem Lokal, es gab Pfannkuchen. Und Tee. Und dann noch einen Tee. Kaum war’s 10.00 schon waren wir unterwegs. Zuerst der Küste entlang, dann quer durchs Land. Riesige Felder, dazwischen kilometerlange Windschutzhecken - mächtige Baumreihen. Leider wurde das Wetter immer schlechter, es begann zu regnen und hörte einfach nicht mehr auf. An vielen Stellen war Schotter auf der Fahrbahn, der seitlich eingeschwemmt worden war. Einmal kam es sogar zu einer “Flußdurchquerung - die Straße war auf ganzer Breite überflutet (auf der rechten Seite allerdings sehr tief). Im bulgarischen Grenzort aßen wir dann ... read more

Another one day trip, but this time on a Sunday. The first stop was the Slanic Prahova salt mine, a nice place, but with a large queue... Inside the mine it was quite quiet and you could play ping pong for a small fee (which we did). After leaving the mine we stopped at a nearby restaurant. The next stop on the road was the Zamfira monastery, painted by Nicolae Grigorescu. It was small, but it looked nice, especially since it hosted a lovely cat in its yard. There was also a sign pointing towards a roman castrum so we went there, but the place hadn't been set up just yet. The ruins were covered in plastic foil and there was not much to be seen. However, the stop wasn't for nothing, because a local boy ... read more