As we were taking the bus into Bucharest from the airport I noted lots of Vatican flags hanging from the light standards lining the road and wondered aloud "the pope isn't visiting or something, is he?" As it turned out, yes he was.
His official visit was the day after our arrival and lots of streets were closed off. To get a spot anywhere along the official motorcade route or in the park around the church where he'd be holding the audience you had to have prebooked tickets. So we didn't get to see his holiness.
With no papal visit on the cards the immediately obvious place to visit in Bucharest was the old town and indeed we'd picked our hostel for proximity to it. Unfortunately, pretty much every building in the old town was a bar or restaurant and virtually all of them seemed dedicated to serving overseas stag and hen parties.
With the pope and old town options out we had to find our own fun in Bucharest. And although Bucharest is far from the most interesting or engaging European capital, we actually managed pretty well.
We spent some time in a big park in the city's northwest, enjoying the greenery and dipping our feet in the water (and admiring the weird circle of giant busts of the "founding fathers" of the EU).
We had some spectacularly good soup. We'd actually followed directions to the wrong restaurant, but on our way there it started pouring rain. So hot soup and shots of plum and blueberry brandy seemed like the perfect thing. On the way home we picked up a jalapeno and hibiscus IPA at a specialty beer shop that served notice that Romanian craft beer had a lot potential.
We did a mini architecture tour. Just like (say) Warsaw or Prague, Bucharest has its share of pre, during and post-communist architecture. But it also seems that every turn in architectural ideology (from French Renaissance to Postmodern) has been implemented to one degree or another, so all of these things are scattered throughout and leave it feeling like a city without a focus. This isn't quite true, as two places we visited shone as jewels of their styles that drew focus no matter what they were surrounded by:
The absolutely gorgeous Stavropoleos Church (which had a visiting German choir tour group singing in it while we visited) reminded me that with the possible exception of some gothic structures, I much prefer Orthodox churches to Catholic or Protestant ones.
And the monstrous white marble Palace of Parliament, which is apparently the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon. It's interesting that it's garish hugeness feels more like post-communist Turkmenistan than like any other communist era architecture I've seen in eastern Europe.
But the very best thing we did in Bucharest was visit the charming little museum of maps. It had a focus on Romania and the Balkans (I had no idea just how long the Russo-Turkish wars went on until I saw the military maps of them). When you entered you were given a magnifying glass so you could pore over the collection (including several original maps by Mercator) in greater detail. The building itself was great too.
After two days on Bucharest we went to the train station and bought tickets to Brasov, a few hours north, then some fabulous salty-sour cheese pies at a nearby market while we waited for our train.
The trip up to Brasov is supposed to be fabulous with some of the highest peaks of the Carpathians all around. Unfortunately it was cloudy so all we really got were views of the towns and villages at their bases (this weather would become a recurring theme. During our twelve days in Romania I was constantly looking for opportunities to go hiking in the Carpathians, but there were thunderstorms in the forecast in the mountains for every single o
day in the country. This showed in the very high river levels everywhere we went).
Anyhow, Brasov. It's actually a pretty big town, but virtually all tourists ever see of it is the charming little old town and the famous castle in the outlying village of Bran. We did indeed experience both of these, but our strongest memories will probably be of our hostel dorm-mates. The memorable ones were two Romanian guys. Now I've no problem mixing and mingling with local folks. In fact usually I love it. But on night one we shared our room with a guy who played dance music on his phone speakers until 00:30 (about 90 minutes after everyone else was in bed with lights out), then started up his personal dorm-room disco again at 06:30.
He departed and was replaced by another guy whose story was affecting: he was far from his home elsewhere in Romania. He'd been involved in a car accident in which his wife was seriously injured and had been forced to stay in Brasov until the case was resolved. He hadn't been permitted to visit his wife and had lost his job as a motorcycle mechanic. He'd run out of money and had been arrested again for sleeping on the street and the hostel owner had let him stay for free once he was released from jail. This was all very sad, and we did our best to be understanding, trying to talk a bit despite the huge language barrier and offering to share our dinner with him. But the whole situation seemed a bit dodgy to begin with, and the fact that he didn't want to eat at all, only to drink lots of vodka, smoke and cry out on the balcony made him kind of difficult to be around. I hope his story has a happy ending.
So there we go. Our introduction to Romania. I hope I haven't made it sound too negative. 'Cause it really wasn't. And as we moved further into the heart of the Transylvania region it just got better and better.
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