- Romania
We started our trip on 9th March 2025 taking off from Bristol airport to Bucharest. We had a great Saturday seeing the family and then left for the airport. Leaving wasn’t without its problems. In the last minute sort out I moved all my non-bank cards from my mini purse including my driving licence to the purse I left behind. Luckily the airport is only as short drive from home and we were staying at a hotel there overmight ready for a 5.55am take off. I had to get rescued by my sons finding my licence and getting it to the airport for me. Thanks guys
Sunday morning saw us jumping – or crawling out of bed at 3am to start our trip of a lifetime. At the airport we had to do it – prosecco with breakfast at 4am to get us off to a good start.
So what have we learnt in Bucharest?
- You can’t plan for everything. We didn’t plan for civil disturbance, due to a presidential election dispute. I first became aware when we saw the police riot vans parked in a side street, then found out there had been protests the night before. There are advantages to an early night. We realised how close it was when out walking and came across all the crowd barriers nearby. We had the march go past our room – another early night and the next day came across the press ready for something. Did we risk nipping through or go the the long way round. We nipped through and fortunately we were sitting by a cafe round the corner,enjoying a brew when the shouting started.
2. The Therme really is worth a days visit, we arrived early as advised to catch it before the crowds. It is enormous – 5999 lockers! The saunas were varied and huge, The Hollywood sauna has tiered wooden seats and a screen; the Bavarian one was HOT; there was a cold water fountain for cooling off; there were lovely smells there was a zinc and selenium pool with a bar – wow! The pools were gorgeous surrounded by orchids and palms. We had lunch outside in the sun! We hadn’t planned on high temperatures in March in fact the temperature had been in the minuses the week before, but we enjoyed it. We had to have a cocktail from the pool bar before we left – a pina colada while sitting at a bar stool in the water! How to recover from work.
3. The Palace of Parliment is immensely heavy comprising of thousands of tons of marble as well as the other building materials. In fact apparently it has 80% of the worlds supply of rare Romamian pink maeble. Due to its weight it is still sinking at a rate of about 1 cm a year. It was built after an earthquake in 1977 demolished some of Bucharest, and I hadn’t realised we were in an earthquake zone. The leader of the communist party in Romania used the opportunity to build a fantastic building and apparently demolish even more of the city than the earthquake had done. Part way through construction the revolution happened and he got executed so he never saw it completed,
This pattern displayed throughout the building is apparently the shape of the building with the central point being a chandelier in one of the ballrooms. The building comprises of vast corridors and rooms. Many of these are hired out for conferences these days.
The palace was built as an extravaganza of Romania with all Romanian materials (apart from a few gifts and 700 architects working on it. The rooms show off different styles and influences.
Some of the rooms have silk wallpaper. as Romamia did not produce silk a programme was introduced with school chuldren looking after silk worms to start the silk industry.
To afford the palace the country had to borrow heavily internationally. This was all eventually repaid but at a cost to the every day person who had to make do with little, for this luxurious palace to be built and to the general rebuilding of the city.
4. Use lemons to make lemonade. One of the highlights of the week was the castle tour. We got up at 5.30am!! to do this and arrived as the meeting point st 6.30. To our shock the tour leader took one look at Ashley and said he wasn’t going, we couldn’t pursuade him; he declared Ashley a health and safety risk and said he’d lose his job if he took him. So there we were by the bus wondering what to do. Our first thought was breakfast and we sat and ate our breakfast while planning our day – back to where we started for a cuppa and from there an app led tour of the old town. We rebooked the tour for the next day with a different tour company. It was lovely weather and possibly the guide did us a favour as we had an afternoon in a lovely courtyard at a restaurant. The next day rained so we would have missed this.
We found hidden walkways and so much history. The church built in a day see below.
We also saw a number of other churches. We noticed that the locals frantically cross themselves several times when they pass a church.
A Greek church
We also found the national theatre with a fantastic sculpture
And we found Kilometer 0 which commemorated democracy and freedom
Of course this all made us hungry so we had a relaxing afternoon at a restaurant sitting in the sun with a lovely romanian meal
5. If you don’t succeed at first….. and so we visited the castles and Transylvania. This trip reminded us of how fluid nationalities are in Europe and how much royalty intermarried. In contrast to the People Palace, Peles castle was designed to bring together the best from surrounding countries. It is designed as an alpine castle and is quite modern being built at the end of the 1800s and was the first castle with electricity. It was built by an international team of construction workers. Romania gained its independance from the Ottoman empire during the construction of the castle. This castle was designed as a King’s residence. The way in was designed to show off the status of the king and his show of weapons therefore intimidating the visitor with a show of power.
The weapons below are encrusted with jewels and very valuble
This castle was designed as a home as well as a business and incorporated the interests of both king and queen.
Imagine this as your jewelry box!
After Peles Castle we went to Bran Castle which is believed to be the castle Dracula was based on although Count Dracula was a local who didn’t live there. No vampires though just lots of impaling. 20,000 in all mainly his enemies the Ottomans but also a few on his side.
The castle was built by the local people as more of a customs house and a defense against the Ottomans. It got taken over at one stage in its history and the local people had to evidence that they had built it to get it back. Later it was gifted by them to King Ferdinand
This castle is on a much smaller scale and full of narrow staircases. How did they manage them when they had to drink beer instead of water!
It is surrounded by alpine countryside
We found this castle quite charming although we did avoid the tourture chamber so maybe that is why.
