I first arrived in London in 1971, here in Grosvenor Square, adjacent to the American Embassy, and stayed in this hotel. There are statues of Roosevelt and Regan in the square as this has always been the center for Americans in London. There are now three Marriott properties nearby.

I am staying in one on Marriott “points” or I would not be here in Mayfair which today is full of wealthy Arabs and expensive beyond my means ..  in these post expense account days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

London was fascinating to me but a sad place in the early 70’s. All the buildings were black and the street lighting was poor. Everyone wore black clothes. London was cheap for an American.

Today London is super wealthy. And expensive. Russians and Arabs and Indians and other superrich store their money here in the leading financial capital of the world. The city is crowded with tourists, very multinational, and clean and beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

They even have American Burgers.

 

 

 

 

 

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You can easily walk all around London.  And use the underground system. It is easy to master and will take you anywhere. Today they have stored value (Oyster) cards so you simply press the card on a reader to enter and exit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

London has so many truly historic sites and they all are worth a visit.  To name a few:

The Tower. Seat of power for the royalty since the time of William the Conqueror and his Normans.

 

 

 

 

 

St. Paul’s Cathedral. Christopher Wren’s masterpiece.

He also built numerous local churches to replace those destroyed in the great fire of 1666. And they are worth tracking down.

 

 

 

 

Westminster Abbey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 900 year old houses of Parliament buildings. Plus Big Ben. (not my photo)

 

 

 

 

Greenwich. And the Royal Observatory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This city is ground zero for Play enthusiasts. Unfortunately, they are no longer inexpensive. But you can go down to Leicester Square in the afternoon and buy half priced tickets for shows that have not sold out for that evening.

The plays can run for up to 2 and a half hours, and the evening performances finish quite late. I like to go to the afternoon matinees, get out between 4 and 5, and have a pint to decompress and discuss the experience and then have dinner.
There are over a hundred plays on offer in London as I write this. We saw three this visit. All excellent with “The Ferryman” being the best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CAMarchand is on her own today with plans to visit three art museums. This old Engineer could never endure such an exposure to art.  But I do love two of the Museums here:

The British Museum (World History)

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The Victoria and Albert Museum (Natural History)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course there is history everywhere here that you can absorb simply walking around.

Famous persons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Military History

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The construction of the city itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Some things that occupied me this week included a few pre-reformation churches.
One here that was the local church of Samuel Pepys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here one still displaying the coat of arms of Charles the First.

 

 

 

 

 

Every one holds some surprise. Here quite by chance where Robert Browning was married.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting little pubs are everywhere. In fact still everywhere in the country.

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And of course, endless shopping. Like on Saville Row.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Or, just enjoy the many peculiarities of the British

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Two little personal anecdotes just for the fun of remembering them.

I stood outside my hotel in Grosvenor square in a three-piece suit happy with the high 70’s weather until my new director arrived with his wife to meet me over dinner. His tie askew he informed me of the relentless and terrible heat wave underway. Funny like Alisdair Cooke’s recalling his all time favorite British weather news headline: “80 again today. No relief in sight”

Living in the UK, I travelled on business throughout Europe. After 4 years all of my clothes were wool and totally unsuitable for the Ohio river valley where I showed up to supervise the manufacture of Neoprene .. in a hand-made suit with huge lapels and bell bottomed trousers, two tone shoes, a rabbit fur coat and a natty brown leather purse.  The plant manager took me to lunch and drank milk. We each thought that the other had beamed in from mars.

 

The British had the first global Empire, immense power and wealth, and keen interest in the history and cultures of the world.

They virtually invented archeology,  poking into and recording information, and studying historical and unfamiliar cultural sites around the world. And they carried off all of the best of the best objects to the British Museum in London.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole walls of carvings from ancient cities. Room after room each describing with their objects an ancient civilization.

An overwhelming display of objects from ancient Egypt.

On and on. Prehistory. The history of Europe, Greece, Rome .. The Vikings, the Saxons .. Japan, China, India, Africa, even little New Zealand.

