Passage To Eastern Europe Viking River Cruise
Day 5: Tuesday, November 01, 2022 - Bucharest, Romania
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 8,609 Linda; 9,456 Steve
After spending some time modifying the previous days' pictures - over 400 so far - I decided to keep the original aspect ratio of 16:9 in tact, rather than changing it to 16:10. Not much of a difference, but hopefully it will speed up my process a little. We'll see...
As we were back at the Marriott - excuse me, the JW Marriott Grand Hotel - breakfast was the same as it was
two days ago.
Linda had the egg benedict, but I had a made to order omelette, not scrambled eggs.
While Linda really, REALLY likes egg benedict, she also likes lox and bagels. I pointed out that there was
smoked salmon (aka lox) available if she wanted. She stuck with the benedict because it would be easier for her
to have lox and bagel at home than egg benedict.
The camera has a "picture review" that is programmable, allowing it to be viewed for a number of seconds, or not
at all. The EOS R is a mirrorless camera and the preview can be done on the screen on the back of the camera, or
in the viewfinder. It is sometimes hard to quickly tell if an image is perfect in the viewfinder (I experienced
this a lot taking pictures of the Faberge display on our roadtrip earlier this year).
I was taking a picture on a still bus down a street. I took a look at the preview, and it was a little blurry. I
thought that the autofocus should worked fine as it had in the past - like, yesterday. I put it on manual focus,
and tried to focus again, but something just wasn't working right.
Longer story shorter, I discovered that somehow the viewfinder focus dial (there is a tiny little wheel that allows
the viewfinder to be put into focus - which is great for someone to use the camera that may wear glasses as they
would be able to adjust the focus so they don't need to wear glasses when using the camera) was turned, and that
put the viewfinder out of focus. Perhaps this happened when I put the camera in the bag. So I adjusted the dial
and all was better. MOVE ON!
This morning we were going to visit the Mogoşoaia Palace.
Today's guide was Korina.
We departed the hotel at 8:55, and had an hour drive ahead of us.
Another view of the cathedral, which will be the largest in Europe when it open (I tried to remove the crane and
most of the telephone wire from the image, but on the building, it was obvious - so I left it).
Down the road a little was this NATO monument. It is based on the Wings of Freedom monument in Bucharest near the
airport, and is symbolic of the NATO summit meeting in 2008.
Rush hour traffic. (Yes, they have that in Europe too.)
Some city sights.
There were a couple roofs - and only a couple - that, for some reason, had large gatherings of pigeons.
We arrived at the palace and had a little walk down the main entry path.
Along the way, we passed the church on the property.
More of the property, inside the gates. It is rather plain looking for a palace. There's a lake too.
It might be hard to tell from this persective, but this is a Murano glass mosaic floor. Part of the floor is
also visible in the bootie picture above.
We learned about the fate of the family, and specifically, that Prince Constantine was forced to watch his wife and
four sons - Constandin, Ştefan, Radu, and Matei - all be beheaded by Sultan Ahmed III.
We continued through more rooms.
Some old clothing; multiple shots of the green coat as Linda took one, and I did, and then to show the detail.
This is a large - very large - tapestry. It fills an entire wall. There is a doorway in the first full image.
The tapestry was originally used for warmpth. The faces are different colors because of storage, not because
of any other reason.
Also, in the third picture, the children are not walking as they represent the Prince's executed sons in heaven.
We were done in the main portion of the house. They were finishing polishing the floor in the basement so we walked
around the property a little before we went downstairs. But for continuity, I'm showing the basement first.
There was some artwork that was moved to the basement for storage and restoration.
This is actually a nativity, painted by Sabin Balasa.
We walked around the property a little.
Near the entryway is this homage to maternity. It is a little open to interpretation as to what it really stands
for, but one is that it is Mary with baby Jesus who is slaying the serpent. Works for us.
We left the confines of the gates and headed back out. We went inside the church pictured above.
It was a little darker inside, so I did the best I could.
It seems that in Orthodox churches, there is a LOT of painted surfaces.
And further up the road.
Some flowers - still in bloom - on the property, in the garden, within the gates, and along the entry road.
Our visit to the palace was over.
