Bucharest, Day 1
Arriving in to 70’s-style Bucharest Baneasa Airport the crowd was welcomed by possibly the worlds shortest luggage carousel. The 10m carousel meant a strictly on-one, one-off policy for all the bags, and a ridiculous wait to get all everything on and off.
Radu picked me up and gave me a whistle stop tour of the city en route to the apartment he was putting me up in. On first site Bucharest has a long, thin city centre with smatterings of French architecture - including a Romanian version of the Arc de Triumph - surrounded by sprawling 50’s and 60’s communist blocks. Radu reliably informed me that apart from Caucescu’s reign, a large reason there are not too many old buildings in Bucharest is that it sits in an earthquake zone…and that the sturdy, externally bland concrete block I’m staying in will have no problems surviving any future earthquakes.
After freshening up in my centrally located Comfortable 3* Apartment I set out on a stroll of the town. First stop was the White Horse, an English pub with a twist (chain smokers and pumping, hard house music), situated on a back street like Beirut – pot holed and un-tarmaced. As I found out over my time in Bucharest, these kind of back streets are far from unusual, and rather complement the driving style! (Pavements everywhere were potholed, and the cars feel free to park on the pavements in any old way they wish leaving pedestrians somewhat stranded and having to walk in the road to get around parked cars.)
A couple of drinks later I found myself in local company and moving on to “downtown”. This strip of bars and clubs just behind the morning fruit and veg market provided a selection of similar places - all free to get into with pounding europop and dancing girls on podiums…hot, sweaty and smoky.
One thing that did stand out from a standard Saturday night out in London was a profusion of brides in these bars. Local tradition has it that a small group of the wedding party “kidnap” the bride and take her somewhere nearby, for a ransom deal to be set up for the groom to get the bride back (think a bottle of whisky!).
