Well, with a seven hour time difference, jet lag reared its ugly head. An early(ish) night last night led to a 12 hour sleep! Lyn still has the lingering cough which leaves her a little breathless after short walks, but it is improving. Originally we had planned to take a tour up into Translyvania to see the castles, but all of the tours were 12+ hours long, so we decided that may not be a good idea. We started looking around for some sort of city tour (unfortunately Bucharest does not have a Hop-on-Hop-Off bus. We eventually found a tik-tuk tour which looked ideal, unfortunately there were no tours available until Saturday. While I was on the site there was a pop-up chat window, so I asked if there was any chance of a tour today… there was. There was a tour already in progress that would finish at our hotel, so we grabbed it.
Looking good amongst the Mercedes, Range Rovers and Audis!
We met our guide and were immediately impressed by the quality of his English, very easy to understand.
Although our hotel was in the down town area, there didn’t appear to be much of interest. We were wrong, within a few hundred feet of the hotel there were a number of sites. As usual more pictures than words from me, if you are interested in more detailed history, the web can help. Here is a link to the Communist Era
St Joseph Cathedral
A stone commemorating the Popes visit
Romanian Athenaeum Concert Hall at the end of the Avenue
Bucharest Lutheran Church
The tuk-tuk moved at a sedate 30km/h (20MPH), so we had time to see things, and our guide had time to explain things. One thing we really liked was the fact that our guide did not fire off names and dates at a high rate of knots, rather he described more of the history of the area, and it’s role in modern day Bucharest / Romania.
Communism played a big part in the history of the country after WW2 under Nicolae Ceausescu. In the true spirit of Communism equality he destroyed many thousands of homes in the south of Budapest to build himself a small home.
1100 rooms later it was completed! There are seven underground levels as well!
In front of the building is a square where the people were meant to gather to hear the speeches from Ceausescu, this never happened as he was arrested and executed before it was completed.
Today there was a small protest there urging Romanians to come out and vote in there elections this Sunday. You can see a few people in National Dress, if you have good eyesight and imagination!
Leading away from the building is the Bulevardul Unirii, in the centre are 44 fountain arrangements, all of which are synchronised for water displays.
At the far end is a large pool, again with many fountains. Weekly a new light and water show is put on in the evenings.
Looking back to the palace from the pool area
A new Cathedral was started in 2010 on the grounds next to the Parliament building. The primary religion here is Romanian Orthodox (not related to either Greek or Russian churches) with 85% of the population following it.
After WW1 Romania gained land as a result of many battles. The King at the time wanted to build a monument to celebrate this and to unite the country. Does it look familiar?
There was also a monument built to WW1 Pilots
A monument to WW1 pilots
Within the first few months after the fall of Communism, the first western advert appeared in Romania!!
In front of the glass building (a hotel) the front entrance of the old National Theatre has been restored. The rest of the building was destroyed in WW2 bombings. The target was in fact the white building to the left which was left undamaged.
Again, Communism equality at work. Built by Ceausescu, the white building on the right was a hotel for important communist party visitors, on the left a typical apartment building for the workers. Many of these buildings have now been declared as structurally unsafe following the earthquake of 1990.
All in all this was the perfect trip to take, not too much information, but much more was available if you asked for it!