Post 46. Bucharest, Romania. Part 2
Day 2
Parliament Building
I booked a guided tour of the Parliament Building for my second day in Bucharest. At 365,000 sq. m. It is the largest building in Europe and the heaviest building in the world, weighing four billion kilos, with a LOT of marble inside! It took 13 years to build.
When Ceausescu went on a visit to China and North Korea in the 70s, he was impressed with all the new modern concrete buildings and wanted to build a new perfect communist city of his own.
A powerful earthquake in 1977 that destroyed a lot of buildings in Bucharest, gave Ceausescu the excuse to demolish anything he wanted.
So 20% of Bucharest was demolished to make way for his dream, including over 10,000 houses, 20 churches, several hospitals and many schools.
There were over 700 architects employed to work on the new Parliament building, and 100,000 employed in direct labour during construction. They worked in five round the clock shifts of 20,000 at a time. There were also 12,000 soldiers stationed there, supposedly for security, but they were in fact effectively labourers also. There were hundreds of workplace accidents during the construction phase and a lot of the workers died from exhaustion.
All building resources such as wood, glass, stone, granite and marble came from Romania. Even the crystals for the 15,000 chandeliers were made in a special factory onsite.
The parliament building is absulutely huge up close and inside there are twelve floors above ground and eight floors below ground. Underground there are two nuclear bomb shelters for 600 people, a swimming pool (never finished) and Metro station (never used).
The building was only 60% finished when Ceausescu was executed on Christmas Day 1989 and it was decided by the new government that it would be cheaper to finish it than demolish it.
“The Ceausescus were evil and vicious. An entire nation was imprisoned, went hungry and lived in the half-light because of them” - John Simpson, Despatches from the Barricades.
National Gallery of Contemporary Art
After the tour I went to the National Gallery of Contemporary Art which is housed on the ground floor of the Parliament Building.
To get to it, I walked all around the outside of the building as it was on the opposite side. The building is so huge and the grounds are so extensive that this took 30 minutes.
The displays inside were not that interesting to be honest.
I thought that some of the best art was the permanent graffiti art covering some of the staircases.
There was also a temporary exhibition featuring two artists that was quite good.
Orthodox Cathedral
As it was so close, I then headed over to the huge Orthodox Cathedral behind the Parliament Building.
This is a magnificent building in such good condition.
I again lit some candles for the living and the dead as is the tradition in the Orthodox Church.
Visit Bucharest Hop On Hop Off Tour
In the afternoon I decided to go on an open top bus tour. Checking out a Google search, the first six or seven offerings were by private companies and seemed very expensive.
Much further down the list, I found the official Visit Bucharest Hop On Hop Off Tour for less than half the cost of the tours being offered by the commercial companies. The starting point for the tour was Casa Presai Libreri (The House of Free Press) in the photo above. This was another building in the same style as the parliament building
The tour goes on a continuous circular route of the city, taking in many of the sights and monuments. Above is a very interesting sculpture on University Square.
On the outskirts of the city centre there were many new high-rise developments.
I noticed on the route that Bucharest's traffic seemed very heavy all of the time, and it was only mid-afternoon. This is surprising, given that there is an extensive metro, bus and tram system in place. I would hate to be stuck in that queue during rush hour!
There are a few standout Art Deco niildings in Bucharest as well such as the one above.
I found the bus tour was a great way to finally find my bearings and also as a way of travelling the substantial distances between the different sites.
When the tour finished, I was well ready for dinner, as I had been eating snacks from street sellers up until this stage. Restaurant Hanu’lui Manuc was widely recommended for traditional Romanian food.
It is huge place with most tables outdoors under cover. As the temperature had dropped from 28 yesterday to 16 today, most people were looking for a table inside. I was lucky to get one of the last ones.
I was very disappointed however with the food and found it way over-rated and over-priced.
I chose Transylvanian Bean Soup served in a bun as a starter. The soup would have been better just served in a bowl as it soaked into the bread too much, and there was just way too much bread. The quarter of a red onion and the green chilli on the side added little to improve the dish!
The turkey schnitzel I ordered for my main course was bland with absolutely no flavour. True, the restaurant setting is great and the service was good but I had better much food elsewhere on my trip.
Comments
Post a Comment