Driving into & around Bucharest was a bit of an eye-opening experience. The ring road on the map turned out to be more of a dirty track, but try telling that to the big hordes of traffic. We think this is the side they try to hide; it doesn't give the impression of a city on the cutting edge to say the least. As soon as we turned onto the road to the airport (which was near the campsite) it was a different story. Similarly when we tried to pop into Carrefour supermarket after getting set up we wandered through dirt, dust and litter until we went in through a back door, and Bam! we were in a super-clean and shiny American-style mall. Capitalism is at its rawest here it seems. Certainly by the way everything is covered in advertising.
About the one thing that isn't, is the main tourist attraction. Ceaucescu's nasty great big palace he had built for himself:
We saw the 5-ton chandelier:
The 2,200 sq.m. ballroom (never used - and the massive spaces for paintings of Mr & Mrs C never filled):
and the 1 million cubic meters of marble:
Well, actually we didn't see all the marble, the tour only goes over most of 1 floor and a bit of 2 others. There's 12 floors and it's the 2nd largest building in the world in terms of usable space. And it was free because Ceaucescu just commandeered all the materials which were all sourced in Romania. It's impossible to describe the monstrosity of what he did to build it, but here's the wikipedia article.
While we were having a look around the main cathedral we picked up a little friend, Ciprian:
He offered to show us around some of the old city in exchange for practicing his English. Good deal. Ciprian explained that the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church had passed away a couple of days previously which is why the entrance was swathed in black cloth and there were lots of people there paying their respects - so we didn't like to take any photos. The building is small but very impressive in its ornamentation.
Next was Bad Vlad's Pad! He of Dracula fame.
Ciprian gave us a good overview of the city, of the beautiful churches and buildings that survived communism, but also the problems the country faces recovering from 50 years of abuse. We saw where Ceaucescu delivered his last speech - and the memorial to those who died in the booing crowd. Around the corner was this beautiful building, the Athenium:
Everything in Bucharest is contrast & contradiction it seems. It can be a bit hard to stomach sometimes.
On the plus side Ben met the drink challenge with Palinka:
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