As we didn't have much free time, it needed to be a short haul destination and preferably somewhere with a chance of fine weather. I was keen on Denmark, although technically I went there last year as we'd had to fly to Lithuania via Copenhagen, or possibly Norway as the train journey by the fjords and then over the mountains sounded attractive. Poland was high on the list until some Polish friends warned that September has quite high rainfall. A few weeks ago we were chatting to someone from Romania and he was saying how sunny and warm it is there at this time of year, and how much there is to see and do. Its recent history, leading to the fall of Ceausescu and beyond, is interesting and the food sounded reasonable. Decision taken, we booked flights and four nights in a hotel in Bucharest.
The next week we told our Romanian friend we were going, expecting him to be pleased. Instead he looked aghast. What was wrong? "I hate Bucharest. I hate it." It seemed to be pretty much the only part of the country he disliked. The problem was that it's a city, with no mountains or rural villages, and no soul. Oh well, it was too late to change our minds and at least he said the food should be OK, with a strong French and Mediterranean influence.
We had a smooth journey to Heathrow by bus and tube, and checked that the boarding gate hadn't been announced before settling down to a cappuccino and almond croissant. Unfortunately the time between boarding and gate closing was a matter of minutes - and we hadn't realised there was a transit train involved. When we reached the gate there was no sign of any other passengers and it was only 10 minutes to take-off. Luckily people were still standing inside the plane, arguing about luggage space, so we were able to shuffle into our seats without getting any hard stares.
The bus journey from the airport to the centre of Bucharest took nearly two hours, as the traffic was almost gridlocked, and we then had to walk a couple of miles to the hotel. It was hot - the weather was gloriously sunny and the temperature in the low 30s the whole time we were there - and I was feeling frazzled and grumpy by the time we eventually arrived. My mood swiftly improved when we were offered a glass of prosecco by the charming desk staff and found that our room was air conditioned and huge, with 3 ante rooms, separate shower and basin rooms, a bar area and a comfortable king sized bed.
Having unpacked and taken our bearings, we set off for a recommended restaurant, looking forward to a relaxing dinner. Having read lots of Trip Advisor reviews of Bucharest, I wasn't surprised that the service was fairly dismal. It wasn't as tardy as in Cuba, where - as the Lonely Planet guide book noted, you can expect to be served only when all possible topics of conversation between the staff have been exhausted - but it wasn't exactly speedy or cordial. We found this was true of most of the restaurants we tried, although everyone else we came across was very friendly and went out of their way to be helpful.
On the Friday morning, buoyed up by a substantial breakfast and excellent coffee (the Romanians take coffee seriously, to the extent that even in Starbucks you are asked if you would prefer light or dark roasted beans), we caught the metro and then walked a mile to the Cotroceni Palace. We'd tried ringing and emailing the day before to check it was open but couldn't get any reply, and when we arrived we were told it was closed to non-Romanian speakers until 2.30pm the following day. Not an encouraging start, but we made a booking for the next day and walked to the nearby Botanical Gardens.
Created in 1860, the Gardens contain over 10,000 species of plants and it's a pleasant area to stroll around. I particularly wanted to see the Grandma's Garden, which is intended to represent a traditional Romanian rural vegetable garden and includes a wide variety of vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit trees and bushes, and medicinal plants. The effect is somewhat diminished by the towers of the neighbouring power plant, which you can glimpse on the right in the photo below:
Moving on, we spotted a bird hide and went to have a closer look. The bird feeder in front of it was empty but the hide itself was well used by the local fly-tippers:
Next on our list was a guided tour of the Palace of Parliament, which we'd booked the previous day. Although Bucharest has a metro system with several lines, there aren't many stops and the distances between them are large. There are a few trolley buses but no information that we could find about destinations or times, so you end up having to walk about six miles a day if you want to see the main sights and rely on the tube. There are ambitious plans to extend the metro but so far these have come to nothing - and with the roads so busy, the disruption during construction would be massive.
