After we’d eaten breakfast and sampled another of the hotel’s fantastic range of teas, we headed to downtown Bucharest to explore. While drinking their evening coffee (after we returned from the spa), the ladies discovered that the receptionist had sent us on a complete wild goose chase. To be honest, we kind of knew that anyway, but now we had it in black-and-white. Eventually we found our way into the old town and began looking around. But at 10 am on a Friday morning, many of the shops and bars weren’t open yet. I suspect it’s more of an afternoon and evening economy than it is an early morning gig. But that didn’t stop us from exploring and enjoying the sites and down the little alleyway we spotted the umbrella art installation.
From here we walked to the Parliament building, around the corner and up the longest hill ever to the Senate building, and finally along the third side of the square to Bucharest Cathedral. Rather than being a protestant cathedral which you typically find in England with its green/grey roof, this was a Roman Catholic cathedral complete with shiny golden roofs. The cathedral wasn’t open today, but we could go and look at the exterior of the building after a few moments gazing at the exterior of the building we decided to walk back into town and look for some lunch.
The choice of lunch places was dire considering that we wanted to be sat inside. The thing you need to know about the bakeries and other sandwich shop-type eateries, dear reader, is that very often? They have all their goods in the window and also a serving hatch unlike in England where we queue inside; the customers queue outside and are served through the hatch. This rendered most of the places we would have selected for lunch unusable. I guess if it had been summer and a lot warmer outside, we’d have bought our sandwich or baguette from one of the bakeries and perched on a wall to eat it. With the clear skies, an intermittent chilly breeze and the low winter sun we needed to sit inside. Fortunately, an American Diner came to our rescue, and we retreated inside out of the wind.
After lunch we ambled back to the hotel for a round of hot drinks and a rest. On our way back to the hotel we passed a bakery selling the largest doughnut twists we’d ever seen. And the shocking thing was they were only £1 each!
The sofas in the hotel lounge aren’t the most comfortable but we enjoyed taking the weight off our feet. Next to the sofa I was perched on was a collection of magazines and pamphlets, including an excerpt from a Lonely Planet Guide to Romania. The pages that described Bucharest included a dozen recommendations for food. Glancing down them I filtered out the ones I didn’t think the ladies would enjoy, settling on a Turkish restaurant. Not knowing how busy their Friday evening service would be, I figured we should book a table.
Fast forward a little, and we were leaving the hotel to trek across the city to find our evening meal. After a 40-minute walk through heavy traffic, we arrived at the restaurant and were their first customers of the evening. The menu was available via a QR code, which was a little unexpected. Not knowing which dish to pick, I figured it’d be best to opt for the sharing platter which provided a little of several different things.
Overall, it was worth the wait. And we were glad that we hadn’t added on starters! To finish, I ordered a Turkish tea, which the waiter added at no charge.
After a chilly walk back to the hotel the ladies are relaxing with a coffee, while your scribe is unfolding our day’s adventures to you all. Thanks for reading today’s blog – good night.