Passage To Eastern Europe Viking River Cruise
Day 3: Sunday, October 30, 2022 - Bucharest, Romania, and Brasov, Romania
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 15,518 Linda; 16,258 Steve
While we should have gotten a good night's sleep, we really didn't. And we slept like we did last year wherein
we awoke in the middle of the night.
Not sure why this happened because with such poor sleep on the plane, we should have been exhausted and slept
like rocks. But nooooooo....
We awoke at 6:45, fifteen minutes before our "normal" wake-up time because tonight was going to be spent in
Brasov (bra-shove [the single 's' is pronounced 'sh', just like in Budapest]),
because tomorrow we were going to be in Brasov and Transylvania.
We were first going to visit the town of Sinaia, to see the summer palace (more on that below).
Our luggage had to be out by 7:30, and we had ours out at 7:25. We tagged the luggage we needed for the lone
night in Brasov, and the rest would be held in storage for when we return to Bucarest.
We put enough things into one carry-on, and left the other three pieces of luggage at the hotel.
We had a nice buffet breakfast - not too much, but enough. There was a made-to-order eggs section, scrambled eggs, pancakes,
waffles, egg benedict (Linda's favoriate), breakfast meats, breads, fruit, cereal, pastries, 5 juices, and other items.
We returned to our room to brush (Linda put our toothbrushes in her purse for the day), and grab our coats and the
camera. And this panarama of the view from our room.
On the way back downstairs for our first excursion, we looked down from our sixth floor to the first.
We departed the hotel at 8:35. Today's guide was Alex[ander].
In the parking lot of the hotel, I spied a some exotic cars - vehicles - parked outside: a Rolls Royce, a Bentley,
and a Lamborghini Urus (yes, Lamborghini [as well as many other high-end manufactures] makes an SUV).
During our ride to Brasov, we were told quite a bit about the history of Bucharest (boo-ka-resht), and Romania.
The hotel building we were staying in was originally the palace guest house, and there was a statue in front.
The Orthodox church is being renovated and will be the largest in Europe when it is complete.
There are offically 2.2 million people living in Bucharest. Unofficially, there are between three and five million.
Bucharest is the sixth largest city in the EU.
There is a canal running down the middle of the city.
Flags outside Bucharest University.
Another shot of the zoo giraffe that we saw last night.
A statue of Icarus, symbolizing freedom, in the median near the entry to the city.
Some shots of the Arc d' Triumph that we also saw last night.
And some general city sights, including some streets and churches.
I've been capturing gas prices the few times we've gone to Europe, and this was no exception.
But I do this to partially shut up US residents that complain about our gas prices. They need to be made aware
that we should be thankful we don't live in Europe. So if you don't like our gas prices, shut the hell up,
or, I don't know, move to Europe...
In this instance, at the time of this writing, the Romanian Lei is 1 to $0.204. European gas is per liter and there
are about 3.8 liters per gallon. So in Romania, gas is equal to $7.03 per gallon.
We were through the city and heading through the countryside.
The oldest oil refinery in the world.
I have no idea what they sell here...
The Carpathian Mountains in the distance.
After an hour and a half, we had a convenience stop at a mall called "Ploiesti Shopping City", with a large
super-store (think Wal-Mart® Supercenter size) called "Carrefour" and a number of other stores.
We thought it was interesting that there were so few cereal selections - at least compared to America standards.
The selections start at the magenta / pink boxes and go down only four "columns" / shelves to the blue boxes. That's. It.
For a price comparison, this milk is 8.99 Lei per 900g. 900g is about 2 pounds. A gallon of milk weighs about 8
pounds, 10 ounces (according to our Alexa device). So, rounding: 900g times 4.25 equals about a gallon; 8.99 Lei
times 4.25 is 40 Lei; and 10 Lei is $2.04. Therefore, this milk is the equivilent to an $8.08 gallon of milk. And
it is on sale too...
How about some cold cuts?
The most inexpensive meat cold cut here (I couldn't find a good translation of the name) is 5.06 Lei per 100g. 100g
is about 3.5 ounces. So, rounding: 100g times 4.5 equals about a pound; 5.06 Lei times 4.5 is 22.77 Lei per pound; and
10 Lei is $2.04. Therefore, this cold cut is the equivilent to about $4.64 per pound. Which actually isn't that bad.
Most of the hams in the first picture are even better priced than the cold cuts above.
We strolled around the store some to get some steps and exercise, then walked out into the mall.
There was a bakery booth with some yummy looking sweets.
