This week Brenda and I are in Romania!

This is a vacation for us – I couldn’t come up with any way to mix business with pleasure.  Last Fall Delta Airlines offered a sale on tickets from Atlanta to Bucharest (the capital of Romania) – with a limited range of available dates.  The offer was so good that we bought the tickets and THEN started to figure out just what the heck we were getting ourselves in for.  There are not a lot of tourists here in February.  We think that we lucked out in that it is to be sunny for almost the entire duration of our trip – but that came with unusually cold temperatures and a lot of snow.  There was a snowstorm here that hit the country just a few days ago; schools are closed and a lot of roads haven’t yet been cleared.  Did I mention that it is cold?  The low tonight will be 5F.  Perhaps this is why the tickets on Delta were so cheap.

In the airport in Amsterdam – there aren’t any direct flights from Atlanta to Romania, so we had to fly to The Netherlands first and catch another flight on Tarom (??!) airlines going to Bucharest.

Of course this airport has a tulip store.  Brenda was scoping out the tulip bulb selection and plans to get some to take home with her on our return leg to Atlanta.

It took us nearly 24 hours to get here.. once we got to the hotel we quickly showered, found a bite to eat, then collapsed for a 12 hour sleep session.

Morning in Old Town Bucharest.  Our hotel is centrally located so we were able to walk to everything worth seeing today.

All of the restaurants have set up outdoor seating with heaters and covers to allow one to dine on the street in sub-freezing temperatures.

Walking along the Dâmbovița River that bisects the city.

The Palatul Parlamentului building – the world’s largest (in mass, not area) building in the world.  It’s a massive marble structure with 9 floors above ground and 9 below.  This was a passion project from Romania’s former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu who wanted to show off power and majesty.  It was started in 1977 and completed in 1991 – 2 years after Ceaușescu’s death (by firing squad after Romania’s liberation and freedom from Soviet control).  

The building now houses several different offices and museums.  We visited Romania’s museum for contemporary art.  

Brenda trying to figure out what she’s looking at.

Brenda felt that this piece most accurately captured her feeling about most of the museum’s collection.

Plowing through a flock of pigeons

The city is a combination of 1900-1930’s Belle Époque and Art Nouveau with post WWII Soviet Bloc Eastern European conformity.

Lunch of meat skewers with potatoes, corn, hummus and beer.

Graveyard in 18th century monastery.

A cover of yellow glass tops this 19th-century passageway lined with pubs & restaurants.

What we’ve learned:

• Everyone smokes
• The men wear tracksuits and all look like Russian mob affiliates
• Brenda has never seen so many tight pleather pants worn on women who really shouldn’t..
• English is common second language.  When I spoke to our Taxi driver in Romanian, he complimented my effort and then asked “why did you bother to learn Romanian?” 
• Prices are relatively expensive – on par with what we expect in the Eurozone countries.