A Day (only one, thankfully) in Bucharest

Monday AM
I woke up after 2 hours of sleep at 1AM thinking I had missed the flight. You know how awesome it is to wake up and think it is 4 AM and then to see on your mobile that it is only 1:26? Attitude really is everything. I went from dreading a 4AM wake up call to feeling like I had hit the sleeping jackpot!

We flew TAROM airlines from Sibiu to Bucharest and it took less than 45 minutes to get up there, fly, and land. That 6 hour train ride I was considering can kiss my rear. Flying is the way to go. Did I mention that the fare was only 44 Euro per person (about 60USD)? No brainer.

Pretty sunrise over Romania from the prop plane:

I guess I should mention that on Saturday night in Sighisoara, I was trying to figure out a way to see the museum in Sibiu (all we really wanted to see there) and to have some time in Bucharest. The train schedule was simply not making it worthwhile, so I decided to check into flights. Lo and behold, I found one. I went to find and propose this to my travel companion, who had no idea what I was up to. I fully expected him to look at me like I was nuts. Instead, he simply said, "OK." That is how we ended up flying to Bucharest for the day.

We took a taxi into Bucharest, about 60 lei/ 20USD. I love how cheap cabs are over here. We took a car ride the other day in Romania that literally cost less than 2 USD. I had already bought our overnight train tickets from Bucharest Nord to Suceava (11:40pm to 6:35AM) and so we planned to spend 7AM-11:40PM in Bucharest. We took the cab to the Hilton, which is in the renovated Plaza Athenee in central Bucharest. I told them I am a longtime Hilton Honors member and asked if they could please hold our bags for the day while we have breakfast here and then spend the day walking the city? Love those Hilton people, who were very helpful, especially after I said we would have breakfast at the hotel. Then I found out that breakfast at the Hilton Palace Athenee (arguably the nicest hotel in Bucharest) was 30USD per person. Oh, well. It was good. The Plaza used to be the big hang out of Romania’s version of the KGB, the Securitate, and was known to be filled with prostitutes immediately after the revolution. This is evidently told in Robert Kaplan’s book Ghost of the Balkans, which I want to read having been to many of the parts of Romania where he went on his travels. Plus, there is a photo of Mircae from Suceava in it.

After breakfast we walked over to the Romanian Athenuem (1888), which is a very pretty building. I was pleased to see that it was a nice, sunny day.

We saw the former Royal Palace, now Romania’s art gallery, and then the former HQ of the Communist Party, including the balcony where the crowd became hostile during a speech Nicholas Ceacescu was giving on the balcony in 1989. He wasn’t able to finish his talk and had to escape from the roof via helicopter.

The famous balcony...

A few months later, he and his wife were executed by a firing squad. They are buried here in Bucharest. Evidently the 1989 revolution was NASTY. My Lonely Planet guide describes how journalists who were here covering the events were horrified to see tanks literally rolling over political protestors.

After hitting 2 English bookstores, I saw the place where the first few casualties of the revolution were killed on the side of one of the main streets. I also had coffee and lunch at IO Coffee Bar, which is in the shell of a building that was formerly the HQ of the Securitate and was torn down by revolutionaries. The bottom of the building remains and the top has been glassed. Inside there are photos from the revolution, and outside there are still bullet holes in the building. It is unreal to think that these events happened such a short time ago.

Can you see the bullet holes?

Here is a monument to those killed:

...and another one on the site where the first protestors were killed on Boulevard Nicolae Balcescu:

I must admit, Bucharest is a pretty nasty city. When I asked a tour guide about what he thought of Bucharest a few days ago as I was planning the itinerary, he immediately replied, “Bucharest is s#@$.” With few exceptions, he was right. If anyone needs to be convinced that most communist regimes in eastern Europe did not care for their cities properly, come to Bucharest. Evidently when Ceaucescu returned from China he tore down entire neighborhoods of beautiful buildings and built concrete structures with apartments in them. The apartments didn’t have kitchens; rather, there was one big eating area in the downstairs where everyone would eat together. He wanted to introduce this communist inspired solidarity amongst the people but it didn’t work.

