We crossed the Bulgarian-Romanian border on Tuesday afternoon at the decidedly un-blue Danube and arrived at the Gara de Nord station in Bucharest in the pouring rain. After walking for about a mile, we arrived at the mysteriously named Butterfly Villa completely drenched and ready for some supper. The hostel was a good one, with a lovely big kitchen and some interesting people staying, including Slightly Odd French Guy, Man Who Snored and Arty British Students Making a Film (learning ten new names a day is getting too difficult).
We had been prepared for the worst with Bucharest - the guide books admit that many tourists get straight back on the train, and the best thing they can say of it is "lively and developing" - always a bad sign. People in Bulgaria too had looked on us with horror as we said we were going to Bucharest and told all sorts of horror stories about scams. But we were very pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure whether it was because we came from Sofia (which is a very sad city), or simply because we explored it on a beautiful sunny day, but we found it a fascinating, and in places, quite beautiful city.
Our exploration started at Piata Revolutiei, the heart of the city where the old palace stands and where the former Communist HQ (now the Senate) is. We stood and looked at the low balcony where Ceausescu made his infamous last speech to the booing crowds, and found it very hard to imagine what it must have looked like amid the roaring, crazy traffic and the hordes of young glamorous Roumanians hurrying to work. Then we strolled up the Calea Victoria (the main shopping and restaurant street) to the Old Quarter: lots of cobbled streets and old baroque style buildings, elegant, although crumbling. In this area of town you really ge
t a sense of how beautiful it must have been in its golden age. Apparently Bucharest used to be known as the Paris of the East, and you can actually feel the French influence in the buildings, as well as in the language which has loads of links: for example, "thank you" is "mersi". We're still a bit mystified as to why there is such a French influence - any comments explaining this would be most welcome! We took the opportunity to have a drink at one of the many French style cafes, purely for cultural reasons of course, - hot chocolate with chilli is highly recommended.
The south of the city is very different in feel, as this is the area that Ceausescu completely remodelled as a monument to communism. The most obvious result of this is the monstrous Parliamentary Palace (originally called the Palace of the People) which is on the top of a slight rise of land and so totally dominates the southern area. The only thing you can say about it is that it's very very big (2nd biggest building in the world in terms of ground covered). It really is a complete monstrosity, although the design is in itself not terrible - it's attempting to create a baroque impression. It's just ludicrously big; it makes you feel as if you'd lost your sense of perspective as you approach it. It overlooks the Boulevard Uniri (formerly the Boulevard of the Triumph of Socialism) which is just a little bit wider and longer than the Champs d'Elysess, deliberately. It has a kind of arrogant splendour about it, so long as you don't think about the hundreds of bea
utiful old houses, churches and monuments that were bulldozed to create it. Behind the Parliamentary Palace is the Centru Civic - Ceausescu's pet architectural project. It's basically a network of very straight wide roads carving through a sea of concrete tower blocks interspersed with areas of scrubby wasteland where just one or two old houses stand forlornly looking like guilty survivors. The thought of everything that was razed to the ground is just heartbreaking. It's incredible to think what one man can do to a city.
On a happier note, back in the centre and north of the city, there are some lovely parks which provide some much needed green space and peace. We wandered through the biggest, Parcu Cismigu,
which was full of young and old couples and lots of cooing pigeons. Our exploration of the city ended at Piata Universitiei, which was the site of various protests by the students of Bucharest University, including the City of Peace which was destroyed by the military, and of course where the infamous footage of tanks rolling over students was shot by foreign journalists in the towering Intercontinental Hotel which overlooks the square. Again, it was hard to imagine the scene, as the square was full of students happily browsing book stalls, which can only be a good thing!
Overall our impression was of a genuinely vibrant city which, unlike Sofia, has had a golden age and is determined to have another one. The locals seem defiantly proud of their city and there is plenty of building and redevelopment going on. The cultural scene looks great - there are several large theatres and concert halls which all look prosperous and busy. There is a sense of triumphant survival in the city: they were never quite conquered by the Ottoman empire, resisted Austrian Hapsburg domination, gained independence of the Soviet empire through great suffering and on top of all that, lived through a series of earthquakes! This city has really dealt with everything that can be thrown at it, and has more than survived.
On Friday morning we rounded off our stay in Bucharest with a visit to the irresistibly named Museum of the Romanian Peasant. This turned out to be a fantastic and completely batty place with loads of great and slightly random displays (including a room dedicated to grandmothers!) and wonderfully dodgy English translations of the information sheets. These included great lines such as "Anything which is touched secretly, dies." And to explain a room which was just full of wooden chairs: "When you put many chairs together, things start to happen..." We never worked that one out.
