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Bucharest And Beyond

To open the first of UJU’s travel articles I will start with a joke and a image. The reason for this joke is to try and explain how they drive in Bucharest, and I think it does a pretty good job. The image is just pretty cool, and is explained more later.

The Joke

A man arrives at the airport and gets into a taxi. The man asks to go to the city centre.

Taxi Driver – “Do not worry, I will get you there nice and fast, no problem, I’m a professional, I’m  a professional “

They keep driving towards the city centre when a red light comes on, instead of stopping the taxi driver goes right through the light, and even speeds up.

Passenger – WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? You just went through a red light”
Taxi Driver – “Don’t worry, I’m a professional, I’m a professional”

They keep on their journey and then they burn right through another light

Passenger – “YOU JUST DID IT AGAIN, why do you keep doing that?
Taxi Driver – Don’t worry about it, I’m a professional”

So they keep driving when they come to a green light. The taxi driver screeches to a halt and almost causes a crash behind him.

Passenger – “NOW WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  You just stopped at a green light, what is wrong with you?
Taxi Drivers – ” There might be other professionals around, and I don’t want to crash”

That joke pretty much sums up the driving in Romania to a T. The lanes are really only there as guidelines and when I was there I experienced road rage, where two drivers literally got out of their cars and started strangling each other right on the side of the road, quite an intriguing scene. I also found out that if you don’t break the rules on the road, you really won’t go anywhere, so all you can really do as a passenger is hold on and pray. Oh and when you are in a taxi, it is rude to put on the seatbelt, no wonder that they have the highest casualties on the road of any other European country.

Enough about the driving. Since this is the first travel article, I am going to write a little about my experiences, throw in some pictures and generally try to explain/review what I did.

I had the added benifit of visiting someone who knew the area, the history and more importantly had a car that they could show me around in, so it might not be what you get if you went backpacking.

The Mountains

The second day I was there, I was taken up into the mountains, which was incredible. We drove for about 2 hours out of Bucharest. We visited Vlad the Impalers (better known as Dracula due to Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula) castles. He was known as the Impaler due to the way he killed his enemies, and the name pretty much sums it up. The reason I say castles is because there are two, and no-one is really sure which one he actually stayed in. One of them happens to be located on a road that is easily accessible  and the other on top of a mountain, so of course they call the more accessible one his authentic castle, purely for tourists. It is definitely worth going to see both, but don’t expect to Rasnov (the non-touristy one) without a fight, because we sure as hell couldn’t figure out how to do it.

Rasnov – Draculas Castle

From there we ventured further in to the mountains. This place really is beautiful. This part of the country was untouched by Nicolae Ceauşescu who, in Bucharest, destroyed most of what used to be called ‘The Paris of the East”, but more about that later. We actually experienced a traditional funeral, in a town of no more than about 100. They still had the coffin in a cart, being pulled by a horse. It is incredible to see how little this part of the country has changed, and was really breathtaking. It felt as if we were intruding on this moment, because didn’t live there and definitely looked like outsiders. This is the reason that I did not take a picture of this moment, but it really was an a moment to behold.

We then kept driving and came across sellers by the edge of road. I can’t imagine it was the best job, but just imagine the views from the office, stunning some would say.

View from the “office”

Cheese and Pretzel seller

Apple Sellers Car

Apple seller jamming

The last stop we made on our trip in the mountains was to Peles Castle. Legend has it that to stop Ceauşescu destroying it, the people who worked there claimed that there was a poison in the wood, that needed to be treated before it could be knocked down. They claimed that the gas would kill any workers who tried to destroy it because it would be released. They stretched out the “treatment” long enough and kept making excuses for enough time that he never got a chance to destroy it. It is fantastic that it still stands because this place, as my friend Steph said “Looks like the palace out of beauty and the beast”. To be fair, I think it is a pretty fair comparison, take a look.

Front of Peles Castle

View from Front

Courtyard

Bucharest

Up until Romania, I had never been further east in Europe then the Czech Republic. Bucharest was a completely different beast to Prague. Prague has most or all of its historical architecture in place, whereas most of the old part of Bucharest was destroyed to make way for the Peoples Palace. I also had a personal tour guide who showed me around Bucharest, with an extensive knowledge. I learnt much more than I did in Prague, purely because of the personal touch.