 

You get the idea. Except to add a mention of ever changing special exhibitions .. the development of writing ..  ceramics .. the Scythians ..

Plenty of gold, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the greatest objects known. To name a few..

The Rosetta stone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The swimming reindeer (from 11,000 BC). On loan. Sorry.

 

The Standard of Ur.    2500 BC

 

 

 

 

 

The Reliquary holding a thorn from the crown of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mechanical galleon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too much under one roof for a morning visit. But don’t come to London without a stop here.

I even had a chance to research for an upcoming trip to Sicily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In London, travelling with CAMarchand.

Spent the day with a tour of the Tower.  When William of Normandy came over to this island to increase his real-estate holdings he first of all defeated the Saxon army at Hastings. The defeated army retreated to the old Roman town of London, so William (now the Conquerer) followed them to complete his hold.  He immediately razed some of the old Roman walls on the bank of the River Thames, and began to build the white tower. The first construction at the assembly of buildings known as “the Tower”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

William moved in immediately.  This construction soaring over the town of one or two story buildings was meant to communicate the wealth and power of the new overlords.

Here is a picture of William’s private chapel, still being used after 900 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now a major World Heritage tourist site, the Tower is regarded along with Westminster as the soul of England.  It has housed royalty, the mint, an armory, a repository for the crown jewels, and served as a prison .. for which it  is mostly remembered.

The white tower today houses an exhibition of weapons and armor from the past 500 years.  The crown jewels and gold plate etc. are also exhibited in the Tower.

Most of the executions at the Tower (actually up the hill at the site of the current Tower tube station) occurred in the 1500’s during the period when England vacillated back and forth between Catholics and Protestants who killed one another.

Here is some graffiti carved during the 1500’s by religious captives waiting for torture and the axe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Famous persons may or may not have been treated better.  Thomas Beckett languished here for years but had his own apartment with his books and papers and food and servants.

Sir Walter Raleigh had his own rooms. Here is his office.

 

 

 

 

 

Henry the Eighth, of 6 wives, had two of them beheaded here.  For both he did them the courtesy of allowing the beheading to take place more privately inside the Tower grounds. He even imported a special swordsman from France each time who could take their head with one stroke, axes being more hit and miss.

Perhaps appropriately the Tower is permanently inhabited by Ravens.

 

 

 

 

Athens covers a huge area. There is no downtown with high rise buildings. The city just flows up from the seafront in a continuous wave of shops and cafes and coffee houses.

 

 

 

 

 

Divides to go around the hill of the Acropolis.

 

 

 

 

 

Fills the valley, and splashes onto the distant hills to the North. 

 

 

 

 

The Acropolis is the main tourist attraction.  It broods over the city in every direction. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vertical, defensible hill the Acropolis sits on had natural springs and caves, attractive real estate from the most ancient times.  Here is what the hill top looked like at its height of power, rendered through the miracle of legos.

 

 

 

 

 

And some photos of the hill top today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is, of course, history literally lying all around Athens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It gets almost humorous to read the inscriptions on the well-marked sites: we were building an air duct for the subway and found this .. we were excavating to build this building and found this .. we built this museum and found all this, which we are still studying ..

The area west and northwest of the Acropolis is one giant ancient historical site with ruins everywhere, just out in the open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are good museums.  They make you marvel at how advanced and wealthy the Greeks were both so long ago and for so long.  They make you sad that mainly only fragments cross time to reach us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Athens today.

Bright blue skys.  Troups of tourists, even in December.  Crowded streets. Grand open spaces. Significant buildings. Parks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a long quiet avenue up to the Acropolis that affords a good walk. It goes all along the west and south sides. Around the area of the ancient ruins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best area of the city is east and north east of the Acropolis, a nicely crowded area of clean streets, cafes, shopping of all kinds.

The area near the waterfront has quiet residential areas, boulevards and plenty of city.  For me it was not particularly interesting nor compelling. This is not really a European city. I kept feeling that I was perhaps in South America. The waterfront itself is blocked off from the city by a limited access motorway.

