First full day in the Romanian capital.
We are remarkably fresh this morning dispite having only had eight hours kip in forty-eight hours.
We wander up to through the Old Town to Coleta Church, the meeting point for our walking tour (booked through our old friend, the Free Tour app). We have used the app in many countries. Basically you get an informative tour, for free – as the name suggests. But it is expected (although not compulsory) to give the guide a tip at the end. The groups are usually quite small, but today we are joined by around twenty other tourists from all over the world.
Many facts are rammed into our heads, too many to recall for this blog, so I will just recall some of the highlights. I didn’t make contemporary notes so some of them might not be entirely accurate.
We start with a basic history of the country. As with many European countries, borders have fluctuated over the years. The area currently referred to as Romania has only existed since after the First World War, although its borders have changed even since then. Over the years it was ruled by the Romans (which is where the name Romania came from), the Ottoman’s (but wasn’t formally part of the Ottoman Empire) and the Goths (before they all moved to Leeds to form moody post-punk bands).
There’s a monument that shows the distance to several of the main cities and towns in old Romania, but after the second world war the Soviets covered it with sand because some of the cities were no longer part of the new Romania. It has since been uncovered and tarted up.
A theme that keeps cropping up is earthquakes, which destroyed many historical buildings, and the great fire of 1847 which burned down most of the city because everything was built out of wood. The fire started because of some traditional Easter ceremony which involved people all over the city firing guns into the air. The purpose of the celebration escapes me, but let’s just say it might have been to celebrate the day that Tank Carson bought his own fags. Anyway, whatever the reason, one fella’s gun misfired, flames shooting out of the barrel, setting fire to his house. Because the city was made of wood, a third of the city , just shy of two thousand buildings, burned down.
Bucharest is like the south Wales valleys. Bloody churches and pubs everywhere. There are currently four hundred churches in the city alone and eighteen thousand throughout the country. That’s following years of communist control when many churches were destroyed by the commie atheists.
President Chaushesku knocked down twenty churches just to build his house (more of that later) and many of the memorabilia /artifacts from those churches (crosses, alters and so on) were collected, hidden, and are now on display in a Greek Orthodox Church in the city. I can’t remember which one, there are too many to remember, but we did visit it.
A name closely associated with Bucharest is Vlad the Impaler. He ruled over Wallachia (one of the countries that eventually formed the country of Romania) in the fifteenth century. He was a ruthless bastard, often boiling his enemies alive, chopping the bollocks off thieves and turning people into human kebabs (hence the impaler moniker). Whilst he sounds like a bit of a rotter, he was far more popular as a ruler than Keir Starmer because he kept the Ottomans at bay and crime was low – due to fear of being tied to a chair and bummed, or one of the many other punishments he utilised.
His real name was Vladimir Dracula, and many people think he was an inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula – although Bram never actually mentioned him.
The Dracula story wasn’t really a thing in communist Romania, the commies thought it painted Romania in a bad light and banned it, so very few people had heard the story of this blood sucking vampire. But after the fall of Chaushesku in 1990 these myths were widely circulated. Entrepreneurs decided there was a tourism opportunity here. They thought it would be a good idea to market Vlad’s Castle as Dracula’s Castle. However, Vlad’s Castle is bloody miles from Bucharest, so they picked a castle closer to the city to market as Dracula’s Castle. Many of you may have been to visit the castle on this trip, but I have bad news for you: Dracula never set foot in the place. Mainly because he never actually existed. What’s more, the inspiration for Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, never lived their either. It’s all a load of old bollocks. As Becks said to me, “It’s like tourists going to Nessa’s Slots in Barry Island thinking Nessa was a real person”. But it’s worse than that, because at least Ruth Jones visited Nessa’s Slots.
We visit Hanu Liu Macu a fortified pub dating back to 1808 and is considered one of the best restaurants in the city today. It is quite spectacular and we start hatching a plan for Sunday lunch there – although I have doubts they do a nut roast.
