Today was hot. Again. That didn't stop us from catching the Metro from Piaţa Romaną to Aviatorilor and walking to The Spring Palace, before it became known as The House of Ceauşescu, the dictator's opulent home for himself and his family. The place is restricted to guided visits with no indoor photography allowed. There's a massive swimming pool and a cinema in which we watched a film about the dictator after our guided tour of the building.
Outside, a present to Ceauşescu of two peacocks has now multiplied to a flock of 26. Here's the garden.
After lunch in the Museum of Recent Art...
...we made our way through Herãstrãu Park, past a statue of Charles de Gaulle,
to The Village Museum. This is a collection of buildings brought to this site from the Romanian countryside by a Royal Decree in 1936. It's like a more extensive version of the Highland Village between Newtonmore and Kingussie, but on a much bigger scale and perhaps indicating that life was a little more civilised in southern Europe.
I may add to this when back home, but here are some of the structures.
After refreshments at a café we returned to the Metro station via nice woodland, an empty lake, and the Arc de Triumf that was first built of wood in 1919 as a War Memorial. It was replaced in stone from 1927.
We planned to eat at the Sera Eden Restaurant that both Collett's and our apartment's landlord recommend, but the path goes through Bun Restaurant and we accidentally stopped there and spent the evening being serenaded by Whistling swifts and Melodious blackbirds. The meal was excellent.
Made tea around 8.30. Breakfast was coffee and a good croissant at a cafe about 20m away! We had 11.30 tickets for the House of Ceausescu (previously the Spring Palace), north of the city centre. A 12-min walk to Piata Romana, the nearest Metro station, where we purchased a 24h ticket, which turned out to be a bus ticket! So, a few problems swiping in, but it was a quick two stops to Aviatorilor then another walk of under 15 mins. This area appears much more upmarket and was where all the communist elite lived before 1989. As we were early, we looked round the small garden (they now have 26 peacocks from the original two bought by Ceausescu), then sat in Herăstrău park, overlooking the lake till 11.15.
We had a guided tour of the opulent home of Nicolae and Elena C and their three children, who each had their own suites within the home. There are Merano glass chandeliers, lots of wood, including parquet floors, and an indoor garden for the winter months. An extension housed a sauna and a large swimming pool with beautiful mosaic walls. We watched a film in their cinema, about their reign and downfall.
Along the road we had lunch of hot baguettes on the cool ground floor of the Museum of Recent Art, before walking through the park again and past Bucharest’s Arc de Triomph, to reach the Village Museum. This is a large site with many buildings that have been transported here from all over Romania, the oldest being from the 1600’s. There were two wooden churches, including one built in 1722, which had a frescoed interior. There were agricultural buildings as well as homes, such as wine and seed presses, a fish processing hut, and two windmills.
We had cold drinks before heading back through Herastrau Park (where the lake to the west of the road had been drained for repair work) to the Metro.
Once back at Piata Romana, we headed for Sera Eden, a ‘garden restaurant’, and sat down in a lovely shaded spot. It turned out not to be Sera Eden but Bun, a different restaurant and bar! We had cold beer and a lovely meal of aubergine with goats cheese (s), calamari (m), salad and bread, chatting a little to a Romanian lady at the next table who had never left after coming to university in Bucharest. We decided, having had a walk through Sera Eden in our way out, that we had had a better experience.
Not far back, with a supermarket visit to Mega Image on route for breakfast provisions.
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