Let’s have a look at the nicer surroundings of Bucharest.
The Romanian Athenaeum.
The Illuminati Headquarters of Romania. Just kidding. It’s just a hospital.
Some old churches in The Old Town.
Some rich bastard’s residence, I guess. Cool vines, though..
The Old Town with Nipples.
The Old Town provides most of your needs: a dozen of restaurants, pubs, souvenir shops, casinos, brothels and strip clubs in every corners.
The Cărturești Carusel Bookstore, Old Town. Go down the stairs to look for CD’s, vinyls and maybe some obscure DVD’s.
An Italian Flying Umbrella Restaurant not so far from the hotel.
Top from left: CEC Palace (first two), A Random Street, Odeon Theatre, A Random Building (hotel maybe), Central University Library
Saray Restaurant serves the best beef ever. I don’t remember the name, but its mixed with cheese, and it’s so delicious that even Gordon Ramsay would have an orgasm.
Someone said beef with cheese?
The iDracula Restaurant in The Old Town. While this restaurant had some dishes for vegetarians, just be advised that Romania is not the greatest place for vegetarians, especially if you’re entering a restaurant on the countryside where the closest to vegetarian you can get is a steak. As our “Travelmaker: 2 castles in 1 day” tour guide advised us (a post about this coming later): the best vegetarian dish in Romania is pork chop. If that’s not vegetarian enough for you, you’ll just be served a beer instead.
So what to choose… A heart container or a stamina vessel?
A mall in Bucharest called “AFI Cotroceni”. With a roller coaster…
… a dragon…
… and your trulys, having some fun in the “Museum of Senses”.
See also:
- Visiting Romania, Part 2: Exploring Bucharest, Part 1
- Visiting Romania, Part 1: Grand Hotel Continental, Bucharest
To be continued..
So, the next day we explored some of the streets and alleys of the city. Bucharest is the capital of Romania, located at the south of the Transylvanian region, with 2 082 000 inhabitants. The city is called “Little Paris”, so let’s grab a taxi and take a look around.
Mega Image is the regular grocery store chain where you can buy bread, goat cheese, beer, Jack Daniels, and of course the best red wine I’ve ever tasted. And I’m of course talking about Romanian Wine. Whisky is usually my thing, but the Romanians sure know how to make their wine. And everything labeled with “dark” and “stout” is a win(e) for me.
There’s a lot of abandoned and damaged buildings in Bucharest that’s clearly seen better days. Many of them are so decayed and dilapidated that they seem to be on the verge of collapsing. This one above is an enormous, unfinished shell of a building that’s been abandoned for 30 years. The plan was that this should be a historical museum, but after the fall of the communist regime in the late 80s, the project was tossed over to the Romanian Radio Company, which had no money to complete it. Since then, it has been empty.
One of the hundreds of churches and chapels.
Romania is a hardcore Christian country, and this taxi driver will make sure you know it.
Some more urban decay. What we found quite fascinating, was the mix of “rich” and “poor” surroundings so close by each other. There were areas with old abandoned buildings and clean, renovated ones right beside them.
See also:
To be continued..
