Bucharest is not on the Danube, but it’s where everyone flies in for this particular cruise. Given that the cruise company manages your experience from day one they did provide a 4 hour coach bus tour of the city with an excellent local guide. What follows are my jet-lagged memories bolstered by notes I scribbled that night and furious Googling. All photos my own except where noted:
Bucharest is often called “Little Paris” due to the influential French architecture built during the 19th and 20th centuries. The level of restoration is mixed: restored/maintained buildings are often right next to dilapidated husks. While stateside this disrepair might suggest incomplete gentrification (or decline) in Bucharest it’s a just part of the landscape, not isolated to any one part of the city as far as I could tell.
It’s also normal to find these ornate banks and hotels across the street from stark communist-era cement apartment blocks or modern glass skyscrapers. The juxtaposition is odd to bleary American eyes but I imagine quite normal in any city as old as Bucharest.
Some of the most modern-looking architecture is at Revolution Square, renamed after the 1989 revolution.
Sad to say I don’t know as much as I’d like about the history of the fall of communism. I’m old enough to remember coverage on television but didn’t have the context to grasp the broader picture. From what I could learn from our guide, the Romanian revolution was the bloodiest of all the revolutions of 1989, and almost 30 years afterwards the Ceaușescu regime appears to be viewed with a mix of disdain, embarrassment, and dark humor.
Indeed, Ceaușescu is hard to escape if only because the Palace of Parliament he started before his execution (but did not complete) casts such a (literally) huge shadow. Built with forced labor and displacing almost 50,000 Bucharest residents, it has over a thousand(!) rooms, all in a bombastic “totalitarian kitsch” style with towers of marble, velvet rugs and curtains, and gilded everything else. It’s oversized, overdone, and overwhelming, but despite this and its association with Ceaușescu I get why it’s still in use. It’s got every conference and performance amenity a city twice Bucharest’s size could ever need.
And speaking of long shadows, you can’t talk about Bucharest without mentioning Vlad the Impaler.
Of all the places associated with the inspiration for Dracula, the Old Princely Court is the only site with a documented association as Vlad III built the current structure in the 15th century. The local tourist shops capitalize on the English-speaking world’s fascination with Vlad: you can get Dracula/Bela Lugosi/Vlad the Impaler dressed as Bela Lugosi on just about anything. Which are the only Draculas you’ll see as the Old Court itself is currently closed for renovation and fenced off.
I liked Bucharest, what little I saw of it. I’d like to see more, especially of the historical Old Town. The gaps in my historical knowledge about communism and its aftermath are shameful, so I plan to read up. Any book recommendations are welcome!
After Bucharest the coach departed for the dock in Giurgiu where the boat waited for us on the Romanian side of the Danube. Right across the river is the Bulgarian city of Rousse (Ruse), our next port of call.