74 Lei / kg would be 7.4 Lei per 100g, times 4.5 (from above) is 33 Lei / pound, or $6.79 per pound. And the Eclair
and cream puffs are 7 Lei each (buc = each), or $1.43 each. Fairly reasonable prices for bakery made treats.
And the fancier treats are just a little more expensive, but still reasonable.
Our free time was up, and we boarded the bus to continue our journey.
There is a good amount of farmland in Romania. Where the mountains aren't, that is.
One of the top products exported out of Romania is sunflower oil, and sunflower oil is the most widely used oil in
Romania as well.
There were a few of these buildings about, but since they were smaller, we think they weren't necessarily museums, but
rather that they were small office buildings, one of which might have even been an art studio - based on the sculpture
on the [assumedly] nearby property.
Not long after Linda said "I wonder if they have commuter rail here.", we saw this.
So yes, it appears they do.
There were these what looked like carved out logs being used as planters along the road in a town we passed through.
Some other views.
The three or so hour drive brought us through some areas where there were pull-over spots along the roadway.
At most of them, there were poeple selling something.
Part of a rather large cemetary.
A nice church.
A large house.
Possibly a music studio or school.
We passed a park that had some trampalines that kids could jump on while attached to bungie cords.
A country flag flying.
We climbing into the hills.
Monestary bell tower.
Bavarian-style hillside house.
There's a bit of an optical illusion in this shot. There is a gondola cable car running and a picture of it was captured
right as it was positioned to look like it was atop the sign in the foreground. Then I got another shot in the clear.
Another nice big house, with a lovely view out the back - that almost looks fake.
And the street next to the house above but more for the mountain view.
We finally got to the spot where we got off the bus. We had a short walk to the Summer Palace.
Before our walk, this wooden swing was on the property up the road few steps.
We started our walk down the hill to the Summer Palace of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth, also known as
Peles Castle (but mostly called "the palace" here).
We first came to a plaza. The buildings around the plaza housed staff and guards. Now is houses shops.
Near the center of the plaza was a pedistol with a bear on top.
We walked through the tunnel under the bell tower, then through a restaurant.
There was a lot of land, and some open fields.
Our first glimpse of the palace.
Some other shots outside the palace.
A close-up of the clock: it has a hand pointing at the hour, a dragon or snake pointing at the minutes,
a sun at the center, a star at the end of the minute hand, and a moon at the end of the hour hand.
We waited on line for a little bit. Looking at the palace, we entered under the archway on the left, went across
the back of the courtyard, and into an entry door in the archway area on the right.
These were captured while on line.
After about 20 minutes, We eventually got inside. The palace was crowded, and due to the entry delay, we were hurried
along a little - and I do mean "little" - more than we might have preferred. Because of these issues, a couple of the
sights may not have been optimally captured - but the gist still exists.
The motif of the palace was on the manly side, and the interior was left mostly as the king had left it.
The palace was built between 1873 and 1914, and it has an elevator, central vac, and plans for electricity.
There are 160 rooms in the palace.
There were also a LOT of weapons about - 4,000, we're told, and they
were used for hunting, protection, and some were given as gifts.
We started at the lowest level. We eventaully got to the original entryway, and then started our way upstairs,
starting in the reception hall.
Here are some interesting pieces, rooms, art work, and other sights in the palace.
There was stained glass throughout the house, from the ceiling in the reception hall, to various rooms. What was
captured are all here together.
A slightly sharper but smaller portion of the windows from above - as well as an extreme close-up of a couple sections.
While none of the other weapons were specifically called out, this one was simply because it was a samurai swoard
with a green shark skin scabbard.
The calendar on the desk in the den / office is set to September 14, the day the King died.
A bejeweled decorative urn.
There was a library with some old books. There was a loft area, accessed via a spiral staircase, that was purported to
be a favorite with the queen. The bookcases had glass protection and a good picture was especially challenging.
This is an executioner's sword. It is for nobility as lay people are hung, not beheaded.
This is a cast bronze door. These are supposedly the only two in existance. (Due to crowds, couldn't get much more
of it than this.)
The palace had three - THREE - ballrooms.
In the first is a Murano glass chandelier. Here are is the full image, a close-up, and from underneath.
In between the two chandeliers above was this artwork. One can look up at it directly, or, cleverly, it can be
properly viewed (orientation wise) in the mirror on the wall across from the fireplace (it's within the white
bordered section).
In case it isn't evident, this tries to show where the mirror is.
