Bucuresti

...and went to lots of concerts. Had a great time mainly due to the incredibly friendly people and excellent music.

The architecture is fascinating once you understand the history, and quite tragic what happened during the communist era. Great swathes of the old city were demolished to create a nice view for Ceausescu from his window from the fantastically huge palace (now an admin building) he had built.

There are also some very large shells of unfinished buildings, started pre Dec 1989, but lack of funds now prevents their completion…maybe one day.

Meanwhile some old and wonderful villas still remain, but many are falling to ruin due to lack of money to keep them restored. ANd there a lots of beautiful churches and monastries surviving. It must have been a very beautiful city once, it was apparently known as ‘Little Paris’. Art Nouveau influences are apparent in many places such as the Art Gallery and notably the George Enescu Museum which is a wonderful building.

I certainly want to go back.

July 2003

In Bucharest you can have all…history,culture,fun…all what you want.You will have alaways something new to see.

I don’t want to be long, but I went to Romania with my family as kind of a family missions trip. It was a blast! It was great to see a truly different culture!

It was my first memory of a plane. I was five, and we were going to see my grandmothe. I missed her terribly, since she had been gone for three years. I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep on the plane. (And who could? We didn’t have enough money to fly first-class.) About half an hour before I got there, I nodded off to sleep… and awoke in my grandmother’s flat. It was small – only three rooms, including the kitchen. (Damn communists.) The place was so different from anything in the United States, that I was constantly surprised by everything – how dirty the streets were, the people in carts, and how impossibly tiny the cars were.

Every time I go back there, I still remember the Bucharest of 2000, with the newly introduced “Millenium Bill” that everyone was making such a big fuss about at the time. Now Bucharest has changed. The streets are much cleaner, there are less bums, and Romania’s entered the E.U. But it will always hold the same sentimental value that it did back then.

This is a difficult city to visit. Although there are tourist guides about it, you should really see it with someone who knows the city well. Otherwise you might find nothing interesting to see here. Even a lot of the people living here wouldn’t know what is worth visiting…
A few of the places:

• Palatul Parlamentului (“Parlament’s Palace”, formerly known as Casa Poporului: “People’s House”) – this is suggested by most guides. It’s the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon (very close to it; Ceausescu wanted it to be the largest in the world, but accurate information about the Pentagon’s size was confidential). It’s big, ugly and forever unfinished, but still an impressive site. What is worth visiting for though is the new National Museum of Contemporary Art which is located inside the building (sepparate entrance, you may want to ask around for directions)
• Lipscani – this is what is left of the old Bucharest (which was world renowned for it’s beauty, and was called “Little Paris”). It’s buildings are very deteriorated now, but it’s still nice to wander around the alleys. It’s mostly inhabited by gipsies and very poor people, and this gives a powerful contrast between what once was and what is now Lipscani… There are a lot of antique shops here (mostly on Covaci street), and also in this area is Curtea Sticlarilor (courtyard of the glassmakers), located on Şelari street, where you can watch glassmakers at work.
• Muzeul Ţăranului Român (“Museum of the Romanian Peasant”) – all things related to the rural life in Romania. The museum also holds fares before and during important holidays, where you can buy traditional Romanian items (made and sold by Romanian peasants). Also interesting to see here is Ciuma Roşie (“The Red Plague”), located at the basement of the building. You can see here some of the items showcased by the earlier Communist History Museum (housed by the same building during the communist era).
• Grădina Cişmigiu (“Cişmigiu Garden”) – the oldest (1847) and largest (17 ha = 42 acres) public park of the city center with a lake, sitting benches and chess boards. Nice place to spend a lazy afternoon. Here you can see Rotonda Scriitorilor (“Writers’ Rotunda”), a round alley with busts of twelve important Romanian writers, a lot of other statues like Monumentul Eroilor Francezi (“The Monument of French Heroes”) and Izvorul Sissi Stefanidi (“Sissi Stefanidi spring”), some rare vegetation like the Ginko tree from Japan, and Izvorul lui Eminescu (“Eminescu’s spring”), where it is said that the poet used to come to relax (the spring is now coming out of a water pipe, but it’s still the same place)
• Parcul Carol (“Carol Park”) aka Parcul Libertăţii (“Liberty Park”) – a very beautiful park, full of history (1906), with a lake and beautiful gardens. Here you can see: Monumentul Eroilor (“Heroes’ Monument”), The Giants’ statues, Cantacuzino Fountain, the Monument of the Unknown Hero and the Roman Arenas (which a capacity of 5000 people, it’s still used for large open air concerts)
• Arcul de Triumf (“Arch of Triumph”) – a triumphal arch located in the northern part of the city, on Kiseleff road.

A city very different from modern America. Horse & carts travel on the same broken two lane roads with freight trucks. Modern meets history. A lot of pollution, apartments, and unfinished building projects, but none-the-less interesting. The Lebada Hotel is a very nice stay.

At first I thought that I shouldn’t write about Bucharest, because it was over ten years ago that I went there, and so much could have changed since then

But then I thought, what the hell…

Bucharest was what I expect Paraguay to be.

1. filthy.
2. lovely Parisian style building of white stucco ruined by those idiot communists/fascists
3. that strange feeling of “this is a bit like somewhere else”...that goes for the language, the food, the buildings…you are constantly made to think of Paris, or Italy, or Hungary or, or…

The place stank. There were beggars all over. The roads were full of holes. Ceaucesceau had built a huge palace; utterly hideous and pointless and half-finished. They had an art gallery but it was full of kitsch. The only places to eat were iimitation pizza huts. A few noveau riche types drove about showing off, with bad hairstyles and designer clothes.

I felt pity for everyone including myself. I hid in the Sheraton Hotel. The girl I had come to see had given me the brush off. her friend wasn’t interested either.

I became extremely depressed and drank a lot of awful wine. Then I flew to Istanbul…

I only traveld through it twice. The first time to reach Dileni, the scond time to reach the Black Sea

While Bucharest has some pretty cool things about it, I would recommend getting on the train and heading north and stopping in the little towns along the way. I lived in Sighisoara, Romania for 6 months and have fond memories of the many adventures we made through Transylvania while we lived there. It is a beautiful country and wonderful for hiking about, but the castles and cities are also a great place to roam.