A tour of Bucharest was the order for today. Last night we had been briefed by some other campers about the process of catching a bus into the city and the fact that we would need our passports to visit the Palace of Parliament. So around 9:00 we headed off on foot to the local shopping mall to find the bus into the city. Along the way we discovered that our route took us right past the US Embassy.
At the Shopping Mall (which was huge, very modern, and packed) we found the buses but the kiosk selling the bus tickets was closed. A young lady at one of the bus stops told us that there was no where else to buy tickets, and that the kiosk should be open. But then shrugged as if such things were "the norm".
A quick change of plans and we got a taxi into the heart of the city
We started our tour with a walk down the main Boulevard( Boulevard Unirii), built under the reign of the communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, this street is deliberately 6 meters longer than Paris's Champs-Elysee.
At the end of Boulevard Unirii is a building called the Palace of Parliament also built under the rule of Ceausescu. This is the second largest administration building in the world, behind the US Pentagon. We took a guided tour of this edifice (passports required) and discovered that the building is basically useless. It has over 3000 rooms most of which seemed to have been designed to enhance Ceausescu's speeches. The building was 65% finished when the revolution of 1989 over threw (and executed) Ceausescu and is only 70% complete today. From what we could tell from the tour there are occasional meetings and events held in the Palace but it is mostly unused.
The site of the Palace was chosen because it was the geologically most stable region of Bucharest, unfortunately it was also the site of one of the oldest sections of the city and the home of 40,000 residents all of whom had to be moved so that the area could be demolished to make way for the Palace.
We finished off our tour by a walk around the old section of town near the University and a very forgettable meal at a local Lebanese restaurant.