Having bolted down a lunch of three nutella-filled croissants (unhealthy but yummy and the only thing available in the Palace cafe) and a bottle of water (amazingly cheap at only 20p a litre in the supermarkets), we joined the group waiting for the tour. The Palace is vast. It's the second-largest administrative building in the world, beaten only by the Pentagon, is the heaviest in the world - weighing in at over 4 billion kg - and has more than 3,000 rooms:
Building started in 1984 and it still isn't quite finished, despite having cost over £4 billion. By the time the tour ended, we were told we'd walked two kilometres and even so, we had seen a mere 4% of the rooms! The security instructions were strict and we were forbidden from taking a photograph of them - for security reasons. However they were irresistible, especially the final injunction, and in a rare moment of wilfulness Peter sneaked a photo:
The scale of the building and the quality of its fittings were impressive. I forget how many million tons of marble were used, but one chandelier alone weighed 5 tons and four men can fit inside it, to change light bulbs and clean the crystal (visions of Dell Boy came to mind):
We were allowed to walk out onto the Presidential balcony and admire the view:
Nicolae Ceausescu had intended to use it to make Presidential addresses to the populace but was executed before the balcony was completed. Michael Jackson famously made his mark on the city by speaking to crowds of adoring fans from it, with "Hello Budapest!" as his opening gambit. Oops. These days only about 30% of the Palace is used by the Romanian Parliament and the annual running costs simply for heating and lighting are some £4 million. They manage to recoup roughly half of this through the guided tours and - more recently - by offering rooms as venues for wedding receptions, meetings, film sets, etc. Apparently the majority of Romanians regard the building more as a reminder of the oppressive regime under Ceausescu, than as a source of national pride. That isn't surprising, given the huge cost of its construction at a time when the country was close to starvation.
After the tour, we decided to visit some of the churches and monasteries within walking distance. Although religion was heavily discouraged during the Communist period, and a number of churches were either demolished or moved to areas where they would be hidden by concrete high rise housing blocks, it wasn't banned. One of the most attractive from the outside is the tiny Stavropoleos Church:
We thought the most striking was the Antim Monastery, built in 1715 within a walled complex:
Its interior is equally beautiful:
As we walked around, we gained the impression of the city as being a mixture of rather lovely old buildings cheek by jowl with ugly Communist blocks, with a surprising amount of graffiti - not political slogans, but the mindless tagging type:
There were also some rather eccentric monuments, such as the Rebirth Memorial, which looks like a bird's nest on a stick:
In a similar vein there is the statue of Emperor Trajan outside the National History Museum, standing naked and holding a Dacian wolf, although the wolf appears to be levitating and its head is weirdly joined to the tail of another creature:
Bucharest has its own Arc de Triomphe, initially built in wood after Romania gained its independence in 1878 from the Ottoman Empire. A second temporary version was built after the First World War and the current one was inaugurated in 1936:
Given the statue of Charles de Gaulle and some of the street names, it's easy to see the French influence on the city, which is sometimes referred to as Little Paris. In the nineteenth century the sons of wealthy families used to go to Paris to complete their education and French became the second language of Romania (now largely displaced by English). According to our Romanian friend, the food also reflects this influence but I can't say I noticed it. "Hearty" and meat-orientated seemed to be its main characteristics.
By this time we were ready for dinner and we made our way to Caru' cu Bere, Bucharest's oldest beer house with a stylish belle-epoque interior and fine stained glass windows. Our problem was gaining access. We'd taken the precaution of booking an upstairs table by email before we left the UK but no-one had any record of this and, while we were told there were no free tables, others who turned up without any bookings were being told they could come in - and to the prized upstairs spaces. Irritated as much by the attitude of the staff as the prospect of not being fed, we became very un-British and insisted on being accommodated, marching up to the balcony area while the waitresses just shrugged. Once settled with some wine and an excellent view of all the action - including, later on, tango dancers whirling around in tails and pink satin, dodging trays of beer being carried aloft - we relaxed and enjoyed the evening:
Despite having resolved beforehand that we wouldn't try to pack too much in, but would relax and simply stroll around absorbing the atmosphere, there were so many places we were keen to see that we ended up cramming a lot in - particularly as it seemed unlikely we'd visit Bucharest again, so we wanted to make the most of the opportunity. After another excellent breakfast, we headed off to the Theodor Aman Museum, which is the beautifully restored residence of this nineteenth century Romanian painter, engraver, musician, wood carver and art professor. We particularly admired the portrait of his wife:
and the attention to detail in the log basket he carved:
We moved on to the Museum of the History of Bucharest, which sounds a bit dry but is actually very appealing. It's housed in the Sutu Palace, one of the oldest aristrocratic residences in the city and one of the few that has remained virtually unchanged for over 150 years. Its heyday was in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the first ball of each year took place there, in February. The Sutu family entertained in style, specialising in high society parties and balls, and the impressive entrance staircase with its huge mirror gives a flavour of their style:
The clock that you can see was specially designed so that guests would see the correct time in the mirror above them. Here it is "in the flesh" on the opposite wall:
Although the Museum is quite small, there's a great deal to see and I was so absorbed reading about Romania's independence from the Ottoman Empire and its period as a kingdom before coming under Communist control at the end of the Second World War, that I missed out on the displays of old photographs, costumes, sewing baskets, etc (though I did see the penny farthing, and Peter very obligingly took photos of anything else he thought I'd find interesting). It would have made more sense to have done the reverse, as I could have googled the history later, but by then I was thoroughly confused about references to a kingdom and wanted to be able to set what I was seeing in context. As the Museum leaflet explained, the Communist regime took total control on 30 December 1947 when King Mihai I was forced to renounce the throne. This "was the moment Romania entered an ample process of sovietisation". Irony or a quirky translation?