The new investment of the recovery is happening to the west of the downtown.  New office buildings, distribution. Big box shopping, auto showrooms.  All automobile based.

There are some very bad areas in this city.  Some in the North.  One around the central market and in both directions downhill.  Broken black dirty pavement. Trash. Graffiti everywhere. Goods hanging above and stacked out into the sidewalk like a bazaar. Seriously impoverished people wandering around.  My hotel is in this area. The first night I arrived after dark and wandered out to look for some dinner and into this area and was shaken by the poverty and dirt.

Café life is big here. Especially on the avenues where the tourists are likely to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My hotel was a quiet retreat up above the streets.

 

 

 

 

 

The only restaurants I could walk to were either fast food and or low grade tourist fare.  So, many days I would go through the fish market, buy a fish and take it to one of the restaurants that would charcoal grill it.  Simple and fresh and delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s about it. My little 2016 sojourn south through the Balkans is coming to a close. I am heading home for Christmas. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for coming along this Fall. 

Stopped in Larissa heading south.  The train passes the mountains that include Mount Olympus, here through a very dirty train window.  I think the ancient sacred mountain is actually on the other side of these out of view.

 

 

 

 

Not many tourists come to Larissa.  I am told that when it comes to Greece the islands are everything.  Still, I like to go to real places off of the tourist circuit as well as the main attractions.  And I’m glad I stopped here. Larissa is a lively and funky town. Had really good hotel rooms, which always makes a place seem better.  Right on the ancient center, as this view from my balcony shows.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

This theater was used for about 400 years before being made unusable by an earthquake. It looks like some restoration work is in progress.

 

 

 

 

 

But I like Larissa for what it is today.  With less than 200,000 people it is a very manageable size. Almost all of the downtown is pedestrian friendly, and it is busy through the day. There are many many bars and restaurants and coffee houses mingled in with the shopping. I do not even have to squint to think I might be on the left bank in Paris 30 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first impression walking around in the morning after I arrived was that there is no way this town could ever fill all of the available seats. The answer is that everyone of every age and dress and orientation or whatever comes out for some time during the day and into who knows when in the night.  For coffee and cigarettes, drinks and cigarettes, meals at all times.

The shops, strangely, are only open between 9 and 2PM, and then two evenings a week between 6 and 8:30.  And there is a lot here.  Upscale shopping. Specialty shops for bread, meats, cheeses, pastries, cookies, flowers etc. Markets and hardware and household shops for everyday living. And old fashioned shops we no longer see, like tailors, key shops, repair shops.

As you would expect the food and wines are good. 

 

 

 

 

 

There is some good walking along the river.

 

 

 

 

 

This is the kind of town I could spend a lot of time in.

 

 

 

 

 

Except that this one in particular is very far away.  And there is not much English. None on my hotel TV.  And I think I would get tired of the smoking and the horrific graffiti.

No, I have my train ticket down to Athens, my last stop on this fall tour.

I stopped for the week in Thessaloniki, just over the Northern border into Greece. On the sea coast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before arriving I had been led by the international press to believe that Greece is bankrupt and descending into poverty and desperation.  HA.  This place is New York City compared to anywhere I have been in my travels this fall.

There are miles of boulevards lined with shopping.

 

 

 

 

 

And upscale consumer merchandise, not plumbing supplies.

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty of comparatively well-dressed people bustle around the city all day, and at night glamor shows up.  My guide book says that this city has more restaurants per capita than any city in Europe.  Certainly they are everywhere.  Probably forty within 300 yards of my hotel, and they are busy from 2PM until after 1AM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The restaurant food is very good, and inexpensive just now with the dollar so strong.

 

 

 

 

 

A glass of wine is 3 or 4 dollars.  An excellent dinner with wine is say 20 to 30 bucks.