We visit several churches on the tour, each of them intricately decorated inside. We have a drink in the Museum of Communism (no time to actually look around it). And follow the tour guide around as she points at banks, museums and more churches. I recall reference to the barrel of a cannon being upcycled into a crown by the dudes what captured the castle the cannon was supposed to be defending.
We stop off at Caru’ Cu Bere, the pub we ate in last night. Apparently it was the first pub in Bucharest to sell beer (not sure what pubs sold before beer). As pointed out in yesterday’s blog (haven’t you read it yet? Bloody keep up mun, I’m not doing this for the benefit of my health you know), it is quite spectacular inside. However, them bloody commies weren’t into people enjoying themselves, so when they took power the decorative features were painted over (with red paint, obviously) and the decor was only reinstated after Chaushesku’s appointment with a Christmas day firing squad. We are advised it is the most expensive restaurant in Bucharest, but having eaten there, by UK standards it is quite reasonable. Three of us ate well and drank for fifty quid.
Final stop on the tour was Chaushesku’s gaff. A grand folly with over a thousand rooms. I’m not sure how many guests he was expecting, but his ego and extravagance made Trump look almost sane. Almost.
The stats are simply ridiculous. It’s the heaviest building in the world. Even heavier than Lemmy’s house. It is still the largest civilian administrative building in the world, although not a lot of administration goes on there. It’s the second most expensive architectural building in the world, dispite the fact it is not actually finished. After Chaushesku’s departure there were many calls for the monstrosity to be demolished, but it’s so fucking big they calculated it would be cheaper to finish it than to knock it down. It is still not finished and only 30% of it is in use. The energy required to heat and light the bits that are open is the same as a small Romanian town.
Chaushesku had dreamed of standing on the balcony and addressing his adoring fans gathered in the square opposite. This never happened. Partly because the building was never finished and partly because he didn’t have any adoring fans. After his death the people of Romania had much more access to information about the wider world and started to learn about pop culture for the first time. So in 1992, the first person to speak from the balcony was Michael fucking Jackson. There aren’t really many redeeming features to the building or its history.
After tipping our ‘free’ tour guide we dive into a rather smart local restaurant for food and beverages. As with most eateries, there’s very little in the way of vegetarian options. I opt for something called ‘Forget me not potatoes.’ It is far more theatrical than such a simple dish has any right to be. The waiter arrives with a dish full of salt. Out of the salt he pulls a pile of baby potatoes, now covered in butter and salt. He then squidges the spuds on a bit of wood, pours more melted butter over the top, sprinkles chopped spring onions and cheese over the top, then puts a bowl of sour cream next to it. It is absofuckinglutely stunning. Although it is basically a plate of carbs, salt and fats. I’m not sure my doctor would approve.
After the food has gone down we head back to the apartment and wait for a kettle to be delivered.
We have a tactical siesta then head out to meet the Cascade Youth. As we walk through the Old Town, we conclude it’s like walking through the Red Light district of Amsterdam, with more curtains and less weed. There’s nothing ‘old town’ about this place. There are just dozens of British themed pubs all next to each other.
The children are in ‘Beer O’clock’. It is a ‘craft ale’ pub and the children are struggling to drink their pint of ‘Crowd Control’. I quite like it, so when they move on I neck their leftovers.
We head back down to Hanu’ lui Manuc. It is quite busy but we easily get a table on the balcony. There aren’t many vegetarian options and I end up ordering a veggie burger. It is quite nice, but we abandon plans to have Sunday lunch there. We just know they won’t have nut roast on the menu.
The evening ends with a whimper rather than a bang. We set out to find the youth in a geek pub, but end up with familiar faces in The Big Ben. They have been in town for twelve hours and still not found their apartment. Although they did knock back a dozen cocktails in the ‘swim up’ bar in tbe local ‘health’ Spa. (Doesn’t sound that healthy to me.)
And then back to the apartment block with a secret fourth floor and an early night (if 11:30pm is early) to make sure we are match fit for tomorrow. Game day.