Bucharest - a city of fascinating contrasts
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BUCHAREST, with a population of just over two million, is full of surprising contrasts, which makes it fascinating and well worth visiting.
The origin of the city is romantic. A shepherd called Bucur took a fancy to the location and built a hut, others followed suit and so the city grew. His wife (some sources say daughter) was called Dambovita, so he named the river after her and this still flows through the centre of the city.
There have been many famous Romanians, including those who invented the fountain pen, discovered insulin and aircraft navigation systems, and then there is Count Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler, who was a national hero for defeating the Turks. But the country has had a troubled history, being invaded by different nations over the centuries, including the 20th when its vast oil reserves were envied by many powers. Its borders have changed many times.
There is a strong Romanian culture and heritage, which is visible in numerous fairytale castles, including, of course, Dracula's. There are many tours available from Bucharest to the countryside and the castles, and probably the best value is found by contacting the tourist office www.romaniatourism.com or www.travelbucharest.com
Romania has a strong engineering tradition, including diesel railway locomotives and Dacia cars (Dacia was the name of the Kingdom centuries ago) and now that Dacia has been taken over by Renault, the cars are available all over Europe, fast becoming some of the most reliable and economical available. Nearly all the many yellow taxis in Bucharest are Dacias (always a good sign of reliability) and there are also some ancient Dacias still being driven there.
There are breathtakingly magnificent buildings, palaces and churches, next door to crumbling tatty huge wrecks of buildings. The problem is that under the Communist regime and Ceausescu's megalomaniacal grand ideas, buildings were "nationalised" and now no-one knows quite who owns them. If the government were to repair them, the owners may pop up and say "thank you" and take them over. While they are crumbling, the owners (if still alive) will keep their heads down as the repair costs would be too high. It is a difficult situation.
Ceausescu built the huge palace that is now called the People's House, the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon in Washington. To build it, he simply demolished around nine city blocks, displacing all the people into featureless concrete towers of flats. He created a Champs Elysee, but it had to be a bit longer and grander than the Paris one. All this extravagance bankrupted the country. His further grandiose schemes resulted in the uprising of 21.12.1989 when he was finally deposed and killed.
Bucharest has been described as a "little Paris" but the Bucharesti says that Paris is simply a larger Bucharest. There is an Arc de Triumph, just like the Paris one. There are so many magnificent buildings, such as the hospital for the poor where the doctors worked for free, but the small donations from the poor folk finally raised enough to build the church that stands in front of it. The Haul Manuc inn dates from 1808 and looks like nothing has changed with it since; it is open as a restaurant and hotel and is still being restored. The entrance is still as it was, with wooden baulks for a roadway.
Bucharest has new fewer than 32 museums or places of interest to explore. Perhaps the saddest for me was the national railway museum. Beside the largest railway station (Gara de Nord) in a paint peeling building, with no sign on it at all, it is full of wonderful models showing the whole development of railways in Romania, a massive model railway but nothing to buy, no postcards, no shop or café, and dubious toilets. Lots of potential here if the money can be found.
A sad feature of the city is its decrepit pavements. Smartly dressed ladies emerge from international fashion boutiques only to negotiate their way across an unguarded trench and broken concrete slabs tilting in all directions. In many places there were gangs of workers relaying pavements but they have a lot to do. Many streets are festooned by cat's cradles of cables, unbelievable skeins looping from lamppost to lamppost. As cable TV, internet providers and many telephone companies develop their networks, in the absence of no underground pipes they string their wires along the streets. Add to this trolleybus and tram overhead electricity wires and sometimes it is difficult to photograph a building for all the wires.
A modern underground railway is being extended, as is the tram network, and there are many buses. To obtain a ticket you go to a small kiosk (there are several), and a day ticket costs around 70p. The kiosks are a feature of Bucharest. They are everywhere, including two at the buffer stops at each platform in the main station, all seemingly selling the same drinks and snacks. Like the takeaway food shops that proliferate, the kiosks also have small windows that always seem to be about the level of my belly button. These many, many small shops, some no bigger than a wardrobe, sit comfortably alongside the large stores and the massive modern shopping centre, as well as street traders and markets.
Outside one fruit and vegetable market were fringe traders, including one old man with a cloth on the ground on which he had handfuls of spinach leaves and some muddy carrots. Next to him was an old lady, with a weather-beaten face, displaying a pile of muddy potatoes on a piece of old tablecloth.
Dogs are everywhere. When the people were forcibly rehoused into high-rise flats, the dogs were abandoned, and efforts to reduce their numbers worked, but they are breeding again. Some live in the main railway station. I saw one curl up to sleep between the rail and the platform. I guess that the dogs move when a train comes in. They are not a problem; they go about their business quite peacefully, and when they are tired they just find a warm spot and have a nap – wherever it may be!
Many of them have yellow tags on one ear, so I guess that they are regulated in same way.
Although Bucharest is an ideal tourist spot with so much to see, it does not have any tourist tat shops. I had great difficulty in finding any postcards. Eventually at the Pauline bookshop at 27 Str. Baratiei I found some, and then had to ask around to find a post office for some stamps.
A kind lady who spoke perfect French (quite common in older people, younger ones all speak English) escorted me to one. The people all seem quite sociable, and friendly, even the drunks and traders who seem to abound.
The tradition of buying food ready cooked from the myriad takeaway shops has created a ready market for the likes of McDonalds (who seem to be everywhere) Burger King and Subway, but there are not so many restaurants. One of the best, though, is Caru Cu Bere (see www.carucubere.ro). Prices are low for us; usually at least half what you pay in the UK. Be warned, smoking is still allowed in Romania in buildings, restaurants, hotels etc, which seems strange to us Scots now that we have had so many years of the smoking ban. Romanian wine is excellent. I saw a bottle of silver medal Romanian Merlot (in a kiosk, of course) and bought it for 10 Lei – about £2. It was so good that the next day I bought another to bring home.
Festivals and cultural events abound in Bucharest throughout the year (including a Shakespeare one) and they celebrate Europe Day on May 9, marking the day they joined the EU in 2007. There are many great parks (and a zoo and a botanical garden) and in one green oasis I came across a speaker's corner with some lively debates going on.
Bucharest has little tourism in winter or summer. The winters are hard. Last winter a TV company went out with a glass of water, tipped it out and it froze before it hit the pavement. In the summer they broke an egg on the pavement and fried it. So spring and summer are the best times for us to go there. For more details see www.romanistourism.com
Bucharest is a fascinating place. It has a lot to do to the infrastructure, but this is not a criticism. It is only 22 years since the people won their freedom from the decadence and wild spending of Ceausescu. The countryside around is worth seeing, the Carpathian mountains are spectacular. The different regions of Romania each have their own distinct character, and unusually for us Brits, it is relatively cheap.
