I flew from Chișinău, Moldova back to Bucharest, Romania early in the morning. I had already spent a day or so in Bucharest and I thought it was fine if not great, but I felt particularly optimistic as a flew in on this day because the weather had changed. I’d like to think that I can judge a city properly whatever the weather, but the truth is it does affect our perceptions. When I had been in Bucharest a few days earlier it had been windy and rainy and cold. On this day it was still cold, but it was sunny and blue skied, and my mood was elevated. Possibly also as a result of the great time that I had had in Moldova and Transnistria.
Since it was the last night of my trip, I decided that instead of staying at the hostel I had stayed at previously I would stay in a proper hotel. I stated at a Moxy Marriott. I know, I know, it’s a big, corporate chain hotel, but there wasn’t really anything else in the centre that was in my budget and looked appealing. I just wanted a little bit of comfort. And when I checked into my room there was a complimentary fruit platter and a dozen pink balloons. I know it was just corporate manipulation of me, but it was wacky and I liked it.
My objectives for this day in Bucharest were to visit an art museum or two and check out some other neighbourhoods.
I started by walking over to the National Museum of Art, which was a good proper National Museum in a gleaming white building and filled with art of various periods. It was very enjoyable.
I walked over to the Cărturești Verona, which is the sister bookstore store to the stunning Cărturești Carousel. This one is also worth a visit if you’re in the neighbourhood. It’s also charming but not grand. I saw at least a dozen things that I wanted to buy, but my backpack and budget wouldn’t allow it so I just browsed.
In my meanderings, I came across a charming little café called Mingle, which I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s a tiny little spot in a little neighbourhood with not many seats and a kind of vintage-y décor. I had a coffee and a cinnamon bun. To make it even better, across the street is lovely mural of the back of a woman’s plaited hair.
I decided to walk over to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was a bit of a hike, but took me past the Romanian Parliament Buildings (“the Palace of the Parliament”). I couldn’t get very close to the buildings because of the vast lawns and walls around them, but I got a good look as I walked by. The buildings are massive. It is said that they are the third largest administrative buildings in the world, which, honestly, is only marginally impressive. I mean to be the largest in the world is something, to be third largest is barely noteworthy. What is noteworthy is that this is allegedly the heaviest building in the world. Now there is a superlative worth bragging about; but I couldn’t help but think how do you know how heavy a building is? You can’t weigh the building. Are people weighing the building materials? Is this just some rough calculation after the fact? Just a bizarre bit of trivia.
The National Museum of Contemporary Art was…okay. If I had known ahead of time what it contained I probably would have skipped it because it was so out of the way. It’s not that what it had was bad, it just was surprisingly small and there wasn’t much in it that I found very interesting. The best part was on the top floor where they had all the artworks that they didn’t have on display. These artworks were in wire cages, but you could walk around and get glimpses of them. I like that part the best. As well, there was a rooftop bar which had excellent views of the city, and I happened to be there right at sunset which was nice.
I walked back to the city in the dark. Everything felt a little more romantic. I stopped in at the Pasajul Macca-Vilacrosse; a 19th century intersection of covered arcade streets lined with shops and (mostly) restaurants. Given how difficult it was to find a place to smoke cigars indoors in Bucharest, this was a perfect place. Smoking was allowed and maybe even encouraged, given the number of hookah lounges that lined the covered streets. I settled in at a table and had a hookah and a cocktail. It was a perfect place for people watching and with heaters nearby was surprisingly cozy, given that it was technically outdoors.
There was one cocktail place called The Vault which is inside a former bank vault that I really wanted to check out but I was so tired and didn’t think that I had the constitution for another cocktail, so I skipped it and went back to my hotel room. I had a good sleep but woke up at about 2:00 in the morning so that I could get to the airport for my flight back home. But first, I would have a short layover in Munich with a bit of time to explore a new city to me: Freising, Germany.
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