Day 19
Arriving in Bucharest
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Bună ziua,
We awoke this morning to the sound of that bloody train whistle.
That was at about 6:30am-ish. So we hadn’t had much sleep.
At times the train was just crawling through the night, and would do so for quite a while. At other times the train would go flat out, and our sleeping carriage would sink and bounce on its springs.
We were due to arrive in București at 5:30am. We finally arrived a little after 7:00am. And that was no bad thing, at least the sun was up and it was light outside.
There is a scene in the James Bond movie Spectre, where the hero and heroine take a journey on an overnight train. When the hero and heroine disembark from their night on the train they look refreshed and resplendent.
We did not look or feel either refreshed or resplendent when we stepped off the train in București. It is an experience we will always remember and laugh about.
First Impressions of Bucharest
After disembarking at Bucharest Nord, we then had to make our way to the Metro station for a short ride into the city. Which proved to be a wee bit chaotic. In other cities there has been a well sign-posted connecting corridor between the main train station and the Metro system. Bucharest does not have that. You have to walk outside Bucharest Nord station, turn left, and look for the entrance to the Metro. It wasn’t very well sign posted, and we were wary of more beggars, now asking for money rather than food. Luckily, our Holafly eSIMs were serving up lots of lovely 5G data, so with the help of Google Maps and a bit of patience we were able to locate the staircase down to the Metro.
Then there was the next shock. The silence. The Metro station was so quiet. Where is everyone? It was eerie, walking through empty, silent corridors. Once we reached the platform there would have been about fifty other people waiting for our train.
And no one said a word.
You could have heard a pin drop while we waited. It felt a bit strange, like something out of an old Cold War movie. It was a strange first impression of Bucharest.
We arrived at our apartment at about 8:00am, and the streets were also very quiet. Very few cars, a few people walking about. A few cafes were open (not all) but none of the shops were. It was a Saturday morning though, and it looked like many of the shops opened late, then stayed open late into the evening.
As we walked down the street we were looking for our apartment building. The message from our host said the entry was between the pizza shop and the coffee shop. We saw the pizza shop. We saw the coffee shop. And towering above was … a pile of crumbling concrete?!
Oh crikey, what have we got ourselves in for?
We managed to get through the front door, up the steps into a lobby that despite decades of neglect could still show that it once was handsome. Our apartment was on the 7th floor. Our fingers were crossed that there would be a lift. And there was!
Sort of.
The lift was very old and very small. Somehow we got ourselves and our bags inside. Grandma was the first to get in, and as she stepped in the floor lurched and the whole lift wobbled.
We had to manually close the outer door to the lift (no automatic doors). Then had to manually close the inner doors. We pressed button number 7 and uttered the universal short prayer for good luck, “Holy shit”. We watched through the gap in the inner doors as each floor passed below us and listened as the ropes groaned above us. The lift jolted to a halt on the 7th floor. Unloading our bags felt like being in an Indiana Jones movie - would the fraying ropes hold until the last suitcase was off the lift?
We followed our Host’s instructions and entered another stunning apartment. But the first thing we noticed was a pair of sparkly silver ladies shoes on the living room floor. Then we noticed bits of clothing and other items scattered about. Oh gosh, someone else was here!
To cut a long story short, our host had made a mistake. She owned two apartments in the building and had given us entry to the 7th floor apartment instead of the 4th floor apartment. So there was a flurry of WhatsApp messages back and forward while we sorted it all out. We just felt sorry for the people staying on the 7th floor. Imagine lying in bed in a strange city and a couple of dumb Kiwis walk into the apartment.
We got everything sorted, and we have to say that this was the best apartment yet. Spacious, thoughtfully refurbished, and spotlessly clean. The only downside was that lift! But, a creaky old lift was better than walking up many, many stairs.
One thing we never did again was try to fit all of us and all our luggage into the lift together. When we moved our luggage, we did it one bag at a time.
Exploring Bucharest
After getting settled in we went exploring. In that time the streets had come alive, people were everywhere. But no cars.
We were staying on Victory Avenue, an important road in Bucharest. It turns out that that through the summer, Victory Avenue is closed to traffic on specific weekends and becomes a pedestrian only zone. There were many families out enjoying the relaxed atmosphere.
We wandered down Victory Avenue in search of the Old Town district and the Dâmbovița River.
Old town was pretty, and filled with the usual collection of souvenir shops, tourist restaurants and strip bars.
We found the Dâmbovița River, which was a complete waste of time. Certainly nothing special there. Now we were hungry, and getting tired.
The trouble with restaurants in the tourist areas is that they all look and feel the same, and all sell the same over priced food. The menus are almost identical, just a different name at the top of the page.
There’s a pretty girl out the front of the restaurant to solicit passers by who are looking hungry. Or thirsty. The menu caters to an “international” audience, so features salads, steak, pizza and pasta rather than traditional local fare. The cocktail menu is always extensive.
Walking away from the old town area, back up Victory Avenue towards our apartment, we found some places that seemed more focused on the local lunch-time office workers that tourists. A sandwich and a coke were the order of the day. After lunch it was back to the apartment for a much needed catch up of sleep.
Later in the evening we walked to a well rated Romanian restaurant. It wasn’t far, a few hundred metres, but took us away from the busy tourism areas. There we had a meal of modern Romanian dishes and enjoyed it immensely. Something different!
Then it was back home to bed for a quiet and peaceful sleep.
Our first impressions of Bucharest is that it is somewhat similar to Budapest, but more low-key. There's more substance and less glitz. We are looking forward to exploring more of the city.
Love to you all from Grandma & Koro & Buzzy Bee.
Behind Closed Doors
Behind Closed Doors is a series of videos demonstrating access to our apartments. Because it really is amazing what you find in some of the old, rough and dirty looking apartment buildings. Bucharest was a great example of that.