I was reluctant to move on, but we needed to get to the Cotroceni Palace in time for the guided tour. The Palace dates from the late nineteenth century and is the official residence of the Romanian President. It was designed as the Bucharest royal family home for Romania's first king, Carol I, by a French architect and is elegant without having any sense of warmth. The staircase sets the tone:
King Carol and his wife were under pressure to produce an heir and when none was forthcoming, an outstandingly tactless gift was made, to encourage their efforts:
Apparently it was never used in their lifetime.
As we made our way back to the hotel for a relaxing dinner, we pondered the evening ahead. At home, I'd read in the Lonely Planet guide book that the Athenaeum in Bucharest is exquisite and "the majestic heart of Romania's classical music tradition". It is also normally open during concerts. Happily September is the month of the George Enescu International Festival in the city, so there seemed a reasonable chance of being able to attend a concert there. When we tried booking from the UK, most of the events for that weekend were sold out, but there was one that started at 10.30pm and sounded promising - The Musical Voyages of Marco Polo, performed by the En Chordais and Constantinople Ensembles, using old traditional instruments. We managed to get tickets and were looking forward to it.
The day we arrived in the city, however, we'd bumped into a group of cyclists and one had told us that on the Saturday evening there would be a huge video imaging and pop concert in the open air - a relatively new event that happens only once a year there. We hoped we might be able to go to that first, but when we reached the venue - which was filling rapidly - we found out that the video part, which sounded spectacular, wouldn't start until much later. At least we saw part of the pop concert, which was great, and the Parliament building lit up ready for the fantastic light show to come:
Rather regretfully we made our way to the Athenaeum, to a very different experience. The building was certainly magnificent and it was as well we saw the foyer ceiling, as that was nearly the sum total of our time there:
We were in a hurry as the concert was about to start and one of the ticket stewards initially refused to let us through, as he claimed that the email tickets we had printed out at home from the official Athenaeum website were merely an indication of purchase via a third party and not sufficient to permit entry. We were hot, tired and fed up, and Peter started losing his temper. I could see us being ejected, so I said we needed the loo and marched us both downstairs, in the hope of finding someone more amenable when we reappeared. Not very dignified, but it worked.
The staircase, as we beetled past, was as impressive as the foyer:
We needn't have worried about being late, as plenty of people arrived after us and there was no sign of either ensemble for quite a while. While Peter muttered about the empty seats and how we could probably have bought tickets on the door (the set-to with the steward still rankled) I did some people-watching:
Eventually the concert started and Peter really enjoyed it, especially the Mongolian throat singer. I was much less keen, but still I was glad we went as it was an unusual experience and one we weren't likely to have again.
The next morning was in some ways the highlight of the trip, with a guided tour of the former Ceausescu Residence, which was first opened to the public last year. Like most people we'd heard about the opulent living quarters of the family, with no expense spared while most Romanians were barely surviving, and were curious to see it at first hand. What surprised us was how few Bucharest citizens seemed to be aware of it. It's known now as the Spring Palace but even that name was mostly met with blank stares. Maybe it's symptomatic of a wish to forget about that bleak period of their history.
The villa, which was built in the mid-1960s, has been restored to the state it was in when the Ceausescus lived there, including the original bed linen, their night clothes on either side of the bed, and some of the 40 or so wardrobes in their dressing room open to display the vast number of Elena's dresses. The family, including their two sons and one daughter, lived there for about 20 years until they were toppled in December 1989. One of the sons, who is now an atomic scientist, still lives in Bucharest but keeps a low profile and has declined an invitation to visit the villa, preferring to regard that part of his life as completely finished.