I am not going to write much about Greek history. The cradle of western civilization. Certainly there is plenty of history to track down here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just two comments about Thessaloniki:  The city was named after Alexander the Great’s sister.   And, the town was not taken from the Turks until 1914.

Some city snaps:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing I like about being here is that I can walk the boulevards taking in the city environment.  Or along the sea wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or east through a seaside park away from the traffic.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yes, the comments:

Not good things.  Too many beggars.  Way too much graffiti.

Different things.  LOTS of feral cats. Many millennial females have a silver ring through their right nostril. Very thin, like a piece of wire. Their petrol pumps have exceedingly long hoses.

 

 

 

 

 

Good things:  Real tomatoes and bacon. Excellent whole grilled fish. Lamb chops to die for. Tiny chops, not mutton. Exotic spices. Charcoal grilled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, the light.  Byron was correct. The light seems to have a particular glowing quality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have my train ticket south. Off the coast. Into the hills. To have a look.

 

 

Sofia sits in a mountain valley roughly in the center of the Balkan Peninsula. Most of the population live in the city making it feel gigantic. Certainly it has some of everything.  There are bigger than life old gray communist buildings.   Areas of crumble and poverty. But everywhere signs of rapid recovery from their troubled impoverished past. New shops, storefronts, restored buildings.  A new subway system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning fog the old communist center can look like a gothic dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is an old city.  Neolithic settlements are here from 7000BC.  But its real history begins as a Thracian settlement from around 1400BC.  Later an important Roman city and the home of the Emperor Constantine. The old Roman main street still runs just outside (and probably under) my hotel.

 

 

 

 

There is a large and vibrant downtown and pedestrian only area, with lots of comparatively well-dressed people enjoying the ambiance, the bars and eateries and their friends.  Most of the restaurants in the pedestrian area itself are touristy Italian type places and the street smells like hot pizza cheese and cigarettes. But in the blocks nearby I found plenty of real and interesting restaurants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of a few of many fine downtown buildings.

1. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you go outside the city center there is a large ring of terrible soviet style mid-rise apartment blocks. But then you reach the suburbs where I believe the story of Sofia today is being written.  Big shining new office buildings.  Shopping centers.  This is where the new investment is landing.  And it is all automobile centered, right down to the MacDonald drive-through restaurants. And of course many glittering auto showrooms.

 

Plovdiv

This city had many names over the centuries.  It is reckoned by some measure I do not know to be the oldest city in Europe.  Anyway, my favorite is Philippopolis:  seat of King Phillip, Father of Alexander the Great.

It was founded by the Thracians as a trading post for trade with the Hellenes.  Passing to the Celts, Macedonians, Romans, Turks, etc.  It was flattened at least twice, and there are ruins everywhere, many just lying around in the open unmarked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most comprehensive are those of the Roman city. Even though only a small part of the city has been excavated there are the remains of public buildings, baths, a stadium. And of interest to an old engineer: an ancient water system, and sewers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today the old town has been beautifully restored with a large pedestrian only center, making it a pleasure to explore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Thracians

This area of the world was the center of the Thracian civilization, some of the earliest of European peoples.  The little we know about them we mostly know through the written records of the Greeks. In the Iliad they are described as allies of the Trojans. And the Romans, who conquered them early in the first century.

But the excellent History museum here in Sofia has an exhibition of Thracian artefacts that is very interesting.

Apparently they moved south into this area in the early bronze age around 1500BC. They were often described as barbarians, perhaps because they distained living in cities and had a tribal civilization comprised of numerous small villages.  They were noted for their horsemanship (their main god is always depicted on horseback), metalworking, and music.

There are plentiful metal ores in the Balkans, and the Thracians worked copper here, then bronze. Their bronzes cover a broad range of manufacture from weapons and armor to household goods and ornaments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their most famous works were in silver and gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And wine. These mysterious people living on the edge of prehistory were often referred to as the masters of winemaking.  It makes me laugh to think that is perhaps why they are still regarded as the forefathers of the local population .. even though so many other groups and peoples subsequently settled here. The local wine region is called Thracian Valley.

