Romania is a place I knew very little about. During my school years I remember volunteers travelling there, post revolution, to help out at the orphanages when the true horror of the conditions children had been kept in had been revealed. The newly wed couple whose wedding I attended this year had relocated to Bucharest and I took advantage of the 5 hour direct flight (FlyDubai) from Dubai to enjoy a weekend city break.
The advantage of being hosted in any country is the scant advance research and preparation required of you. I simply packed my bag, coordinated meeting with Kathy and Emma and set off to the airport.
Lime Scooters 
Rent-a-bike
The currency in Romania is Leu and prepaid phone plans are silly cheap at about 10EUR with Vodafone for a month. In fact, I found everything in Bucharest to be relatively inexpensive and, with Uber in operation, transportation was a breeze. There are also public scooter and bike rentals everywhere. Download the Lime app and you can pick up and drop off your scooter all over the city. Everyone I encountered in the city spoke English.
My first night we attended a craft beer festival. Coming from the UAE where lager is the most available beer in bars, I was in my element. In fact, Bucharest is a day drinker’s delight, with most cafes offering outdoor lounging and cocktails.
On my first day we took a free walking tour around the city. There is a lot of information to take in and I learned about the recent history of Romania. Ceaucescau used the earthquake of ’79 and resulting damage as an excuse to relocate a huge proportion of the people to communist block style apartments thus clearing the area for his grand building project. Ceaușescu was the son of a sheep farmer, with no architecture, engineering or project management background, but had been enamored by a previous trip Asia and decided he wanted the Grand Palace to be very, very big. He picked the project tender based on the largest scale model which was submitted which is how Anca Petrescu, a 25 year old recent graduate architect, won the bid. Over the next 10 years it is said that 1.5 billion was pumped into the projects and his visits to the site would often result in redesigns and more expenditure. During that time, the people suffered austerity measures with limits on electricity consumption decreasing to 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the night and having to queue to receive rations of food.
Ceaușescu’s ambition and eagerness to overhaul the capital often meant that people were left scrambling to save homes and buildings lying in the path of his great vision. It is reported that the police would order families out of homes in an area overnight. Occupants would leave with the bare minimum, anticipating a future trip to clear larger items from their house, only to return later to find the whole district razed to the ground. They say necessity is the mother of invention and it was the imminent doom of churches and other landmarks which resulted in Eugeniu Iordăchescu, becoming the saviour of many of Bucharest’s buildings. It is said that Ceaușescu had flippantly remarked that if those imploring him on behalf of the preservation of these buildings wanted to save them, they could move them. Iordăchescu says he fixed on the concept for solving the problem of moving entire buildings as he watched a waiter walk past with several glasses balanced on a tray. He eventually engineered a way to extract the buildings with their foundations intact and move them to safety on the equivalent of railway tracks. Later an entire apartment building would be moved with residents still in situ and electrics still connected. The success of this endeavor surely pleased Ceaușescu, after all, it was his idea in the first place.
A tour well worth doing is the one which takes you to Ceaușescu’s home which costs 50 lei (just over $11USD). As luxurious as the contents feel it is worth remembering that the artifacts you can see represent a fraction of what was found in the home post revolution, the majority having been removed and confiscated by the government. You can imagine the dismay of the people who had been living in austerity for years when they finally understood the start contrast between their lives and that of their leader.
There is a tour guide, whom I named Igor (actual name not remembered), who really is the polish on this tour. He recounts details, dates and historical accounts with a rhythmic slightly off monotone and has incredible recall. Occasionally a visitor would ask about some architectural details they had noticed or for him to expand on some of his accounts. Igor would flawlessly respond in exquisite detail and satisfy every inquiry to the fullest. My favorite moment of the trip was when, with his back towards some impressively large double doors, he announced the next room as, with a dramatic flourish, he drew the doors open and glided backwards into the next scene.
Apart from the incredible history surrounding this city, the summer shows the city modelling itself on Parisian coffee culture, boulangeries and echoes of the city’s architecture and landmarks. Many cafes sport outdoor seating and lounging areas and offer both non and alcoholic beverages. I get the sense that during winter the vibe may switch a little to a more chilly and less welcoming atmosphere but this, I feel, would be the optimum time to take a trip to Transylvania. I noticed Romania embraces it’s vampire connection with countless (pun intended) tourist knickknacks boasting Dracula’s image. I believe a future return visit during Halloween is necessary and will likely be a memorable and rewarding experience.