Even though I signed up for this trip up the Danube at considerable expense, I had only a vague sense of where Romania is located. The country is located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southwest Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east (hence the proximity of drones), Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, and Moldova to the east. The Black Sea is to the southeast. It has what is called here a continental climate and is an area of 238,397 km2. That is the 6th highest in Europe. It has a population of 19 million people, making it the 12th largest in Europe.
The modern state of Romania was formed in 1859 with the unification of Moldavia, and Wallachia and became a kingdom in1881 under a brand-new monarch Carol I. They pronounce his name as Karl a member of the Hohenzollern family of Germany. When he came he could only speak one phrase in Romanian—“I promise to serve.” Which he was required to swear to become the monarch.
White we were waiting for the bus, we admired this lovely church. It is called, Kretzulescu Church and is found just outside of Revolution Square. This is a small church but still magnificent. Small is beautiful as a wise German philosopher once said. During the Communist occupation, this church which was built in the 1720’s, was scheduled to be demolished by the Communist regime, but thankfully that never happened. Think of the wooden-headedness of non-religious people wanting to destroy such a beautiful church.
Yet, we learned over and over again on this trip, this is exactly what happened repeatedly in Europe. The conquerors brought with them their religions and disposed of the old religions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Frequently, that was accomplished with bloody swords.
Of course, historically such vandalism happened frequently by all sides without shame, sense or mercy.
Today, we went on a stroll with friends from Winnipeg who were on the trip with us, with the goal of taking a hop-on hop-off bus. I have enjoyed such rides in the past. This one not so much.
There is a lot to see in Romania. Sadly, my friends did not catch on to how a hop on and hop off bus works. You should hop on and off. But our friends, with whom Christiane sided when I dissented, wanted to go all around to first pick out the best sites to hop off. But as I suspected, after being on the bus for about 90 minutes everyone, including me, had enough. So, we never hopped off once. As a result, all these photos are taken from the bus rather than on the ground.
The second problem on with the Hop-on Hop-off bus, for which I cannot blame my misguided friends, is that the operators could not speak English and provided no commentary whatsoever. As a result, we drove around the city without knowing what we were seeing. There is very little point in that. That is why I have called it the worst ever Hop on Hop Off bus ride ever.
There was one building on our city tour I could recognize without guidance from an interpreter. It was called originally the People’s Palace, even though no people ever called for its construction other than Nicolae Ceaușescu who was the was the second and last communist leader of Romania after serving terms as the general secretary of the Romanian Communist party from 1965 until he was overthrown and promptly executed in 1989 as the Soviet Empire collapsed. He was executed together with his wife Elena. This was part of what is now called the Romanian Revolution.
During the 1980s Ceaușescu he became obsessed, as demagogic leaders so often do, with conducting his business in a palace. He wanted a substantial office fitting a substantial man. So he thought. And it had to be big, gaudy, and ornate. In fact, the neighbourhood had also to be grandiose. So together with a huge building, he wanted the neighbourhood properly renovated too. After all, it had to be suitable for a king, even if he was not called a king. The building was called The People’s Palace.
In order to build this monstrosity of a palace that no people had ever asked for, it was necessary to demolish 8 square kilometres of the historic centre of Bucharest. This included 14,000 homes, 22 monasteries and churches, and other structures, including a sports stadium. It is now called a Palace of Parliament and even though it started in 1984 it is not finished yet. It is testament to megalomania in stone. A monument to power and Communist inefficiency.
As a result, it is the 2nd biggest administrative building in the world (after the Pentagon) and the heaviest building in the world.
JP and I went on top while the women stayed on the first level. Up to there was a man making a video of a woman in striking black pants. She was making some kind of commentary that was not in Enlish. I think she was some kind of an influencer or podcaster. Interestingly, though he was perfectly groomed, every time he lifted his hand off his video camera he had to pat down his perfect hair. They were a perfect couple. Ready to influence the world.
I have included a couple of photos of buildings I thought were interesting, but frankly, because no one was commenting on them during our Hop On Hop Off Bus we had no idea what they were. Too bad; so sad.
Another building we did understand was the Triumphal Arch which was rathe reunification 1992 of the reign of King Ferdinand Queen Marie in 1918. There was lot of traffic and naturally, driving by on our bus I was not able to photograph it without vehicles. It probably is impossible during the day to achieve that even had I been on the ground.