Bucharest

I have been to Bucarest before. It was a quick stop over in January of 2020. I had taken the all night bus from Bulgaria, arrived before sunrise walked around with my luggage til my room was ready. Went back out for dinner then back to the room early because I was exhausted. When I was younger, I would take them thinking I could save the cost of a hotel room. Back when I could sleep soundly on a pile of cold bricks.

Now that I am old, night rides are like I am auditioning for the lead role in Princess and the Pea. If, of course, the genders were swapped and the pea is a lumpy seat in a loud cramped bus smelling of diesel exhaust bouncing down the road stopping every 2 hours at a brightly lit rest stop.
And you have to carry your luggage all day then wait til the 4 pm check-in the next day to get rid of it again. Just a miserable couple of days.
Now, I catch the first transport out in the morning and get into a new town in daylight and with most of my faculties still functioning.
Plus it’s nice to be able to be able to look out the window as the scenery rolls by.
Not so much for the scenery from Odesa to Bucharest. It would make a pancake jealous with its miles and miles of flat unplanted farm land. With the lost time at the border controls and the frequent rest stops for the driver to shakeoff the boredom. It was long after dark when the bus got in.
It wasn’t too far to the room in a very residential neighborhood. It looked closer to the city center than it was when I booked it. My Bucharest days were spent walking back and forth to the city center a couple of times a day because quite frankly there isnt much here else to do. Bucharest is made up of long long city blocks of communism style concrete buildings. Other that the shear size of everything it gets boring pretty quickly. I almost had to take rest breaks to shake of the boredom.

In order to give Bucharest a fair shot, I decided to extend my stay at a more centrally located apartment. It saved some walking but mostly I just had more time to wander around the old town.

To my surprise, I found myself looking for dinner on Valentine’s Day. The heart balloons and buildings lit up in red should have clued me in but it took a few attempts to get seated for dinner as a single before I realized that I was an unwelcome waste of a tabletop. They were not going to waste a 2 seat table for one poorly dressed tourist.  Luckily, Burger King is still not a suitable date night option.

Although the oldtown gives a good first impression with its lively restaurants, bars and shops, a scratch of the surface reveals a sketchy underbelly. Strip clubs, shot bars and hookers walking the dark back alleys. It never felt dangerous but it always felt like I was just getting lucky by not having my credit card skimmed or pockets picked. To be clear, I had no problems and everyone was very nice.
I do get tired of the old town walks so bought a 24 hr bus pass and just rode around town  to see if I was missing something. To my amazement,  the monotonous 5 story apartment blocks extended out as far as the bus took me. A lot more housing than I would expect that Bucarest needs.
Overall, I was pretty bored with Bucharest. It was easy to just settle in to the room and plan my onward journey without thinking I should be out seeing or doing something.

I realized during my Travel planning, that it was good Bucharest was so boring. I was going to need a lot of time to figure out how to get out of there.

Saving space on my website server so i’ll forgo blog pics and leave this link to the trip pics. Here is a link to my google folder from my previous trip to Romania. Mostly outside of Bucharest. Much nicer I think.