2022 World Tour – Bucharest, Romania
Hello from Bucharest, my 46th stop on the trip.
I’m skipping the summary since this is my second stop in Romania, but I feel I left out a critical piece of recent Romanian history that was highlighted to me when I visited this capital city. His name is Nicolae Ceaucescu. He was the last Communist dictator of the country from 1965 to the overthrow of his rule in 1989. After initially easing press censorship and speaking against the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he quickly turned into the head of the most repressive government in the Eastern Bloc. Secret police, media control, human rights abuses, economic mismanagement, badly managed orphanages, food and energy crises, corruption and finally the outright murder of street protestors. Shortly after the protest, he and his wife tried to flee but they were captured, tried, convicted and executed. Ah the good ole days when people were held accountable for their actions.
Picking up from the last report, I got my bags at the hotel and walked to the train station for the 5pm sleeper train to Bucharest. Walked onto the waiting train and found my cabin – fingers crossed that nobody booked the lower bunk! The cabin is 2nd class here but would be 1st class in Thailand, with a sink and power plug, but no Wifi.
I watched Better Call Saul videos as we proceeded southwest. At one point the laptop started freaking out with a series of “Power Saving Mode” messages. Oh this is bad, either the power circuitry in the laptop or the external power brick is fried, maybe the USB-C connector is damaged… I get a sinking feeling that yet another of my ThinkPads had soiled its linens. I transferred a bunch of video files to my phone and watched on that. Fell asleep about 11pm, happily alone in the cabin! We pulled into Bucharest station about on time and I got straight onto the waiting bus outside the station. I looked around for how to pay – the driver doesn’t take payment and the ticketing system on board doesn’t take cash or debit cards so looks like I’m forced to risk another ride, until two inspectors boarded and wouldn’t listen to my sob story as I explained that their system won’t let me pay. They charged me 80 leu right as I was stepping off. Welcome to Bucharest, tourists, give us your money! The nice lady at the hotel desk let me check in at 8:45am, a minor blessing.
I had shower and a rest then tested the laptop. Everything is now working perfectly charging the USB-C laptop, phone and earbuds so it must have been dodgy AC power on the ancient train. Whew! I plotted out what to see, and submitted an appointment request at the Palatul Primaveri Palace for tomorrow at 1:15pm. I walked to Calea Vicoriei street to see the famous architecture, but there were none to be found, it’s a 2.5km street and the “see these things in Bucharest” web site didn’t say which street number to go to. I walked towards Lipscani / Old Town, got there and saw cobblestone streets & cafes as usual Started walking towards Revolution Square and came upon it a few blocks down, with its thing-on-a-spike tower. Walked to Stavropoleos Church, it’s small and cute with colourful paintings on the outside. Now I’m getting hungry since no food for 18 hours, so I went into a Burger King and had a disappointing chicken burger where they wanted to charge me extra for a packet of ketchup. Then I walked to Parliament Palace but found only a giant locked gate. A security guy said the whole thing is closed for renovation. Wait, how does the government work then? Maybe he was just messing with me? I marked it Temporarily Closed on Google Maps because screw that guy.
The next day I walked to the nearby Metro station and got a 72 hour pass and headed towards the CeauÈescu Mansion. I bought my ticket and put on a set of blue plastic booties to protect the floors and carpet inside. I gave you the brief introduction to him above, but the mansion is a good example of the depths that these clowns will go to. While still wielding supreme executive power (like a certain Monty Python King), he had this 174 room mansion built and used it only as the CeauÈescu family residence. Dad, mom and two kids. The wife wanted it to be “extravagant”, it looks like if Trump had a bit of taste. Many different decorating styles including Louis XIV. The vast majority of the furnishings, art, woodwork, sculptures, chandeliers and wallpaper were all made in Romania. Our tour guide was a young guy with a very dry sense of humour. He described each of the major rooms and talked about tight control of state media back then – nobody knew what this building was like and the whole street was blocked off from the peasants. Several of the builders and workers who were suspected of talking about it just disappeared.
Next I walked to the nearby Museum of Natural History. It started off with species found in the waters and land of Romania, then branched out to other parts of the world, then through time with dinosaurs and early humanoids. I paid a bit extra to see the snakes and spider exhibit. In the evening I walked again to the Old Town, went into a sidewalk bar and had penne chicken with tomato sauce and a local beer, watched football on a big TV.
The next morning I packed up and checked out at 11am but left my bags at the front desk because my train again leaves late in the afternoon. I took the city bus to a big shopping center and watched the Minions movie, the only one they had that I hadn’t seen, and dozed throughout. I seem to have developed a thing for sleeping in the cinema! With more time to spare I found a Thai massage place where I had a great massage with a lady from Bali.
Is it worth a visit? Yes, the capital city of the country has lots of great things to see and do, especially make a point to visit the CeauÈescu Mansion.
Next Stop: Chisinau, MoldovaMoldolva