 

Travel note.

It has been quite a week here weather-wise.  I arrived and it was 60 degrees, but within a week it was freezing and snowing.  Going to museums was a good strategy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entire fall I have been mister “two weeks late”  Because everywere I have been I have been told:  “Oh, you should have been here two weeks ago when the weather was wonderful”.

On the bus tomorrow down to Greece.

Travelled by Bus down to Nis from Belgrade.  Pretty easy to negotiate the well organized bus station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice motorway all the way.  Through a very agricultural, rolling countryside. Stopped half way at a tidy rest stop.

 

 

 

 

 

I just stopped in NIS to see some more of Serbia, and because I did not want to take a 7 or 8 hour bus ride down into Bulgaria.

Nis sits in a valley with a fast running river through the middle of town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NIS has the look of a big country town. The occasional tractor or horse drawn wagon comes along the streets. NIS is one of the oldest cities in Europe, and over the centuries has gone back and forth between the east and west. The town was wrested from the Ottoman Empire as recently as the late 1800’s.

One of the top tourist attractions in town is a tower built in the early 1800’s as a “warning” by the Ottomans using the skulls of Serbs who tried an uprising.  I did not go to have a look.

AN old fortress commands a site over the river.  Today it is a city park.  There are various bits and pieces of ruins here, but not much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like it that they have converted the old Turkish baths into a night club.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a small pretty nice downtown. But actually I have never seen a place like this. Where there has been some investment there might be a good restaurant, a glittering shopping mall, a good hotel. And there are some of these. But they stand in a sea of poverty, shambles and mess.  

A good restaurant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A local restaurant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Irish pub.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poverty

 

 

 

 

 

One interesting feature of NIS is that the city smells like an ongoing barbecue.   You can see the smoke from this shop.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a Rostilj, a small charcoal grill shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they are everywhere.  They grill up various meats and sell them as sandwiches into the street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnote.  Since you asked, this is what I mean by “crumbling”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here in one photo is the effect of investment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The third world’s cycle of sadness. No investment leads to no tools and no productivity so no wealth creation so no quality of life so no investment.

Heading south into Bulgaria tomorrow.

I was predisposed to like Belgrade by the ease of my arrival.  The Nikola Tesla airport was tidy and efficient. The luggage came quickly and the ATM worked. The taxi desk sent a young fellow who spoke perfect English to walk me to the taxi line and see that I was easily loaded.

We zipped into town on a fine new motorway and arrived to the attractive sight of Christmas lights in the streets and trees and many buildings lit up.

 

 

 

 

 

There are a number of things to like about the downtown.

They have plenty of parking garages, so not all of the sidewalks are  blocked with parked cars. 

There are good sidewalks throughout the downtown.  And there is a very large and busy “pedestrian only” area in the old town where the buildings are in good repair. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of nice open spaces and parks.

The old Belgrade Castle sits on high ground overlooking the strategic position where the Sava river joins the Danube. Doubly strategic since this is also where the Pannonian plain meets the Balkan mountains. The site has probably been occupied since around 6000 BC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Romans built the first stone fortifications at the Castle, and some of their working remains can still be seen, like in this gate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Romans held the Castle for four hundred years. The kind of number I like to remind people of .. who believe in the enduring history and legacy of our country. Like everywhere in the Balkans it was fought over and occupied by almost everyone over the succeeding years.

Today the Castle grounds serves as a City park, and joins the “pedestrian only” areas of the old town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some fine buildings around town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a very large city with a number of distinct districts.  Close to the old town there are some nice residential areas with the kind of small shops: bread, meat, wine, groceries, fruit, pastries etc. of the kind and size of those you would see in city streets in Italy.

There are countless cafes, coffee bars, pubs and fast food restaurants.  There are plenty of restaurants in the city center but they become less dense farther out. The ones I went to had interesting straightforward food and very good wines. And inexpensive “plenty to eat” sized servings. 

 

 

 

 

They were also pretty smoky. It seems like everyone smokes here.

