Advertisement
Published: April 12th 2015
Kids on school excursion
In the week before Easter all school kids go on excursions to museums and historic/cultural locations. As I’m writing this it’s Orthodox Easter Saturday evening in Bucharest and we’re waiting until 11:45 pm to go and visit Oana’s aunt and cousins in their nearby apartment and then participate in the 30-minute midnight Easter mass at the little church across the road. Following mass we will have a celebratory meal. I’m looking forwards to this as experiencing an Orthodox Easter with the locals was a major part of the reason behind our trip to Europe in early spring rather than a warmer time of year.
We arrived in Bucharest a few days ago after a short (1.5 hour) flight from Budapest. We opted to fly as a total travel time door-to-door of about 5 hours compared very favourably to the 15-17 hours required if we travelled by train. The aircraft that we travelled on was a turbo-prop and initially we thought it was a Fokker Friendship – the first plane that I travelled in. Our first impression when landing in Bucharest was what a small and quiet airport it was. The arrivals terminal is new but because it wasn’t busy we managed to get through immigration and customs very quickly. Eventually we met Gary (Terry’s son), Oana
(his daughter in-law) and Oana’s father, loaded our luggage into the car and experienced the “excitement” of driving in Bucharest. Let’s say that it’s different – during peak period, at intersections line markings seem to be “guidance” rather than law, cars don’t necessarily stop for pedestrians crossing at lights and at the huge roundabouts there is a weaving nature to the traffic and I’m still trying to work out if there is any logic in the lane that motorists chose to use as they navigate these roundabouts.
Once again we are staying in an AirBnB apartment and this one is about 200 m from Oana’s parent’s apartment. We eventually located the lady meeting us with the key, dropped off our luggage and then walked to Oana’s family’s place for a welcome lunch that her Mum had prepared. The rest of the afternoon was spent finding the local supermarket to restock on milk and bread, and having a bit of a walk around the local area.
On our first day (Thurs) we had an outing to the National Village Museum. This outdoor museum is located just a kilometre or two to the north of the city and sits on
Piata Victoriei
A huge traffic turning circle but the northern entrance into the city and one end of Calea Victoriei the shores of a lake. It consists of a collection of old houses, windmills and churches that were relocated from different parts of rural Romania to Bucharest. Most of the buildings date from the late 19
th century but there are a few older ones and the relocation mainly happened in 1936 when the museum was built. Not all building were open but those that we could see inside were decorated and furnished in the tradition characteristic of the region they came from. When we left the museum we walked down a wide avenue lined with trees and magnificent old villas; many of these old villas are now embassies but thankfully only moderate levels of security don’t detract from the grandeur of the buildings. That evening we went for dinner at a fancy restaurant in the Old Town. The restaurant is called Caru' cu Bere and it’s actually a brewery and old beer hall dating back to 1899 – it won the award for Best Romanian Restaurant in 2014. It has a real wow factor as you walk inside as on first impression it looks like the interior of a large, old church. It has vaulted ceilings that are painted with
non-religious frescoes, there are other frescoes on the walls and there’s a lot of ornate carved woodwork. They had some traditional dancers come out to entertain at various stages but the main thing was that the food itself was great.
On Friday we caught a taxi to Piata Victoriei which marks the northern end of Calea Victoriei; an historic street that connects the two main squares of the city. The street is lined with grand old palaces and buildings that now house museums, fashion shops, small hotels. The street is only one-way and so less busy than many of the surrounding streets. I was surprised to see a portion of the street given over to a fully-separated bike lane. We walked the length of the street and eventually made our way to Piata Revolutiei (Revolution Square). In the Revolution Square-region we admired the old Royal Palace (now the National Art Museum), the Opera House and various statues and monuments. Unlike some other ex-communist countries, the ex-king of Romania had his Royal Palace handed back to him at the end of communism – he doesn’t live there and it is open to the public in its role as an art
Along Calea Victoriei
A nice little doer-upperer museum. Revolution Square had a previous name but was renamed in memory of the 1989 Romanian Revolution. The Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party building sits on one side of the square and it is from this building that Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife fled by helicopter – they were captured, tried and ultimately executed a few days later. There is now a memorial in the square that commemorates the struggles and victims of the 1989 Revolution. A lot of the locals apparently don’t like the memorial (a spire with a “thing” on top) but I appreciated the sentiment lying behind the surrounding walls with plaques listing the names of the victims. Following our walk around/along Calea Victoriei we caught a taxi to the Botanic Gardens. The gardens are quite small compared to even those in Maryborough and Frankston, they don’t seem to be manicured as we expected but it was very pleasant to walk around a green area and hear some birds. Spring is definitely here – the last couple of days have been around 20⁰C, flowers are blossoming everywhere, squirrels are around and young lovers can be found canoodling on park benches. Following lunch in the pedestrianised
Along Calea Victoriei
An old palace that is now an art museum. Old Town we walked home along B-dul Unirii.
