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. The hard facts about the building are genuinely jaw-dropping. 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.
As I already mentioned in my previous post, 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 workers 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 on the site, 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 absolutely 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 a 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. It was more or less a reason to see another part of this huge complex, given that I was on the site already, as the reviews of the gallery that I had read were not great.
To get to it, I had to walk 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 felt the one above was quite amateur.
The installation entitled "Is there fake in afterlife?" looked at counterfeit fashion and consumer culture, but really didn't inspire me.
I did love this retro communist poster of Nicolae Ceausescu from 1979, even though it only uses a few limited colours from the Romanian flag, it creates a powerful image depicting strength.
In actual fact, 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.
I chose my three favourite paintings and included these below.
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 and maintained in such good condition.
The gold leaf was certainbly not spared on the interior walls. 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 Presei Libere (The House of Free Press) in the photo above. This was another building in a similar Stalinist style as the parliament building
The tour goes on a continuous circular route of the city, taking in many of the sights and monuments. I felt that it was a very good way to see as much as possible on a short visit. 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, even though it was only mid-afternoon. This surprised me, 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 buildings 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.
Dinner
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.
Impressions After Day 2
It had been a long day - the Parliament Buildings gave a fascinating glimpse into the mind of Ceausescu and they were mind-blowing in scale; the Museum of Contemporary Art seemed to me to be a little half-hearted with regard to the exhibits and even in terms of the design of the rooms; the open top bus tour was a really good idea as it gave a useful overview of what is quite a sprawling city, but the dinner in one of the most popular restaurants of the city was of poor quality. I made my way back to the apartment tired and hoping that my final day in the city would be a little more positive, as I couldn't yet say in all honesty that I had fallen in love with the city.
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