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| Concert Hall |
Day 1 Romania, Thursday, August 18, 2016 -An Easy Walk to Old Town Bucharest.
We arrived and checked in at our hotel the Berthelot in Bucharest just a few minutes before midnight on August 17. By the time we got settled it was nearly 1:00 pm in the morning. The rain seemed to follow us from Iceland to Romania and we were in the midst of terrific thunder and lightning storm. The rain was dropping so fast, it looked like the windshield of our transfer was being washed by a fire hose. Our driver Dan was very knowledgeable and chatted all the way from the airport to the hotel about 30 minutes away.
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| Bert helot Hotel on right, gracious old and tattered home next door. |
Our first day in Bucharest was laid back and the sun was shining. Dan told us that there were often rain storms at night, but the days were usually quite nice. Awakening at 9:00, we made it downstairs for breakfast just before the dining room closed at 10:00 am, then took a long stroll to old town admiring old turn of the century buildings, many looking like tattered nobility.
Some of the buildings had their original facade retained while the back of the building was glass and steel.
There are so many beautiful old buildings in the city, once known as little Paris. Some buildings have been or are being refurbished. Many are just deteriorating for one reason or another. Many have graffiti drawn all over them. One of the buildings we visited was the concert hall. It is a lovely old building, graceful and elegant inside (top photo) and out.
We visited an art and craft, antique market, just browsing, but enjoying the browse of all the possessions that people once held dear, and are now for sale. It seems that younger people here are not interested in all this stuff, like contemporary young Americans
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| Looks like a hidden mystery screen. Can you find the coffee grinder? |
There are many high end clothing stores up and down the boulevard. I don't know where some of the ladies were going today, but we saw many women in very high heels, short tight skirts, long flowing formal like gowns, wedding stores,
and shredded jeans with more skin than fabric walking around on the city streets where we also saw beggars, old women pushing shopping carts, and men sleeping in doorways. It is quite a study in fashion.
We ate lunch at a little pub. Imagine our delight after spending nearly $50.00 for two dry sandwiches and sodas in Iceland, two spend $15.00 for four open faced grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and six beef stuffed mushrooms, 1 sparkling water, and one soda. Food is very reasonable, actually very inexpensive.
Our Friendship Force Group, with the exception of two members were all checked into the hotel and were meeting in our exchange director's room for wine and appetizers at 5:30. After a lazy afternoon and nice happy hour, we gathered for dinner, and had several regionally specialties for dinner. Again, lots of food for dinner about $20.00 for the two of us.
Day 2 Romania, Friday, August 19, 2016 - A visit to the Outdoor Village Enthographic Museum
In 1936, the Romanian government had the foresight to purchase property and to begin saving buildings, dismantling them piece by piece and reconstructing them in the Outdoor Village Ethnographic Museum. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, over 300 buildings have been reconstructed here.
Our FF Group took the metro and walked part of the way to the museum, there are 11 of us. Here is the group midway, checking the time.
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| Anybody know what time it is? |
Once we were on the grounds, the group split up ad moved around independently, visiting both the outsides and many interiors of these buildings with period furnishings and art work. Buildings are residences,
churches,
windmills, chicken coups, corn cribs, and working buildings (grinding, grape smashing, wax making, etc.).
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| Cat in the Corn Crib |
Russ and I, found another geocache on the grounds. Actually we introduced a few other folks to geocaching, and one of them spotted the cache first. Beginner's luck! Although she did say she found one once in Canada.
Two things I enjoyed at the museum were the woven fencing used around homes and to pen animals.
A music video was being shot while we were at the museum and we were able to photograph some of the folks participating in ethnic costumes.
After we visited the gift shop, took a few photos, ate a scoop of gelato, we returned to our hotel around 3:00.
We relaxed, had a long happy hour with our group, and opted to fire up our water pot for cups of soup instead of venturing out for dinner. We leave tomorrow at 8:00 am in the morning for our tour to Northern Romanian and Transylvania. Signing off for now so that we can get busy packing or at least rearranging our gear for two weeks of ground travel.
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