During dinner the evening before, our captain had deftly pulled away from Bulgaria, made a wide sweeping turn in the river that separates Bulgaria from Romania, and docked near the city where we would disembark and take the buses into the capital city of Bucharest. For some of us, this would be the last full day in the tour. The next day we would board planes to go to all parts of the globe. For others, a few days exploring fully Transylvania, part of the country side made famous by Bram Stoker's 19th century novel Dracula. Our bags were all packed and would be waiting for us at the Bucharest Athene Hotel when we arrived there in the evening, After breakfast, we walked up the gangway for the last time and found our groups. Rob and I were a team for Thursday, choosing to do the old town, and Klep and Traci would brave the 200 steps of the Palace of the Parliament.
The two countries are now joined by the Friendship Bridge which spans the river. It is a two decker bridge and serves to join Romania with Bulgaria and points south such as Turkey. When we left the dock and entered the highway, we found over a mile of backed up trucks waiting to get over. The bridge is currently being worked on and getting across it can take days.
Our guide who had a head of white curls was soon sharing jokes which he proceeded to do most of the day. Some funny and some suffering a little in translation. He told us the region was famous for chemicals and textiles which could account for the problems they sent over the river to Bulgaria which helped to rally the people to overthrow the Communist government in Bulgaria in 1987.
The guide pointed out the remains of a castle from 2,000 years ago. This entire region has been settled for a very long time. It has also been captured by mighty forces time and time again including the Romans and the Turks. We passed an old clock tower that was used to spot enemies on the river.
As we entered the countryside, we saw slightly rolling farmland. This region grows corn, sunflowers, tomatoes, and apples primarily.
The country of Romania, the guide explains, imports many auto parts and exports the Datchia car. They also make Ford cars. They make and export a lot of smart phones and import medicine.
The little villages dotting the countryside are made up of little houses with little gardens and fruit trees in front and small vineyards in back for the wine which each family makes annually in the cellar.
The signs we passed on the highway were much easier for us to read here because Romania uses the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic.
At the end of World War 2, Romania was "the guest of the Red Army" until 1965 when they chose a man who became a tight fisted dictator until his overthrow and death on Christmas Day of 2989.
As we entered the sprawling city of Bucharest, we were met with slow traffic and congestion that worsened until we neared the center where it basically came to a standstill. The center of town is full of statues and monument including a replica of the Arc de triumph in Paris. Our guide could not figure out what was going on with the traffic but as we sat there, a large number of helicopters and then fighter planes roared overhead, enough to give us pause!
Later, we discovered that the road we were trying to get to, Aviation Boulevard, was totally blocked off because of a large air show that was going on. The driver took a detour and got us to the park where the village made up of old Romanian buildings was located.
Unfortunately by this time, we had only about twenty minutes to spend enjoying them. After this, we were due at the restaurant where we enjoyed the Romanian music and dancing more than the food.
After lunch, we headed to the old part of the city for a walking tour. In 1977 a devastating earthquake hit this part of the world and many of the buildings were condemned but are still here. Many of them have squatters, mainly the Roma (translate that gypsy) people, illegally. Mixed in are very old buildings and a large number of street cafes, one of which we enjoyed. We also enjoyed the music of a man playing the hammered dulcimer on the street and watching the hundreds of pigeons.
We saw a statue of the historical figure who inspired the tales of Count Dracula, Vlad the Impale, an important fighter and ruler during the 15th century who was noted for impaling his enemies on sticks, leaving holes in their necks which brought about the idea of him being a vampire. I am not writing about one or two enemies, but thousands. Naturally, they would bleed out and no blood would be left in their bodies. I shall leave the rest of this to your imagination.
We stopped by one of the oldest churches in the region with its red and white stripes, frescos and stained glass windows and after strolling around amidst the pigeons, found the building where we would meet our bus. After we were back on board, the guide took us to a parking lot in front of the Parliament Building where we could get exterior photos.
It is a massive building located on Spirit Hill in central Bucharest.
The inside has beautiful chandeliers, but those who actually went in said that few of them were turned on because of the vast expense of the electricity needed by them.
This was a project started by Nicolai Ceausescu in his attempt to redesign Bucharest. After he was overthrown and killed, the building was finished because all the materials had already been purchased. The huge building is not even all used. The building has one million cubic meters of marble, nine hundred thousand cubic meters of wood and two hundred and fifty thousand cubic meters of carpet.
Everything in the building except for the doors to the dictators chambers are of Romanian origin. Those doors were a gift from the dictator of Zaire.
The building has twenty floors, eight of which are underground. There are tunnels under the building, one which leads to the airport that the dictator planned to use to escape if his people ever rose up against him. Unfortunately for him, the building was not completed before they overthrew him.
After the brief stop at the People's House, the guide suggested taking us somewhere else, but the people rose up and we were taken to our hotel.
After the other group returned, we ventured out for another al fresco experience for dinner where we marveled at the way the cars screeched in and out around us without destroying each other.
We enjoyed our walk back to the hotel as we passed hundred year old buildings. We had an early wake up call, so we turned after a long soak in a wonderfully deep bathtub.
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