The People’s Palace is a monstrosity that was built purely to fill Ceauşescu’s ego. It is the most ridiculous building I have ever seen, and really dominates the landscape in downtown Bucharest. It is the second biggest building in the world, smaller only to the Pentagon. I took some photos of it while I was there, but this image does it better justice than the shots that I took ever could.

People’s Palace from the air (http://www.bucharest-life.com/media/pics/palace-of-parliament.jpg)

The buildings that flank it to the top right and left are the headquarters of the Secret Service in Romania. They are now very classy apartments in Bucharest, but still also leave a scar on the landscape.

Looking back at the aerial shot of the People’s Palace you can just make out a small church just behind the Secret Service buildings on the right. This church, called the Biserica Antim, narrowly missed out on demolition when these buildings where made. It was literally given a new foundation, put on rails and then moved 100m down the road to make way for these buildings. This is incredible, given the way that everything else was just destroyed to make way for new buildings.

Biserica Antim

Entrance to Biserica Antim

Courtyard

From here we walked towards the old part of the city. This was fantastic because this part of the city was intact, and as Dan (my guide) put it, the whole city is getting a lick of paint. From this point, I don’t have many specific names of places that we were, so I will let the pictures do the talking.

Building works and a mix between the old architecture and communist buildings

The gates to another one of Dracula’s Castles, this one is in ruins.

Courtyard off of Strada Selari

Staircase to rooftop cafe

This building used to be a cinema. What is interesting about this old cinema is that Dan remembers going here to watch movies on the weekend with his father. This was special because TV under communist regimes were limited to 2 hours a day and they were purely messages supporting communism. They did not have any other choice of what they watched, so visiting the cinema was a particularly exciting experience, that seemed to be a defining point in his childhood.

Interesting doorway in the old part of the city that leads to a “russian club” according to Dan.

This is a well conserved part of the city, with a church in the distance. Even though lots of churches were destroyed, many still stand, which is not surprising becuase more than 80% of Romanians are identified as Eastern Orthodox, according to the 2002 concensus. Recently Bucharest has started investing in new roads for some of these old streets. This is party due to the fact that some of the roads used to be made out of wood. The reason for this is because of all the wooden carts that used to be pulled around the city, and the fact that it was easier to build that a proper stone road. They didn’t really plan ahead with that type of road which is why they are doing it properly this time around.

View down the Bulevardul Unirii towards the People’s Palace

Fountain in the middle of Piata Unirii

Billboards around Piata Unirii

Sunset around the fountain.

Rush Hour around Piata Unirii

This is the CC building. This is where, on December 21st,  Ceauşescu gave his last speech before fleeing the city by helicopter. He fled to Târgovişte where he thought he still had support from his countrymen. He was decidedly wrong, and he was returned to the city centre, where he was formally tried and shot by a court on December 25th 1989.

This building made me think that Romania is heading in the right direction with their rebuilding of the city. You can’t see closely with this image, but the glass portion of the building extends all the way to the ground, where the traditional building is only a shell. A really innovative piece of architecture in my opinion, hopefully something that will be continued more and more around the city.

Should you go?

I can’t really tell you whether you should visit Bucharest or not, because the experience I had would vary a lot to the experience that anyone else would have. I had a tour of the city by some one that had lived there all their lives, who had even experienced some of the communist regime. I also stayed in a ex-patriot “compound”,  so did not actually stay in the city centre.

All in all though it is a very, very interesting place that is undergoing some major developments, and will be changing alot in the next 10 years. So yes, I do think that you should go, but I think 1 or 2 days would be plenty enough to see the whole city, it is not very big and is incredibly walkable. Also if you get the chance to head out of the city into the mountains, it would be very worth the time to do it. Keep an eye out for the reviews of the places I ate, and the clubs that I went to. They will be featured in the Places section soon.

Thanks for reading and keep it UJU

Master RAS