Easter Saturday saw us visiting the Palace of Parliament but this time we had 10 year-old Christian in tow. We walked there and back and given that it was lovely weatherwise, and quiet because of the Easter holidays, it was a very pleasant walk. The Parliament building itself is huge. It’s impossible to miss it as you walk up B-dul Unirii. I very much enjoyed walking along part of B-dul Unirii as the footpaths and roads are shaded by tress that are now in new leaf, the boulevard is very wide and it sort of reminds me of St Kilda road around the Shrine of Remembrance – following renovation during Ceaușescu’s timeit was meant to be Romania’s answer to the Champs-Élysées. The apartment buildings that line the boulevard were built in the early 1980’s after the existing older housing stock was demolished - they house government officials. The Palace of Parliament is another Ceaușescu monument to himself and construction started in 1984 but didn’t finish until 1994 and post- Ceaușescu regime. It is the world’s second largest building (the Pentagon is bigger) and the world’s biggest Parliament building. All marble etc
Along Calea Victoriei
Terry and Gary have been amused at the wiring on buildings as it frequently goes straight from the roof to a wind/wall numerous floors below - but all on the outside wall of the building. comes from quarries in Romania and there is no doubt that the building is truly impressive, but to me it seemed like a series of huge but empty rooms. The rooms were so massive that it was difficult to take photos of them. As we walked to the building Oana mentioned that the underground tunnels of the building were meant to be secret and so they were built by prisoners and psychiatric patients who were killed once the tunnels were completed.
We’ve now completed all Easter celebrations and I can report on them. Just before midnight on Easter Saturday (last night) we went to Oana’s aunt/cousin’s place in a nearby apartment that happens to be across the road from the local church. We “attended” midnight mass from their balcony as the mass is held outdoors as there is no way that the 1000-strong congregation could fit in the church. Parking was at a premium, the police were around (not sure why because it wasn’t to stop illegal parking or foolish driving) and people seemed to come from everywhere. At midnight there was the sound of drumming on a wooden plank hung from the bell tower rafters followed by the
ringing of the bells themselves. The priest then said something (“Christ is risen” I think) and then followed this with the lighting of candles held by all in the congregation. The “super” candle used was lit with a flame brought from Jerusalem and so in turn all candles were ultimately lit with this holy flame. Apparently the flame is flown out each year and used to light the “super” candle in each Romanian Orthodox church. Once all candles were lit, prayers and some singing followed and the priest gave a sermon. By the time the sermon came around many people were beginning to leave. Once mass was over we adjourned inside for a special meal. There was a huge array of dishes on the table but it turned out that was only the first course. After 3 courses it was about 2:30 a.m. and time to go home and try to sleep. Today we fronted up to Oana’s parent’s place for Easter Sunday lunch – a very similar concept but this time we had 4 courses. Lamb is the centrepiece of a Romanian Easter feast. Course 1 tends to be “nibbles” of cheese and salami, a traditional dish called Drob
Along Calea Victoriei
The Royal Palace - now the National Art Museum which Wikipedia suggest is similar to haggis, salad vegetables, olives, sardines etc. Today the first course also included roasted rack of lamb stuffed with minced pork and various herbs which was particularly tasty. Course 2 was lamb soup (once again very tasty), Course 3 was roast leg of lamb, roast chicken and roasted potatoes while finally Course 4 was a desert of cake – in this instance a layer cake with layers of chocolate almond cake, meringue (think pavlova), chocolate cream and topped/decorated with meringue. Needless to say we went for a longish walk afterwards to try and walk off some of the bloated feeling.
I've been a bit surprised by Bucharest. I've felt safer here than I thought I would. It's much busier than I expected and I'm astounded by the traffic. The architecture of the city is magnificent and is comparable to that of Prague and Budapest - the locals just don't seem to have got it together to capture the tourist market. There is quite a lot of graffiti around which detracts but the environment is pretty clean. We didn't experience the public transport systems but we did use taxis - mostly these were good but
in one instance we were ripped off. As with Prague and Budapest the cost of being a tourist here is pretty good with food, wine/beer and accommodation all very affordable compared to other European cities.
We’ve now been and collected a hire car to take us on the next stage of our adventure through Romania. We’ve got a 1.7 litre diesel Skoda Superb – it’s huge – so I hope that parking spots in rural Romania aren’t too tight.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 9; qc: 42; dbt: 0.0605s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Karen
non-member comment
Easter in Bucharest
Your Easter feast sounds magnificent! You would need a fair walk to work off that lunch!! Your photos of Bucharest surprised me as it looks a lovelier city than I imagined. I think the appearance of some greenery and bluer skies makes a difference too. Happy travelling in the Skoda. Karen