We boarded the bus at 11:15 and headed to the Snagov Monestary. This would be another 45 minute to one hour drive.
On the way, more sights.
We arrived at the Monestary.
We got off the bus and had a little walk since the monestary was on an island.
We walked across the now permanent bridge to the island.
There is a house across the water that is supposed to be modeled after the famed Versailles Palace in France.
There are supposed to be unique water lillies around the island. However, "poachers" have removed pretty much all
of them, so we didn't see any.
The monestary could probably self sustain, as they had gardens, some livestock (incuding emu or ostrich), and
grape vines.
The bell tower is the oldest component of the monestary.
These medalions are probably about a foot (or more) in height.
In the tunnel under the bell tower.
A plant stand.
More property sights.
We eventually got inside. There was another "photography tax" here as well. Admittedly, the guy collecting said
fee - while I'm sure not a glamorous job - had a bit of an attitude, and even took a phone call while we were
attempting to gain entry.
Behind this wall is the altar. Women are not allowed at the altar.
The purported burial spot of Vlad.
On one side of the island was a dock on the water. Here's a 180° stitch.
Some other sights on the property.
Flowers in bloom on the property. The prilary reason there are so many pictures of flowers in bloom (at the
monestary and elsewhere) is because it is rather unusual for blooms in early November.
On the way back across the bridge, there may or may not have been what appeared to be police in scuba gear on
the bridge, and there may or may not have been an inflatable boat in the water with scuba divers about that
may or may not have been captured on a picture before the police yelled at the photographer not to take
any pictures.
The supposition was that they were looking for... a body.
We were back on the bus at 12:45, and headed back to the hotel.
At the end of the road with the monestary was this marker.
On our way back, we passed a number of sights previously seen.
Another shot of the Arc d' Triumph, and a building, and a church.
We were near the hotel and the cathedral. Here's another portion of it.
Our excursion for the day was over. And it was time for a late lunch.
In hindsight, we realize that we didn't eat "local quisine" while we were in Bucharest. It wasn't out of choice,
but rather out of proximity. Our hotel only had two restaurants: one was Cucina, and the other was the JW
Steakhouse. In walking distance, there weren't too many offerings either. Yes, we potentially could have
taken an Uber or taxi into town to a local sort of establishment, but it just didn't really work out.
Rather than eat in the hotel restaurant again, we decided to head to a location sort of across the street from
the hotel. Our destination was Allucintante.
We sat at 2:15, and reviewed the menu...
We ordered by 2:25, and had our food in fifteen minutes.
We shared a mozzarella caprese (it was supposed to be delivered as an appetizer), and a pizza quattro stagioni.
We each had a glass of wine too.
It was very good, and not too filling.
We did sit outside. There are two small drawbacks to this: some people smoke outside, like the people at the next
table over (though it actually wasn't that bad); and sometimes there are bees. And gnats. It was one bee, and just
a couple of gnats.
We sipped the wine, and enjoyed being outside as it was still unseasonably warm.
The table was finally bussed at 3:05, and at 3:18 we had to specifically request our check. The apetizer, pizza,
two glasses of wine, and tip were all about $20. Not bad.
After our late lunch, we knew we weren't going to want a full dinner, so we decided to visit the Image that was,
according to the Google Map on our phone, a couple doors down.
Right in front of the restaurant was this car that looks like it probably hasn't been run in a little while...
A few steps further down was this mother on her device, pushing the stroller back and forth with her baby in it.
So we walked down there to get a couple light items to enjoy for "dinner".
While in the store, we did some more pricing. Here ae some sausages that are - 8 out of 10 - less than $5.50
per pound.
Some cold cuts, and some good looking fresh breads and pastries
We picked up a random bottle of wine, and some cake - tort ciocolatá nucá & rom - that was
actually two pieces in one (let's just say it was pre-cut). We took the food back to room and ate after 6:00.
On our walk back from the store, I captured a still, clear, and sunny shot of the hotel and the statue in front
of it.
Tomorrow afternoon we will finally be embarking. Therefore, we had to pack and be ready to depart the hotel
in the morning at 9:00, with our luggage out by 7:30.
We spent the evening packing, eating, and watching a movie.