Post 45. Bucharest, Romania. Part 1.
Bucharest is a big sprawling city. It has a population of 2.5 million, double that of Dublin and terrible traffic.
The photo at the top was taken in the centre, near Piaţa Unirii. One of the first things that I noticed about the buildings in the city centre was that there were huge advertising hoardings on the top of many (if not most) buildings. I know it is done for commercial gain but it really destroys the look of the buildings.
The Journey
The train from Braşov to Bucharest was modern. The scenery was flat agricultural land and was fairly monotonous.
I was able to get a 1st class ticket for €5 extra so took it. To be honest it didn't look that much different from 2nd class, but it involved less walking and there was nobody walking up and down during the trip.
I opted to take a Bolt taxi from the train station for a cost of about €8. I followed the route on the live map on my phone, as the driver zig zagged to avoid traffic build ups. Because of the random route we were taking I found it hard to get my bearings.
He was able to communicate using limited English. It turned out that he is a dentist who works one day a week as a Bolt driver for extra income and he also likes to get out of his surgery and chat to all walks of life in the taxi.
We compared prices for fillings between Ireland and Bucharest and removing a mercury filling and replacing it with a white one here would cost €60. A regular filling would be €40. He gave me his number. I might be back!
My accommodation (above) in Bucharest was in the east of the city, in a brand new development, in an area called Pantelimon. It was a short 8 minute walk from the Costin Georgian metro stop. There were also multiple bus and tram stops, ensuring quick and easy access to Bucharest city centre in 20 minutes. A Metro ticket or indeed any public transport ticket is 5 Lei (€1) for travel anywhere in the city.
For orientation, the Bucharest Metro map is a good place to start, as the metro lines do correspond to the actual map, unlike the London Tube Map or the Paris Metro Map. The tube lines are overlaid on a map of Bucharest's different sectors, from 1 to 14, going in an anti-clockwise direction.
My hosts were a couple called Bogdan and Andreea. They exchanged their home, a bright modern apartment for GuestPoints.
It was a penthouse flat on the 11th floor of the Vivienda apartment complex built in 2023. Bogdan arranged to meet me there and gave me a guided tour.
It was very peaceful and blackout curtains made for a very restful night’s sleep. The place was exceptional. It was absolutely spotless. I felt very relaxed and comfortable there. The hosts left wonderful instructions and lots of suggestions to experience Bucharest to the full.
The views from the living room were amaxing over the city, with communist blocks and old warehouses to the left ...
... and modern apartment blocks to the right. The balcony was a great place to sit out as the weather was in the high 20s.
Right outside the apartment, there was a cozy coffee shop, and several supermarkets, including a brand new Lidl.
Research and Planning
I found the following travel blogs interesting and full of ideas for things to do:
The city
Bucharest isn’t what you would call beautiful at first sight and it doesn’t help that the architecture on every street is a mix-match of different styles and eras.
The concrete communist buildings from the sixties are not ageing well, while some of the older buildings could do with a clean up.
Then sometimes you will find a cool modern building squeezed in between two older ones or indeed inside and even on top of another building as in the case below - I don't think this one actually works somehow!
That said, there are a lot of very nice areas. I discovered this newly developed area all along the riverbank.
Here, there were lots of cool places when it comes to bars, coffee shops and good restaurants.
I went into one of these in late afternoon on the first day and sat outside with a view of the river. The menu was not Romanian food, but I fancied a change. As the portions had been so big up until now, I opted for two starters. Dirty fries and loaded nachos. When they arrived they were as big as main course sizes in Ireland!
In early evening I went on a guided walking tour called Tales of Communist Bucharest. The tour guide was brilliant; even though she was too young to remember it, she had loads of stories to tell from her parents' experience.
This is where the tour started, outside the police headquarters. It was surrounded by the apartment blocks that Ceausescu built in the 1960s and they have a particular style that I think is unique to Bucharest.
When Ceausescu went on a visit to China and North Korea, he became impressed with all the new modern concrete buildings he saw and wanted to build a new perfect communist city.
A powerful earthquake in 1977 that destroyed a lot of buildings, gave Ceausescu the excuse to demolish anything he wanted.
This included demolishing about 20% of the buildings in the city to build a huge new parliament building (below).
I booked a tour of the building for my second day, so more about that later.
So over 10,000 houses, 20 churches, several hospitals and many schools were bulldozed.
This church was actually raised up on a concrete plinth first and moved fully intact on railway tracks, 300m from its original position, to make way for the new building.
Inside the church, a nun was deep in prayer.
Outside, there was a structure for lighting candles, like the one I had seen in Iaşi. I lit one to honour the living and one to honour the dead.
This is where it all ended for Ceausescu and his wife on Christmas Day 1989. This is Revolution Square.
Thousands of people gathered here to protest in December 1989, after similar protests in other Romanian cities such as Braşov, Iasi and Timisoara.
Ceausescu and his wife tried to calm the crowd from the balcony over the three doors above, but people had had enough. They were both executed, on Christmas Day 1989. I still remember vividly seeing this all unfold on the news on Christmas night. I wonder was this the spark that ignited my interest in all things to do with Eastern Europe.
After the walk, it was getting dark and as I walked to take the metro back to the apartment, a lot of the new luxury international hotels that have sprung up in recent years were illuminated.
The metro stations are not pretty by any standard.
They are functional and the system transports huge numbers of people very efficiently. The trains were the longest metro trains I have ever seen, open from one end to the other.
Finally, arrived back at the stop closest to my apartment - Costin Georgian. Again full of marble and concrete, but not that beautiful to look at.
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