Bucharest

Our guide, Christian,  arranged a visit to the Parliament Building in Bucharest.  Built as a palace by Ceausescu, the Communist dictator, it is second only to the Pentagon in size (365,000 square meters with 1000 rooms).   We spent an hour touring 1/5 of the massive building admiring Morano chandeliers, carved doors, inlaid floors and rooms built to excess.  Among the many, many statistics our guide presented was that there are 2800 chandeliers.  Most of the area we saw is vacant and rented for conferences.  Nadia Comaneci was married in one of the halls.  The estimated cost at the time of construction was from $3-5 billion.

This is an example of dictator ego run amok.  However, his end was ignominious, a fifteen minute trial and instant execution.

A museum in one of the halls had a lovely exhibit of costumes but what was missing was label copy.  We had no idea what we were looking at and could only admire the exquisite handiwork.  There was also a display of paintings of Jerusalem by an Israeli artist.

Jerry and Anna Lee took the Hop on, Hop off bus for a ride around the town seeing the sights from on high.  We hopped off and wandered around a bit.  There was a wedding in one of the local churches and people were walking in and out, so we peeked in.  The lovely young couple stood with crowns on listening to their priests. 

With them were what we assumed were their parents.  A dozen or so other people stood about talking softly, texting or watching.  Outside were two young women in what we would consider bridesmaids dresses talking with others.  Guests seemed to arrive at any time.  With limited seating in the church, this behavior seemed to be appropriate.

Our dinner at Carv’ cu’ Bene, which touts itself as the best restaurant in Bucharest, was quite good especially when followed by our third scoop of gelato.

Travel is filled with unexpected moments.  We had wandered through the pre-registration of the Romanian marathon but never thought it would matter to us.  Lo, it did.  Our hotel was on the 1K post and our driver was unable to get to the hotel to take us to our river boat transfer.  A frantic phone call solved the problem and let us enjoy the runners.

 These three brought up the rear.

Safely deposited at our transfer point, Rita, Jerry and Anna Lee headed out to stroll through a food and craft filled street market.

Then came a special travel moment.  We wanted to see the “most beautiful concert hall in Europe.”  The Roman Atheneum may not be the most beautiful but it is definitely well ranked.  The sweeping spiral staircase led us up to the hall where a piano duet was in rehearsal.  We enjoyed a wonderful personal concert of Debussy.

 Then it was on the bus for Oltenita and a Danube river cruise on Avalon’s Tranquillity.  The sun set as we headed down to dinner.  We enjoyed meeting fellow travelers during dinner and Steve really liked the service.