Friday, July 27
That’s Bucharest not Budapest! Yeah, it seems that the two cities get mixed up quite a bit. We heard a funny story about a bunch of football fans (that’s soccer to those of us in the U.S.) who wanted to see a World Cup match in one city and booked tickets to the other. Boy where they mad. There’s actually a web site called Bucharest Not Budapest and another one with the cities reversed. Since we’d already been to Budapest we think we got this one right.
Trying to figure out a way to get from the airport in Romania to our apartment was a bit of a challenge. Public transportation wasn’t really an option for this trip so we had to find a way to take a taxi without getting ripped off and Henri Coanda airport has one of the worst reputations. The airport rules make it virtually impossible to find legitimate taxis at the normal rate. We found a great article that tells the full story about the corruption at the airport. It makes for very interesting reading: Finding a Cab in Bucharest. We finally opted for the BlackTaxi service and only paid about twice what we should have. At least the flight was uneventful and we got to our new apartment near Old Town around 4:00 pm. It’s another case where the building looks to be in disrepair but the apartment is really nice. We have air-conditioning in all the rooms and a nice suite of TV stations. We’ll be comfortable here for the next three weeks.
After settling in we took a walk around the Old Town neighborhood, got pizza at a local restaurant and hit the market before retiring for the evening.
Distance walked: 4.5 miles
Saturday, July 28
On our drive from the airport to our apartment we’d seen some advertisements for an airshow. The driver said that it was free. We doubted that but it seemed like something that would be fun to do. With all our previous experience with airplanes and airports (I hold a Multi-Engine/Commerical/Instrument pilot’s license and we owned our own plane at one time) we’d never attended an airshow before .
We planned to take the bus to the airshow but for once Google let us down – it said that there was no convenient public transportation so we used the Taxify app to call another cab. Taxify is a well known app and is used all over Europe. In fact there were busses that lead right to the airfield.
The airshow was running for the entire day. The website had no mention of tickets but did have a published schedule of events. It turns out it really was free. There seemed to be a three hour program that was repeated several times during the day.
Our day started with an acrobatic display by an F4U Corsair accompanied by two jets. It seemed a strange combination but it was fun to see. The three planes did a few passes together before the Corsair was left alone to do some stunts. Eventually it left the area and the jets took their turn. That group was supposed to have included a P38-Lightning but it only taxied about and never took to the air.
(World War II P38-Lightning)
After a few more acts we were treated to a show by the Turkish Air Force. They are an elite group of seven jets that really know how to impress a crowd. They started with some tight formation flying and then broke into several groups for acrobatic displays. Their routine lasted almost 30 minutes. Afterwards the pilots strolled about the grounds and everyone wanted to have their picture taken with them. They were like rock stars.
After that came the Romanian air display. We thought it was going to be another Blue Angels-like act but it turned out that it was a large commercial jet airliner representing TAROM – the national airline of Romania. The jet did a bunch of low passes and a few wing waggles. That’s something you don’t see every day.
The Turkish Air Force definitely stole the show but for me the sentimental favorite was the Corsair. They are beautiful propellor planes from another era and it was like watching history in action.
Distance walked: 2.7 miles
Monday, July 30
The day started by meeting the free tour for a walking tour of Old Town. Our guide was an energetic young woman named Alina who introduced herself by shaking each person’s hand and asking them where we were from. We liked her immediately.
The tour started with a story about the history of Romania starting with the Roman Emperor Trajan. In the middle ages the area was made up of three independent provinces known as Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. Wallachia and Moldavia were part of the Ottoman Empire as was Transylvania until it became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The three provinces were finally unified into a single country after World War I. After the fall of Communism a portion of the province of Moldavia became the independent nation of Moldova.
We were delighted to learn that Romania is a Romance language and has many similarities with Italian. The written language resembles Italian a great deal although the pronunciation seems quite distinct. Fortunately for us English is spoken just about everywhere.
We saw quite a few beautiful churches. You can’t travel more than two blocks without seeing one. Romanians are overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox. As usual we’ll go into detail about all of the sights as we go back and visit them in our own time.
For lunch we went to a restaurant in Old Town. We ordered cabbage rolls served with polenta and sauerkraut and pork schnitzel. The cabbage rolls were similar to the stuffed cabbage we ate in Poland – pork and rice wrapped in cabbage and baked in a tomato based sauce.
(Cabbage Rolls, Schnitzel and Polenta)
We made a happy discovery in the supermarket. They had banitsa, the phyllo dough pastries that we ate so much of in Bulgaria. Of course Romania and Bulgaria share a long border and were both dominated by the Turks for a long time and so they share a similar heritage.
Distance walked: 6.3 miles
Tuesday, July 31
We took another free walking tour with Alina only this time the subject was the history of the royal families in Romania. In 1866 Wallachia and Moldavia gained independence from the Ottoman Turks and invited Prince Carol of Germany to be king of Romania. There was a series of hereditary kings until the Communist takeover when King Michael was forced to abdicate and sent into exile.
We saw the former Royal Palace (now a museum of art) and several other famous landmark buildings. During the rule of King Carol I the country was obsessed with France and many famous Parisian buildings were copied giving Bucharest the title of “Little Paris”. Only about 20% of the Old Town still remains. The Nazis destroyed some buildings and the communists leveled large tracts in order build new municipal buildings. The earthquake of 1977 also caused a lot of damage. Subsequently, many buildings have been red-tagged to indicate that they may be not earthquake safe (our apartment is not one of them).
(Athenaeum Romanian – Home to the National Orchestra)
Across from the former royal palace we saw a large bronze statue of King Carol I. Our guide said that it had been melted down and the metal had been used to make a statue of Stalin. After the fall of the Communists the statue of Stalin was melted down and the metal was used to remake the statue of the king.
Distance walked: 3.7 miles