Most of our trips, especiall foreign ones, are joyous affairs, well planned and that we look forward to. This is not one of those. It is a last minute trip to attend the funeral of a close and dear relative. It is a trip that no one wants to make and plan but unfortunately this is exactly what we have to do with just a couple days of head start. Luckily we find reasonably priced tickets but with two layovers instead of the usual one and on we go with the hope that nothing goes wrong with the flight as the funeral ceremonies start the day we land.
Our layover is in Atlanta, a huge airport. We have access to a lounge so we make our way towards it looking at the exhibits all around us including one that is actually created from confiscated materials. And we thought it looks quite nice….
We spend quite some time in the lounge. While it is one of the worse lounges we have been in food-wise at least we have a place to sit and we get free drinks. We spend a lot more time than we hoped as the plane is delayed by over two hours making our next connection in Paris quite a difficult one. However we make it with a few minutes to spare, phew, and soon are on the plane to Bucharest.
A family friend awaits us at the airport and takes us to the hotel, downtown, near the University Plaza. It is quite a modern hotel and with a free minibar that gets refilled daily, quite nice. Weirdly however the bathroom is in a different room than the toilet which means you have to change rooms to wash hands after the toilet…
We also got a room on the top floor which makes for beautiful views when we catch the sunset or sunrise, which is quite rare though.
At night we even get some red airplane warning lights flashing incessantly but of course we can cover the window and sleep in peace.
Two of the days we are here are during the weekend so the street right in front of our hotel is pedestrian only during the day. This is nice but we do not have time to enjoy it given that we are not here as tourists this time.
There are two ways to the subway and we try both of them to find the fastest. The first time we use the one that passes our previous AirBnB before going past the University to the subway entrance.
The subway stations look quite weird but then we understand what happened, there are no advertisements, all kiosks are gone eveything looks really drab and back like in the Communist times.
Given that we are here for a funeral we make our way multiple times to the Bellu Cemetery where the funeral and the wake are held. Usually we admire the cemetery with its ornate headstones and crosses, not so much these days while grieving.
As we make our way back and forth to the chapel and then tomb we discover new areas of Bellu, including one where all the famous writers and poets from Romania are buried. We never noticed it before and likely will have to return some other time to take a better look at it.
In the morning before going to the cemetery or meeting with relatives we have to eat breakfast near our hotel. We identify a few interesting places right next to the hotel and even witness one day the closing of the boulevard, guess it is open at night and pedestrian only during the day.
The food is reasonably ok with French inspired dishes at one of the restaurants.
And more generic items at the second one, crepes and eggs being the major choices.
When returning we pass multiple times near the major hotel here Grand Hotel, formerly Intercontinental before returning on a street full of stores, all of them closed most days we are in Romania.
One of the evenings after returning from the funeral proper we go in the evening to eat dinner with some of our relatives who arrived from a different city to attend the funeral and are going to leave tomorrow. Walking on the closed Victoria Blvd is quite an experience, a nice one really.
We pass the impressive “CEC” bank building on the way which has multiple performers aligned in front of it dressed as famous people from Romania’s past.
We then enter the historic area and after a lot of searching find a restaurant which has good enough food for everyone.
We order some sausages, there are more than we expected and crepes, which are the right size. While we are not hungry we take our time and finish everything as the food is quite good before returning to the hotel.
On another afternoon we plan to meet with a different set of relatives in a park nearby to the cemetery. Carol I Park is quite popular with people with children and we are going to meet someone with a young child so it is a good fit.
While waiting we eat dinner at a restaurant, the food is quite good and given that we have time to wait we order also some sweets at the end as well as multiple rounds of drinks.
We really like the fountains in the park they are historical and even though water is not flowing anymore in any of them they are still interesting to explore
We meet with our relatives late in the day and stay for a couple hours playing with the child and talking with the other adults before it is bedtime for the child and he has to leave for home.
On a separate evening we have some free time to explore the surrounding area. We decide to start with a famous confectionary nearby, if only we are able to cross the boulevard which is not pedestrian today.
Capsa might be the most famous confectionery in Romania and we have something specific in mind advertised also outside, profiterol, a mix of ice cream, lady fingers and a few other ingredients.
The profiterol is good enough however the second sweet that we order is only average even though it is supposed to be a Capsa special.
We then continue near the University which is closed for the summer. This opens the door for beggars and other weird individuals to take over the area so we pass as fast as we can as they try to beg and otherwise disrupt you from passing nearby.
We spend a moment to remember all the heroes that died in University Plaza during the uprising against communism, a moment that paved the way for Romania to become part of EU and for us to leave the country for good.
We continue then for a while on Nicolae Balcescu Boulevard, the major throughfare through downtown. Most stores are closed as there are some religious holidays coinciding with our trip unfortunately.
Here we also see one of the few churches that escaped the communist desire to raze everything religious from view, it is surrounded by communist high rises and an older more interesting building.
We then turn inland towards the Victoria Boulevard keeping an eye out for interesting buildings and churches along the way.
Our detour takes us directly to the Art Museum we visited a year before in much happier circumstances. Nearby is the Romanian Atheneum, a famous concert hall in downtown Bucharest.
We find another church hidden behind communist high rises, the evangelical one before passing near the Palace Hall, another famous venue for more modern music.
Returning on Victoria Boulevard we see two other magnificent buildings, the Main University Library and the government building in front of which the revolution started in Bucharest.
We then return to our hotel passing near the beautiful Kretzulescu church that we always admire while in the area.
On the last full day in Bucharest we meet with another relative for lunch in a restaurant we always wanted to eat at. It is walking distance from our hotel but before that we explore all the different nearby shops as this is the only day they are open during the whole week we are in the country.
The restaurant, Hanu lui Manuc, is near the Old Voievodal Court and quite popular with foreigners given the number of tour groups visiting it.
The food is actually quite good and we enjoy it as we talk with our relative and enjoy our cup of coffee.
And with that a week has passed and it is time to return to Phoenix. We have to leave the hotel at an inhuman hour, 4 AM and it takes a bit to find an actual human so we can check out and he can call a taxi.
Waiting in the Bucharest airport is quite boring but at least in the other airports we have lounge access, we hope. In fact in Amsterdam the lounge is under renovation so there is a temporary one that with a bit of luck we enter easily. The food however is not that exciting but at least we have a place to sit down while waiting for the plane.
Next layover is in Minneapolis and here the lounge surprisingly is better but the food is not free, we have a $15 voucher and that’s it. Still it is better to pay $1-2 and get some good food instead of what we were served at the free lounges.
And then we are back in Phoenix surrounded by thunderstorms possibly fueled by the hurricane that is approaching relentlessly. This trip is one that we really would have preferred not to have to make but given what happened there was no choice unfortunately.