The second ballroom had an interesting pair of doors, and some interesting pieces.
The dining room off the second ballroom, with a close-up of the back wall.
The third ballroom, also had fountains at the far end.
This decorative urn was in the corner of a hallway to the Turkish room.
The Turkish room.
The Turkish room was the last room on the tour. We headed back toward the reception hall. The last sight inside the
palace was this hallway with a couple statues in it.
We returned back down the stairs we originally went up, through the gift shop, and in no time, were back outside.
Our a-little-more-than-a-half-hour tour was over, and it was 12:55.
We were also now at the other end of the palace, and near a statue garden. On the way back to the bus, a few more
exterior shots were captured.
One of the last pictures outside the palace was a selfie.
We now had to trek back through the restaurant...
...through the plaza, and up the hill to the bus pick-up spot.
While waiting, for the bus, I got another picture of the mountains. In this shot, the striped house in the right
foreground is where the wooden swing up above was located. Also, part of the gondola system can be seen on top of
the mountain on the left edge of this shot.
I was also able to capture a close-up of the gondola at the very top of the hill using the zoom lens - there are two
cars running, one just getting to the top, the other about to come down.
The bus finally arrived, and we boarded to start our ascent down the twisty-turny road back down into the heart of the
town of Sinaia. Alex told us of a few places that he recommend to eat, and shop.
On the way, I captured the top of the monestary.
A restaurant with outdoor eating pods (with a casino in the background).
Our bus dropped us off at 1:30 after a ten minute ride from the palace, and we were essentially in the middle of town -
the bustle middle, not the geographical middle.
We were told that service, due to the European way as well as the short-staffness, was going to be slow - so don't
expect a sit-down lunch to be too quick. We were told to be back at the drop-off at 3:15, giving us nearly two hours
to eat and do a little shopping / browsing.
We decided to eat at a location called "Bucegi".
There was outdoor seating available, but we decided to go inside. We were seated at 1:37.
Yes, the image of the door - visible from our table - is blurry for some reason (I have no idea what the phone focused
on as there isn't a signle thing in the picture that is in focus).
Linda took this picture of me while we waited for our waitress to take our order.
I ordered the snitel de pui (chicken schnitzel) with a roasted vegetables, and Linda ordered the Sarmale
(cabbage stuffed with a pork, beef, and rice mixture). A couple minutes after ordering, the waitress returned to
let Linda know they were out of the Sarmale. So she changed her order to the snitel de pui too.
Our meals arrived at 2:08.
Two young ladies, one with a four year old girl, sat at the table next to us. They initiated conversation by asking
if we were American because of our accent. We wound up talking with them for a good half hour while we waited for our
meals and ate. We talked to them about living in Romania, visiting, working, travel, and even parenting.
We eventually left at 2:45.
We stopped in a store called "Mega Image" (in English: "Mega Image"). Because the logo is IDENTICAL to the Food
Lion logo, we can only surmize that they have the same parent company.
We got a couple prices of common foods for comparison.
This tuna is equal to about $2.40 per can.
And they sell eggs in sets of 10, not a dozen. Maybe that has something to do with metric conversion...
These eggs are about $2.00 a dozen.
Just outside the store was a roundabout. The sculpture was in the middle of the round about and the flowers -
still in bloom - were along the outside of the roundabout roadway.
We walked down the sidewalk a little to a vertical mall. On the third floor was a clothing store. We looked around
but one thing I found interesting was the price tag on some (probably most) of there items. Here's an example. Not
only does it list the size two different ways, it shows how much it is in eight - EIGHT - different currencies.
Conveniently, at the time of this writing, the Euro is essentially €1 to $1.
Play time was over, and we boarded the bus again.
We initially headed in the direction of the palace - but took the road to the right as we approached the road up
the mountain.
Some sights on the way to Brasov, including the Queen's palace, mountains, churches, and other sights.
This is a 125 foot tall steel cross, dedicated to solders that lost their lives in war. It is illuminated
at night. This is the worlds tallest cross on a mountain.
A number of the roundabouts had decorated centers.
After a little more than an hour, we arrived in Brasov. We started our walk through town, to the square.
This is an orthodox church. Well, sort of. At the time, the Orthodox church wasn't allowed to be built on the square,
so it was built behind it. Eventually, they built the bell tower on the square.
It was probably a ten minute walk from the bus to the far side of the square. Here is a 200°-or-so
stitch of the square.
