We went in to Bucharest today. We left Camping Pădurea Băneasa (aka Camping Casa Alba) and went out to the bus stop outside. The bus was easy, but there was no way to buy a card or ticket at our bus stop, and the bus driver wasn't at all interested, enclosed in his isolated driving station — we were planning to correct the situation when we got off. But an inspector got on board shortly before we go off, and would not listen to reason — so we had to buy cards from him, at a penalty rate. So we didn't have a particularly pleasant introduction to Bucharest!
Anyway, we got off the bus at Piaţa Romană and walked southwards a couple of kilometres towards the Palatul Parliamentului (The Palace of the Parliament).
On the way down, we passed the 'kilometer zero' post — we remember finding the 'kilometer zero' plaque in Madrid! It is situated in front of a wonderfully crazy statue, "The cart with clowns" by the Romanian sculptor Ioan Bolborea, depicting characters from the Romanian poet and playwright Ion Luca Caragiale, whose seated statue is a few metres distant, looking onto his characters.
The Palatul Parliamentului is an incredible legacy of the Ceauşescu era — it's huge, and was primarily built to glorify the ego of Nicolae Ceauşescu. It is the world's largest civilian administrative building — exceeded in size only by the US Pentagon, a military administrative building! It's built on an artificial hill, has 12 floors, is 84 metres tall, and has a total area of 330,000 m2. Today, it's the Romanian Parliamentary building.
As we approached this huge monument to one man's ego, the heavens cut loose. The rain was incredibly heavy. Where we were walking had nothing that even remotely could be called shelter, so soon we were saturated. We got to the palace, only to find that you can only go in on a guided tour, and you can only get onto a guided tour by presenting your ID card or passport. As we had neither on us at the time, we went back into the tempest (waiting for it to die back a little), and we walked a kilometer back to what had had looked like a shopping mall. Shopping mall it was not — it was a huge building, but each shop was independent, and could only be entered from the outside. We did buy some vegetables, and then walked back to where we had left our bus some wet hours ago — but we couldn't find a bus stop for our line, the 301. We finally gave up, and took a taxi back to the campsite.
These clocks are all around the city,
and sound the hour with a delightful chime!
Some people love Bucharest and its people. We have had good experiences with most of the people, but the city didn't show us its best face. We will be leaving tomorrow, and exploring some of the tourist sites further north in Romania.
Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 23,273 miles ( 37,455 km )
Washed out and fed up. Don't blame you. On another day it might well have been marvellous. hope you had hot showers to get back to. NC sure had one hell of an ego. It was a great pity his mother wasn't the fattest from hell. That's the only excuse I think valid for fat pregnancy these days, The fact that the mum's might be ridding the world of totalitarian monsters! Then NC might not have made it to treat people the way he did. Lovely building on the surface though. Like the statuary and the chiming clock ethic. Cheers, and have a nice few days, cathy
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