The Paris of the East?

Our arrival to Bucharest was signified by the first taxi driver that tried to con us at the airport: "I'll take you where you want to go cheap, 20 euros." Hmm, pretty fishy, he doesn't even know where we are going, and the bus will cost about 2 euros.

We checked into the Villa 11 bed and breakfast, which has friendly owners, but some odd quirks... We set out quickly to see what treasures the town previously called the Paris of the East had to offer. Well, that night we came across lots of wild dogs roaming the streets, thuggish Roma (Gypsy) men at dark corners under broken street lights pulling down telephone wires, and pizza restaurants. By day, it was a little better, the wild dogs didn't seem so scary, but pizza remained the omnipresent choice at most restaurants throughout Romania.

The next day we resumed our search for a way to get from Bucharest to Montenegro to see Jean, Branislav, Eleanor, Kate, Tina, and Sheriff Duck. The routes were: Bucharest to Budapest by train, fly to Croatia, train to Montenegro, or fly to Milan then to Montenegro, or train to Croatia then to Montenegro. These options all were expensive and took 1 to 2 days each way. So we decided to not join our friends and family in their vacation. That turned out to be a bad decision, we should have stuck out the train rides.

We had a little disappointment that the beautiful buildings you might expect in a city likened to Paris were mostly replaced by Communist era concrete buildings. There were Parisian style street signs on the corners though... And every once in a while you could find a handsome building or 15th century monastery or church that had escaped the Ceausescu regime. We strolled down the Boulevard Unirii (formerly known as Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism) which was intentionally built 1/2 a meter wider than the Champs-Elysees. Despite being wider, it is nearly empty of shops and is no joy to walk down. At the head of it is the Palace of Parliament, the 2nd largest building in the world, but only because it was built under the instructions of a megalomaniac. When first lit, it used 1 days worth of electricity for Bucharest in just 4 hours.

We enjoyed a couple of Orthodox churches, including the Stravopoleos church. This architecture was new to us although Minneapolis has it's share of Orthodox churches in Nord-East, I hadn't been in one until Romania. The insides are not well lit, since they don't use stained glass windows, and some of the interiors had soot covered walls from oil lamps, but the mosaics were lovely. The gold work and icons are also bright and fascinating.

We were lucky enough to catch a free performance one night: The Tibetan Art Delegation of China had a 2 hour long song and dance show in the National Theatre. There was a wide variety of costumes and enjoyable songs and dances. However we were sceptical that so many of the Tibetans did not have very Tibetan facial features. Surely it was not a propaganda tour?

Unfortunately we have no photos for this entry.