The guide, who spoke excellent English, described the background of Nicolae and Elena, their rise to power, his increasing megalomania and their eventual overthrow and execution by firing squad on Christmas Day 1989. Born in 1918, he - and she - were educated only to primary school level. He was a member of the Romanian Communist youth movement and rose through the ranks, becoming leader and General Secretary of the Party in 1965. I hadn't realised that he eased press censorship and openly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, becoming the darling of the West and receiving numerous honours from many European countries, including the UK.
Within only a few years his regime changed drastically, becoming one of the most repressive in Eastern Europe. His visits to countries like North Korea fostered a taste for absolute power and a personality cult, with a Stalinist approach to any dissent, however mildly expressed. It was striking, for example, that at a time when the Romanian economy was in such dire straits that broadcast TV had been cut to only 2 hours a day, of which 15 minutes was for children's programmes and the rest for propaganda, the villa contained a basement cinema with the latest sound system. He was particularly fond of Westerns, especially John Wayne, and would get a film sent in every day for the family to enjoy in the evening:
Elena developed a passion for porcelain dinner services and the dining room table settings are changed every month to display some of them:
Each of the three children had their own apartments within the villa, and Elena had her own for taking a rest during the day, as well as the one she shared with Nicolae. All are very ornately furnished and it's hard to imagine a teenage boy relishing the decor:
As well as a sizeable garden outside, there is a winter garden upstairs. This was a particular extravagance, given that the average Romanian would have to cope with an indoor temperature of 60 degrees at best:
The bathrooms were all state of the art in bling and gold - although contrary to popular belief, the taps are apparently painted, not real gold.
The family must have been unusually clean, as the villa also contains an extensive "health" area, including a room with multiple shower heads of varying power, a large sauna, a manicure and pedicure station, a rather sinister looking jacuzzi and a steam bath unit that reminded me of the scene where James Bond gets locked inside one that is then set to lobster boiling temperature:
The emphasis on health and fitness continued with the stunning swimming pool, complete with superb mosaic walls:
Leaving the villa, we opted for a complete contrast by going to the National Village Museum, an open air collection of several dozen domestic dwellings, churches, mills and windmills relocated from rural Romania and set in Heraustrau Park, by the lake. It turned out to be rather a letdown, as hardly any of the buildings were open and the information provided was minimal at best. The traditional clothing was worth seeing, as was the church made entirely - and very unusually - from wood, the old chapel next to a building being re-thatched, and the carved wooden sleigh outside the vintner's house made for carrying a large barrel of wine :
On the whole, though, I'd recommend giving this a miss if you're in Bucharest and have limited time.
The next morning - our last there - we decided to visit the Choral Temple, which is the city's main working synagogue. We were given a rapid but comprehensive talk about the history of the Romanian Jews in the twentieth century and of the synagogue itself. Although many of them served in the First World War, it wasn't until 1923 that they could gain citizenship and almost half of the 800,000 or so living in Romania had been killed by the end of the Second World War.
Extremely harsh treatment continued under Communist rule. During the Ceausescu period there was mass emigration to Israel, with Jews being allowed to leave in return for a payment per individual by the Israeli government, plus support for projects in Romania. The size of the payment depended on their perceived value to the Romanian economy, so the younger, more highly educated Jews - doctors, engineers etc - cost more. Now there are only just over 3,000 left in the whole of the country.
The synagogue itself is visually stunning inside. As it is Orthodox, there is separation between the sexes, with women using the upstairs. However those who are too frail to climb the stairs are allowed to use the ground floor, with curtains that can be pulled across to preserve the division:
We stayed to hear the speaker sing during a brief celebration with a group of visiting Spanish Jews, having read on Trip Advisor that he has a wonderful voice. He does and we were privileged to hear it.
Walking around the city afterwards before lunch and leaving for the airport, we noticed two other things that were distinctive. One was a style of building we hadn't seen anywhere else before but which we saw in a few streets - a very tall art nouveau type of apartment building, with a top floor that consisted of rather Roman-looking facade with nothing behind it:
The other was the huge spaghetti tangle of wires on lamp posts, which was quite commonplace and a reminder that Romania still has some way to go in developing its economic infrastructure:
One word of caution. If you're thinking of going to Bucharest - and I'd certainly recommend it - you might want to consider the timing. It's an area prone to severe earthquakes, causing heavy casualties. Over 11,000 people were injured in the last one, in 1977, which measured 7.2 on the Richter scale. They tend to come every 35 years, so the next one is now overdue....
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