Now we have just arrived in Brasov in the Carpathian mountains, which is where we begin our tour of Trannsylvania. It's snowing heavily outside and we're going to snuggle down with cups of tea. Bliss.
We had been prepared for the worst with Bucharest - the guide books admit that many tourists get straight back on the train, and the best thing they can say of it is "lively and developing" - always a bad sign. People in Bulgaria too had looked on us with horror as we said we were going to Bucharest and told all sorts of horror stories about scams. But we were very pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure whether it was because we came from Sofia (which is a very sad city), or simply because we explored it on a beautiful sunny day, but we found it a fascinating, and in places, quite beautiful city.
Our exploration started at Piata Revolutiei, the heart of the city where the old palace stands and where the former Communist HQ (now the Senate) is. We stood and looked at the low balcony where Ceausescu made his infamous last speech to the booing crowds, and found it very hard to imagine what it must have looked like amid the roaring, crazy traffic and the hordes of young glamorous Roumanians hurrying to work. Then we strolled up the Calea Victoria (the main shopping and restaurant street) to the Old Quarter: lots of cobbled streets and old baroque style buildings, elegant, although crumbling. In this area of town you really ge
t a sense of how beautiful it must have been in its golden age. Apparently Bucharest used to be known as the Paris of the East, and you can actually feel the French influence in the buildings, as well as in the language which has loads of links: for example, "thank you" is "mersi". We're still a bit mystified as to why there is such a French influence - any comments explaining this would be most welcome! We took the opportunity to have a drink at one of the many French style cafes, purely for cultural reasons of course, - hot chocolate with chilli is highly recommended.
The south of the city is very different in feel, as this is the area that Ceausescu completely remodelled as a monument to communism. The most obvious result of this is the monstrous Parliamentary Palace (originally called the Palace of the People) which is on the top of a slight rise of land and so totally dominates the southern area. The only thing you can say about it is that it's very very big (2nd biggest building in the world in terms of ground covered). It really is a complete monstrosity, although the design is in itself not terrible - it's attempting to create a baroque impression. It's just ludicrously big; it makes you feel as if you'd lost your sense of perspective as you approach it. It overlooks the Boulevard Uniri (formerly the Boulevard of the Triumph of Socialism) which is just a little bit wider and longer than the Champs d'Elysess, deliberately. It has a kind of arrogant splendour about it, so long as you don't think about the hundreds of bea
utiful old houses, churches and monuments that were bulldozed to create it. Behind the Parliamentary Palace is the Centru Civic - Ceausescu's pet architectural project. It's basically a network of very straight wide roads carving through a sea of concrete tower blocks interspersed with areas of scrubby wasteland where just one or two old houses stand forlornly looking like guilty survivors. The thought of everything that was razed to the ground is just heartbreaking. It's incredible to think what one man can do to a city.On a happier note, back in the centre and north of the city, there are some lovely parks which provide some much needed green space and peace. We wandered through the biggest, Parcu Cismigu,
which was full of young and old couples and lots of cooing pigeons. Our exploration of the city ended at Piata Universitiei, which was the site of various protests by the students of Bucharest University, including the City of Peace which was destroyed by the military, and of course where the infamous footage of tanks rolling over students was shot by foreign journalists in the towering Intercontinental Hotel which overlooks the square. Again, it was hard to imagine the scene, as the square was full of students happily browsing book stalls, which can only be a good thing!Overall our impression was of a genuinely vibrant city which, unlike Sofia, has had a golden age and is determined to have another one. The locals seem defiantly proud of their city and there is plenty of building and redevelopment going on. The cultural scene looks great - there are several large theatres and concert halls which all look prosperous and busy. There is a sense of triumphant survival in the city: they were never quite conquered by the Ottoman empire, resisted Austrian Hapsburg domination, gained independence of the Soviet empire through great suffering and on top of all that, lived through a series of earthquakes! This city has really dealt with everything that can be thrown at it, and has more than survived.
On Friday morning we rounded off our stay in Bucharest with a visit to the irresistibly named Museum of the Romanian Peasant. This turned out to be a fantastic and completely batty place with loads of great and slightly random displays (including a room dedicated to grandmothers!) and wonderfully dodgy English translations of the information sheets. These included great lines such as "Anything which is touched secretly, dies." And to explain a room which was just full of wooden chairs: "When you put many chairs together, things start to happen..." We never worked that one out.
Now we have just arrived in Brasov in the Carpathian mountains, which is where we begin our tour of Trannsylvania. It's snowing heavily outside and we're going to snuggle down with cups of tea. Bliss.
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