Global Wanderer

8/12/24 – 11/12/24

Brasov Station is still in the midst of a platform upgrade, meaning to get across to the active train platforms, you have to walk on ground level across some tracks, and through some construction work – no major issues though! We discovered later on that the weekend just gone had actually been a public holiday weekend, the Feast of St Nicholas, which explained the crazy number of Romanians cramming onto the train. I was certainly glad that we had purchased seat reservations – there were people standing in the aisles, in the sections between the cars, even in the bathrooms, where people had taken to storing their luggage, rendering them useless for the journey.

Three hours later, however, and we had arrived in the Romanian capital. The north railway station in Bucharest is… strange, to say the least. You are greeted with a large market area, where you can buy all kinds of things from clothes to melons, and, on exit, the abandoned Dunarea Hotel, a dilapidated old building that has been left to rot. Walking past this, though, we made our way through the maze of streets to our accommodation for the next few nights, Nobel Boutique – which has to be one of the nicest places I have ever stayed!

Nobel Boutique Hotel – highly recommend if you’re ever in Bucharest!

After stopping by the nearby minimarket for supplies, and getting some food from a nearby burger bar, we headed to bed for an early night – the travelling was beginning to catch up to us!

The next morning, we were off out for our first day of exploration in Bucharest. The weather did not help the city’s aesthetics at all – being grey and overcast helped emphasise the grey and concrete-y streets that are found across the city. Bucharest saw significant construction works during the Ceausescu regime – the 1977 earthquake provided him the opportunity to shape the city into what he believed was the epitome of a Socialist utopia, which in some ways came across as a bit of an urban hell.

We made our way to Bucharest’s old town centre, home to several major sites including the Stavropoleos monastery, built in the late 1700s, and the rather iconic Palace of Deposits and Conseignments (or its short name, the CEC Bank), with its glass dome and renaissance-style facade.

Stavropoleus Monastery and the CEC Bank building

Large parts of the old town are now bars and pubs, but there are definitely some fascinating spots – one being Manuc’s Inn, the oldest hotel in Bucharest. It’s built around a courtyard/caravanserai, strangely reminiscent of old buildings in the Caucasus, so it was probably no surprise to discover that the building, constructed in 1808, was first owned by an Armenian businessman, Emmanuel Marzaian.

Manuc’s Inn, the oldest hotel in Bucharest

We spent a little more time strolling around the city centre (spotting the Tehnoimport building, which one article that I read online described as the ‘ugliest building in all of Europe’), and visiting a store selling solely fur coats – if you needed a fur coat, this was clearly the place to come!

Bucharest’s finest fur coat store, and the infamous (or iconic!) Tehnoimport building

Bucharest is full of weird and wonderful buildings, but none are as imposing as the Palace of the Parliament. One of the largest buildings in the world, and apparently the heaviest, the sheer scale of the Palace is hard to grasp from photos alone. Construction began in 1984, and included the complete destruction of an entire residential neighbourhood, Uranus-Izvor – it was finally completed in 1997, a full 8 years after the fall of the Ceausescu regime. It is estimated, however, that around 70% of its roughly-1100 rooms still remain vacant. The square in front of the Palace was being used for a Christmas market – we made a mental note to return here that evening to check it out!

Palace of the Parliament in the daytime – I very much enjoyed the contrast with the Domino’s Pizza van in front of the Communist-era Palace!

Nighttime at the Palace – Christmas Markets in full swing

That evening, we headed to a traditional Romanian restaurant we had discovered online – the place was decked out like an old Romanian living room, and there were pictures around the place of the owner’s father, who had been a footballer in Romania during the Communist era. The pancake-style dessert was incredible!

Pancakes galore!

The grey skies remained overnight, and by morning, it was bucketing it down with rain. Still, we decided to try our best to see a few more of Bucharest’s sights, in spite of the torrential downpour! First on our list for the day was the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum – located in a spot of parkland in the city, this museum consists of traditional houses and buildings from Romanian villages that were collected from the outer areas of the country and carefully reconstructed. It is a fascinating spot to wander around, but it was rather difficult in the rain!

A strange commemoration to Michael Jackson outside of the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum – Bucharest never ceases to amaze with the weird and wonderful!

Located nearby was Bucharest’s very own Arc de Triomphe, known as the ‘Arcul de Triumf’. Not surprising where they got the name from! It too is surrounded by an incredibly busy roundabout – and whilst there appeared to be pedestrian crossings marked on the road, it did not appear that vehicles were stopping, and so we abandoned our plans to check it out at close range!

Bucharest’s Arcul de Triomf

Located down the road from the Arcul is an enormous Stalinist-style building known as the ‘House of the Free Press’. It is a sibling to Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science, and Riga’s Academy of Sciences, and is adorned with the hammer and sickle, alongside other communist motifs.

House of the Free Press

In an effort to escape the rain, we hopped on a nearby metro and headed back towards the city centre, to check out some more of Bucharest’s grand old buildings and fascinating side streets, in the daylight.

In clockwise order – an Art Nouveau style building on a street corner; a busy intersection; the State Opera Theatre; the ‘potato on a stick’ (actually a monument to celebrate the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime); an interesting alleyway; and the famous Umbrella Street

This was to be our last night in Bucharest – the next morning, after breakfast at our hotel (the best freshly-baked croissants in all of Romania!), we packed our bags and made our way to a nearby bus stop, bound for the airport. This would be our first flight since landing in Helsinki a month earlier, having navigated the rest of eastern Europe by train! Unfortunately, due to government bureaucracy, the rail line between Romania and Serbia is not operational – so instead, we had booked flights, bound for the Serbian capital of Belgrade!

Our last views of Bucharest!