Go ahead...what your city needs is more posters glued to its buildings.

They turn streets into parking lots here:

This is a street, seriously.

The river runs through Bucharest:

This was not the only utility pole with wires set up like this that I encountered.

Parts of this city are a real mess. It became so ridiculous that, mid-afternoon, I took a cab to a park north of the city just so that we could get away from the dust blowing in my eyes. I realized I had dirt in my mouth on the cab ride. Lots of pollution from entirely too many cars that literally use streets as parking lots.

There was a lake there, and a park with these huge heads in it:

This definitely was not the Furman lake.

They also had a little memorial for the King of Pop:

After we walked around and checking out some odd statuary, I looked for a place to have coffee and came up on Bucharest’s Hard Rock Café. Ha! Didn’t know they had one. At this point we were tired and needed to kill some time, so I did something I hadn’t done since probably 1995. I went inside the Hard Rock Café. Long story short, they had nachos on the menu, something that doesn’t exist in Ukraine, and so I ended up eating there, surrounded by Britney Spear’s pink hat, Madonna’s bustier, and a Metallica guitar behind me. In the entryway was Rod Stewart’s cheetah print suit, which of course made me think of John Paul and Rod Stewart’s great hits (that is for you, Dad).

On the way back I had a good shot of Bucharest’s Arch de Triomphe…yes, just like the one in Paris, except constructed in 1935-6. Bucharest used to be known as the Paris of the East…I have a hard time with that, and I have seen some not so fab parts of Paris (Place Pigalle). The countdown to the flight began (T-5 hours at this point).

The two highlights of the day were the Stavropoleos Church, constructed in 1724 in the Byzantine style, and the English bookstores. I really loved the Stavropoleos church.

 I took lots of photos of it. It seemed so peaceful…an oasis in the midst of all this chaos. The English bookstores were also a treat. I bought 2 books related to the history of Rome (going there in 2 weeks) and Christine de Pizan’s The City of Ladies for me. I have read excerpts of this for years, but really enjoyed this book when I pulled it off the shelf. I also found in the other bookstore a 1910 map of Bucovina with Chernivtsi/ Cernauti noted as the capital city. I didn’t get it at first, bc the cities were written in Romanian and I wanted either Cyrillic or German, but then I thought about how I liked the fact that I am here in 2010, 100 years later, and how Chernivtsi was part of Romania between the two world wars, and so then I decided to get it. I’m glad I did.

Here are some shots from Bucharest:

Bucharest has the second largest administrative building in the world, behind only the Pentagon. This place, the Palace of Parliament, is massive. It is also a mess, like everything lese in Bucharest.

This is for my brother…Dave, they were selling Tucker Max’s I hope they serve beer in hell in Romanian. Ha!

The atheneum was nice at night. This is where George Enescu made his debut in 1898. I'm embarassed to say I don't know much about him, so I'll have to look him up. The philharmonic that performs here is named for him.

So now I am sitting in the beautiful lobby of the Hilton Plaza Athenee, waiting for my 11:40PM train. It sure is nice to be in a nice, western style hotel for a few hours. Nice marble.

OMG. I just went from the nicest place in Bucharest to undoubtedly one of the worst. The train station in Bucharest is seriously sketchy at night. Not safe. I could not get out of Bucharest fast enough. Very glad to wake up in Suceava on Tuesday AM, safe and sound, and back in the northern part of Romania, which I really like.

I know this is stating the obvious, but I love to travel. I really, really love it, and perhaps one day I'll get into the reasons why. I'll go just about anywhere. There are only 3 cities I have been to that I dislike. If you want to know what they are, email me. Two of the three I would consider returning to bc other people seem to enjoy them so I'll give them a second chance. So, let's just say...I'm glad I've been to Bucharest. I'm glad I was only there for one day, and glad I am not there anymore.