 Unfortunately as soon as you leave the immediate downtown Belgrade becomes gritty and crumbly. With a huge graffiti problem.  ANd even further from the center dirty, poor and sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I very much enjoyed the small but excellent Tesla Museum, where local  Electrical Engineering students explain and demonstrate replicas of his key inventions. I have always been fascinated by Tesla’s life and his amazing contributions to science and our wellbeing.  Here and throughout the Balkans he is a local hero.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually it has been a pretty quiet week. Tracking down restaurants. Walking a lot.  

Doing simple things that are mini-adventures when travelling like this. Finding the Bus Station and buying a bus ticket.  Getting a haircut. Finding a laundry. (Got a week’s laundry done for 6 bucks)

There was a cold snap early in the week, but then it warmed up into the 60s.  The doors of the cafe’s and coffee bars are open.

Ready to move on. Tomorrow I take the bus south down the peninsula, to one more stop in Serbia:  Nis.

 

Last fall I visited and very much enjoyed a few smaller towns in Romania. Like Cluj-Napoca and Oradea and Timisoara.  And so I decided to come to the Capital: Bucharest, and have a look.

Bucharest is a very large Eastern European City, struggling to overcome the coma of communism and even further economic injury under the Ceausescu regime. 

Which left them some remarkably grand constructions such as their Parliament, one of the largest buildings in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

A taxi driver told me that it has over 1000 rooms of over 1000 square meters.  And that you can see it from the moon. I doubt the latter.  

And they are still going for grand constructions, at work today building the world’s largest Orthodox Church.

 

 

 

 

 

The city center is already fairly nice, especially all along the Calea Victorie, a street that runs a pretty far distance from the river near the old town all the way up to the Plata Victoria.  Numerous historic buildings have been restored and the area cleaned up and modernized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pavement and sidewalks are new, with nice bike lanes.  

 

 

 

 

 

This is where most of the international hotels and upscale shopping is located. As well as new investment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are also perhaps a half dozen museums in this area. And they are worth visiting although there is not much English used in the displays.

 The old town itself is fairly small and has been converted into a continuum of restaurants, bars and night clubs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guide books say that the nightlifmle here is very wild.  Being a 9:30 to 6:30 guy I don’t know.  But for sure they stay open late.

 

 

 

 

 

Any time I come to a new city I hope to fall in love. Like my first times in London, Paris, Florence.  Or be fascinated by their history and culture like in Rome, or Edinburgh or Munich.  But Bucharest a

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nd I never hit it off.  Sure I admire the effort being made to improve this city and the progress that has been made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But the city is still gritty and crumbling. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are very big problems with automobiles, graffiti and the desperately poor.

And it is sad that there is so little here. Whatever was once the city outside of the immediate center has been demolished and replaced with endless blocks of soviet style mid-rise apartment buildings. 

Perhaps a young night-life loving person would really enjoy this city.  The prices are certainly astonishing.  50 cents for a coffee on the street (watch out, 3 dollars in the old town). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about a 24 cent hot dog?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Splurging with a dollar and 11 cents the Colonel will give you a “Cheesy Booster”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or one could just eat 60 cent doughnuts and pastries all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many of you are familiar with the Economist’s Big Mac Index which they use as a gauge of the comparative Purchasing Power Parity between economies. I have my own gauge. I go into an upscale supermarket and look at the wine prices. Here a cheap bottle of wine is about a buck 50, and what looks like good stuff say 8 to 10 dollars.

I walked two blocks from my hotel and had a week of laundry done “wash and fold” for 6 bucks.  It would have cost me that for two pairs of socks in my hotel.  Where our hypothetical young traveler would not be advised to stay.

A glass of wine in the hotel bar costs 12 dollars.

Anyway, a blue sky morning makes everything better.

 

 

 

I need to point out that this is a very beautiful, interesting and welcoming country to visit. Everyone I have interacted with could not have been more friendly and helpful. I am just sorry for all they have lost .. and wish them the very best.