After some discussion, and having some landmarks were pointed out, such as a couple churches, the mountain sign,
and, of course, shops and restaurants, we had to be back in front of the Starbucks® at 5:25 - so we had about
45 minutes.
What type of coffee would you like?
We strolled down the street that - in the stitch - was in the middle to the right a little.
We got our souveniers, especially our shot glass, then decided to visit the Orthodox church.
These are from inside. While I tried to get a picture of the artwork in the dome, I could not because someone turned
the lights off right when I tried to, and I couldn't keep the camera still long enough to get a usable image, even
after changing the settings to make dark photos easier to capture (turned up the ISO and reduced exposure).
We walked across the square, again, to the meeting point in front of Starbucks®.
While waiting for the rest of our group to gather, I grabbed a picture of the moon - how often does one see the moon
from a quarter of the way around the world?
At the targeted departure time, Alex counted the group, and we started back to the bus.
To make a longer story shorter, there was a couple from another Viking tour group that was left beind by their guide.
While our guide counted the group everytime we were somewhere - be it on the bus or at a location - to make sure we
were all present before we left. This couple said that their guide apparently does more of a "looks like we're all
here" sort of check. They followed us back to our bus and rode with us to the hotel.
Our hotel was the Qosmo Hotel. We were going to spend the night there and in the morning, head to Transylvania, and
then back to Bucharest. Our luggage had to be out at 10:00 AM, and we had to be on the bus at 11:00.
The hotel was across the street from a really big mall - the Coresi Shopping Resort. Part of the reason it was so
big was because it was only one floor - so they spread out rather than up.
We were on our own for dinner. We could have eaten in the hotel restaurant, but we felt that the options would
have been better at the mall - and we were told there were a number of places to eat at the mall. We didn't want
a big meal anyway, since we had a late-ish lunch.
We crossed the street and came across a skatepark - and we didn't even notice at the time that there was actually a
wind turbine in the middle of the parking lot, clearly visible behind the skatepark from this perspective.
Here's a map of the mall, with some walking paths marked on it.
We entered and followed the path of the dark blue line, but couldn't find the food court. Next to the supermarket
(Auchan), where the bright green box is, was a small take-out restaurant, but that was all that we could find.
We walked down the corridor continuing along the dark blue line and where the line turns to light blue, we saw the
exit doors ahead (near where the light blue line ends). We walked around the mall again, following the light blue
line, and again, couldn't find the food court. When we got back to the area where the dark blue line turned light
blue, Linda said "Maybe it's outside." So we walked toward the doors that we could see and at the end of the light
blue line... was the food court.
Well OK then.
We certainly weren't going to eat at one of the chains - afterall, we were four thousand miles away from home and
we wanted to enjoy local cuisine. And we found "Restaurant Sergiana" (the second yellow box on the map).
The maitre d' asked how many, we said "2", and he told the waitress to seat us in a section
with an English speaking waiter and to bring us menus in English also. But we didn't get menus in English. Perhaps
it was the look on our faces, but eventually the maitre d' came over and delivered the lone remaining menu in English,
taking away the others.
We were given an appetizer of bread with pork pate and red onions.
We shared a bottle of local wine.
We reviwed the menus.
Linda again decided she wanted the Sarmale. But this restaurant was out of them too. She chose the next best thing,
Bavarian pork with cabbage. Linda took a big bite out of the pepper, only to find it was a hot pepper. A really hot
pepper...
I had the pork stuffed with mushrooms. It was similar to the dish I had in Bucharest.
We ordered ONE papanosh, a fried donut like confection with sour cream and berry jam. Apparently an order
consists of two... so we each had one.
Admittedly we ate a little more than we really wanted. But it was still good, and we did eat it all.
We finished up at the restaurant, and headed back to the hotel across the street.
It had rained a little while we ate, and it was a little bit drizzly on our way back. The skate park was
now vacant too.
This stitch gives an idea of the size of the mall too.
To call the elevator, you don't press a button, but rather a smooth touch pad.
The lights on our floor in the hotel (and I'm sure on all floors, would be off, until someone got into proximity -
then they would automatically turn on.
Further, our room was of a style best called "nuvo industrial". That means there was "exposed concrete" - or at least
painting and or textures of some kind to make it look like it.
We aren't fans.
Another feature of this room was a shower that had a glass wall facing the sleeping area. There is a curtain that
can be closed so one can shower in private.
We aren't fans.
We didn't have anything to "unpack" due to our lone carry-on baggage. But we put on our PJs, washed up, relaxed a
little, and went to sleep.