Romanian Dances

Getting on the metro train

Today we arrived in Bucharest at the delightful hour of 0730, rolling in clackity-clack with just enough time to pack our bags between discovering we had entered the city and arriving at the station.  The station was abuzz with life including farmers, children, aunts, uncles, grammas, pigeons, and dogs.  Everyone was really excited and seemed happy to be there because they were traveling.

We joined the other backpackers in McDonalds and ate a delicious breakfast of McCrepes and McLattes while we pored over our guidebook and free wifi looking for a hostel and planning our Bucharest adventure.  Then Vince had his first ever underground Metro ride as we took line one and then line two to East Hostel.  The metro was clean, nice, safe, and well-organized, with many directions and fast, reliable trains.  With security checkpoints and no more than five minutes to wait for each train, it is a far cry from anything Calgary Transit has ever offered.

See it? See our hostel?

Our hostel welcomed us with free food, free wifi, a nice clean spacious room and friendly staff.  Luckily, we had bought a ten-ride pass to the metro because as soon as we had checked in, we realized we had to go back to the train station to reserve the next leg of our journey.  The first part of our Bucharest adventure was taken up with Train Station Adventures, but finally we had our Eurail pass sorted and were on our way to explore the city.

This is the Ministry of Agriculture building.

We decided to walk through the historic center, from one end of Calea Victoriei to the other, passing historic buildings, museums, plazas, monuments, and shops along the way.  We stopped in at the art museum and saw lots of religious pieces from the middle ages and early Renaissance, which was spectacular, and then we had late lunch at a nice little restaurant.  Everybody we see here appears fit and healthy and after our lunch we thought it might be partly because the food here is so wholesome and fresh, and not filled with any processed ingredients.  Also, we see people everywhere, walking on their ways to wherever, and not too many cars around, so people must be getting their daily exercise on their daily excursions.

We had lunch here. 

After free dinner back at our hostel, we discovered a free music show at the small plaza near our metro station, a string quartet who played everything from the Beer Barrel Polka to Hava Nagila.  We also had a special treat, because a guy who must have been a famous Romanian ballet dancer was practicing his art to the music being played, dancing on the pathway behind the stage.  That was a lucky find and a fantastic way to finish a great day in Bucharest.

A gargoyle shouted at us from up there.