Thursday, 11 January 2018

Adventures in Europe: Bucharest, Romania

On Tuesday morning I left Edmonton, flew Air Canada to Dublin via Toronto, and yesterday caught a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Bucharest.

Bucharest has a handy airport bus, which I took to the Gara de Nord train station, whence I walked to my hostel, the Crazy Duck.  It was now 23:00, so I went straight to bed.

Sadly I was awake this morning at 5:30, still exhausted, but thoroughly jet lagged and unable to sleep any more.  Finally at 7:30 I gave up sleeping and headed outside.

It was raining lightly, but not in any way that was especially bothersome, and with my coat on and walking I was not cold.  I walked into Cişmigiu Park, and began understanding why Bucharest is (or at least was) known as "Little Paris."


It was a lovely park, full of nice trails, ponds, gardens, art, and historical artifacts.  

Eventually I made my way into the old city (or what is left of it), and a famous restaurant called Caru' cu Bere, which has been serving beer since 1879.  Of course, at 8:00 I was not looking for a beer, but it is open for breakfast, and that is what I needed.  The place is remarkable, and at this time of day I was the only one inside!


After my tasty breakfast, I was in no rush to leave, so I ordered a tea and sat and read my book and enjoyed the atmosphere until about 9:30.  Then I headed back out into what was becoming a stronger rain.

Just down the street is the beautiful little Stavropoleos Monastery, which dates from the early 1700s.


As I walked, I was listening to an audiobook version of Robert Kaplan's In Europe's Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond, a book that seemed to lack any particular direction, but managed to serve as a combination of travel guide, political analysis, history lesson, etc., and included frequent references to many of the streets and buildings I was seeing.  I learned all sorts of interesting things, but really what was most interesting was a single man, Nicolae Ceaușescu.  Ceaușescu, Romania's Communist dictator for over 30 years, has now been dead for almost 30 years, but it seems obvious that to understand Bucharest at all you need to know something about this man who looked up to Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung as role models.

For example, my next stop was Romania's Palace of Parliament, the world's second biggest administrative building.  While now used as the seat of Romania's parliament, the building's construction was begun under Ceaușescu and it was intended to serve as the headquarters of the Communist Party of Romania.


In order to build it, Ceaușescu had an entire neighbourhood destroyed, including the homes of 40,000 families.  Moreover, while many Romanians were happy with the employment the construction project created, and proud of the Romanian natural resources (especially marble) and craftsmanship the building showed off, much of the building was constructed using unpaid labour, and many people died during the construction.  


There are hourly English tours during the day, and I was just in time for the first, at 10:00.


The building reminded me of my experience in North Korea, only in this case the guide was willing to be explicitly critical of the regime that had build it.  There were elements that were impressive and even beautiful.

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And others that were a bit weird, like this series of propaganda painting featuring Ceaușescu and his family members.


What I found especially North Korea-like was the idea promoted here of Ceaușescu bringing peace to the entire world.


While I suppose I admire the sentiment, to me this painting emphasizes to what extent this regime fostered mind-bogglingly grandiose notions of itself and its place in the world.

To give a sense for how huge this building is, our tour only covered 5% of the floor area, but apparently we walked over 2 kilometres!


Needless to say, it costs a fortune to maintain this building (two million euros annually just for the electricity, apparently, and that's with keeping most of the lights off most of the time!), so they rent rooms out any chance they get.  This "painting" (I thought it was a painting, but is in fact just a poster) is a leftover from a time a movie was made here; the palace was done up to look like the Vatican!


We were told all about all the marble, textiles, wood, crystal, and so on that went into the building and its furnishings, the vast majority of which came from Romania.  Apparently Romania could only afford to build this building because so much of the labour and materials was local and probably not paid for at what would have been market rates in, say, western Europe.


The construction project was more than just the palace, because Ceaușescu wanted the whole neighbourhood redone.  This view of rainy Bucharest from the front balcony shows how the palace was planned at the end of a massive boulevard, inspired by Paris's Champs d'Elysee.


From the palace I walked out into the rain, feeling a bit dazed, really.  Somehow the Palace of Parliament seems to represent both the best and worst of Romania's recent past.

The rain was pretty heavy now, and I wanted to experience the metro system anyway, so I walked to the closest metro stop and caught the metro north two stops to Piaţa Romană.  I was optimistically hoping the rain would have stopped, but, no.  I walked a few wet blocks to Bucharest's famous concert hall, the Romanian Athenaeum.


I wanted a ticket to the symphony for tonight, but the lady said they were sold out but to come back at 18:00 in case there were cancellations.  So now I was wet and disappointed.

I walked down the street through Revolution Square . . . 


. . . and past the former Communist Party headquarters, where Ceaușescu gave his final speech just days before he was executed.  


It was from the roof of this building that Ceaușescu and his wife fled by helicopter.  The monument in front depicts democracy piercing communism, or something like this.  You can see the red paint intended to symbolize blood.


There is also a small, 300-year-old church on the square, called Biserica Creţulescu.  I was able to go inside, but not take pictures.  It is possibly the first operating Orthodox church I have ever been in, and I was quite taken with all the icons.


Past the square I stopped for lunch at a 30 lei buffet (about $9).  The food was wonderful, but I was especially delighted with the fact that this work week lunch place had live piano music!

From the restaurant I walked back to my hostel, through the Cișmigiu Park again . . .


. . . and past another Orthodox church.


Back at the hostel I crashed and tried to nap.  I ended up lying down for a couple of hours at least, but did not exactly get a lot of sleep.  I was feeling the jet lag bad though and did not feel like doing anything but lying there in a daze.  

Eventually I dragged myself from the bed, showered, shaved, and headed back to the Athenaeum, determined to at least try to get a ticket.

At 17:30 I was too early.  I am not quite clear why, but I guess somehow at 18:00 is when they start selling any canceled tickets.  Maybe people reserve them and have until 18:00 to pick them up, or something.  Anyway, I went to a hotel bar across the street and had a glass of plum tuica, a strong brandy typical to Romania.  It is pretty darn strong stuff, but kind of nice on a cold, wet day.

Finally at 18:00 I went back across the street, and I was in luck--I got a ticket!


George Enescu is the name of Romania's most famous composer, and the name of the orchestra, and also features on the 5 lei bill (with the Athenaeum on the back).


He was also the composer of the first piece on the program:
  • Enescu - Isis
  • Schumann - Concertul pentru pian și orchestră
  • Dvorak - Simfonia nr. 7
My primary motivation for attending the symphony was not the music, however, but rather the experience of being in the Athenaeum.  It is actually quite small--less than a 1,000 seats, but it extremely ornate.


This is the ceiling in the hall itself:


The hall is round, and has a mural depicting scenes from Romanian history nearly all the way around.


I was seated only three rows from the stage, and because the room is relatively small, the concert felt extraordinarily intimate.  After the performance people even walked up to present the solo piano player with bouquets of flowers!

From the Athenaeum, I walked to a restaurant nearby where I knew I could eat some game.  For some reason Romanians have a thing for bears, but I am not sure why that is.


Anyway, I drank a beer named for bears.


And I ate a plate of bear meat with mushrooms, which I enjoyed tremendously!


As I walked back to the hostel for the night it was still raining, but I realized that as much as I was hating being wet, somehow the rain had really not ruined my visit to Bucharest.  I feel like the guidebooks and travel websites I had read do not give Bucharest enough credit for being a worthwhile destination--although I have no doubt it is better to visit in a month other than January!

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