Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Author: admin

  • Bucharest – Ceaușescu’s Final Speech

    Bucharest – Ceaușescu’s Final Speech

    The above photo is a little wonky…. It’s of the Ministry of the Interior building which was constructed between 1939 until 1950, although it was taken over by the Central Committee of the Labour Party in 1958. It was used by Nicolae Ceaușescu and he had his office on the first floor of the building.

    Anyway, on 21 December 1989, the world’s attention was drawn to this spot when Ceaușescu made one of the most infamous speeches of the twentieth century. Ceaușescu spoke of the freedom that the Romanian people had, although he forgot to mention that he ordered the state media not to mention that the Berlin Wall had fallen just weeks before. As the speech started to go wrong, Ceaușescu then tried to bribe the people in the square with wage increases, but to his entire confusion, the crowd didn’t believe him any more. The video footage of the speech is on Youtube and so badly did it go, his security detail removed him from the balcony.

    History can judge why on earth Ceaușescu had let himself be re-elected as leader for five years (although, not really elected…..) on 24 November 1989, as the rest of the eastern Europe was descending into peaceful revolution. His future was clearly over and at that point he could have likely fled to safety to ensure that he could live out the rest of his life in at least relative comfort. After Ceaușescu’s speech, the city descended into chaos as the building was raided and he was forced to flee by helicopter. He was captured the day after and, along with his wife Elena Ceaușescu, they were assassinated by a firing squad after a brief show trial.

    A sign indicating what happened here at the building, which is now once again used by the Ministry of the Interior.

  • Bucharest – Polen

    Bucharest – Polen

    Travel might be lovely, but it does mean that I’m separated from Greggs and so I have to find alternatives as best that I can….. And, I saw this bakers and they looked as busy as Greggs on a lunch-time, so I decided that it must be worth sampling their wares.

    An array of cold items, including pizza, strudels, cookies and cakes. They also had some hot items coming out of the oven which seemed quite popular with other customers. The service was very friendly, although the staff member didn’t speak much English, but fortunately for both parties, I made the transaction as simple as possible.

    But my eye had already been drawn to the apple strudel, which was quite a chunky thing, with soft pastry and a moreish apple filling which was suitably sweet. It cost around 60p, which felt entirely satisfactory to me. Strudels are better known in Austrian and Germanic culinary climes, but they do have some history in Romania as well. I wish chicken bakes had a similar heritage, but there we go…..

  • Bucharest – Slowly Repairing Buildings….

    Bucharest – Slowly Repairing Buildings….

    It’s clear that there is a lot of modernisation taking place throughout Bucharest, but there are also no shortage of buildings which could do with some care and attention. This one is located opposite Bucharest North Railway Station, prime real estate which in most other countries would be worth a not inconsiderable sum. I can’t imagine that it’ll be boarded up for long, maybe in ten years it’ll be home to a nice Greggs….. (not that there are really any nasty Greggs).

  • Bucharest – Scumpit

    Bucharest – Scumpit

    I saw this poster and wondered what it could mean with that word “scumpit” in it. It means expensive, so that’s one of the few words in Romanian that I’ll likely remember…..

  • Bucharest – Bucharest North Railway Station

    Bucharest – Bucharest North Railway Station

    I’m not going on any trains this week, but I thought that I’d visit Romania’s largest railway station, Gara București Nord. It was first constructed between 1868 and 1872 and was expanded between 1895 and 1896.

    I like these old signs, although I imagine that the staff must curse slightly whenever there are timetable changes.

    There are more modern signs as well though.

    They must have got bored of doing this in the early twenty-first century…..

    Some history about the railway station.

    This is quite an imposing entrance to the building, although this section feels quite tired and worn. There are some newer additions to the railway station interior, but this all seems a little dated. Comparing it to the new railway stations across Poland, which usually have a shopping centre added above them, or indeed the ones in the UK, it perhaps needs some modernisation. I’m sure that will come, but it’ll be a huge upheaval at the station whilst that work is carried out, but without progress, rail usage is perhaps going to keep on falling. There was some talk of a project such as this in 2009, when it was costed at 300 million euros, a figure now which will likely be nearer to one billion euros….

    And the tracks and trains, which all seemed clearly signed. Although rail usage has started to stall over the last couple of decades, there are still over 200 trains a day which depart from here. This is also one of the cities where the Orient Express once passed through, I suspect when things were a little more opulent. The railway station might be dated in parts, but it does still have some historic charm to it, and I rather like it.

  • Bucharest – Bellu Cemetery

    Bucharest – Bellu Cemetery

    Work on this cemetery started in 1855 and the first burial took place in the following year. The new cemetery was necessary as until the mid-nineteenth century, most individuals were buried in churchyards and there was a limit to how long this practice would be possible and international pressures from other countries also had an impact. If other countries could have lovely cemeteries, then why not Romania? The cemetery was named after Barbu Bellu, a wealthy landowner who donated the land to the city.

    I spent over an hour here meandering around, with no end of important people buried here, along with tens of thousands of others who worked no less hard, but may not be as well known. There are three Prime Ministers of the country, although I only found one, along with actors, performers, service personnel and probably every other occupation as well. I’ll post separately about a few of the more eye-catching gravestones….

    Firstly, just some photos from around the cemetery.

    The cemetery is in generally very good condition, with plenty of maintenance staff visible. I did wonder what the back story was in the above cases though.

    Some of the larger tombs are open.

    As are some of the plots….

    The main chapel which is at the centre of the site.

    A grand design.

    Some people prefer a more glassy effect than stone…..

    There were a lot of cats, which I assume are feral, at the cemetery and I heard a couple of scuffles as cats attacked each other. They looked a little aggressive as well, but I’m sure they at least keep down the number of rats. When one blocked my path and didn’t seem keen on moving I decided not to provoke it, so went a different way. I’d better add cats to the list of animals that I find intimidating…

    Anyway, it’s a fascinating cemetery and it’s becoming something of a popular location for tourists as well, which may or may not please the locals.

  • Bucharest – Bellu Cemetery (Nicolae Magureanu)

    Bucharest – Bellu Cemetery (Nicolae Magureanu)

    It’s not common in northern Europe, but there’s an element of personalisation of a grave when there’s a photo of the deceased on it. It gives that bit more information about the individual, perhaps their job, their likes or when they lived.

    Magureanu was an actor who died in 2010, at the age of 56, having been born on 2 April 1954 in Giurgiu which is a Romanian city on the border with Bulgaria. The local paper published an obituary about Magureanu and his work, including mentioning that he worked at the National Opera House from 1979.

    Without this photo that caught my eye, I’d have probably wandered past the grave, but it looked intriguing and interesting.

  • British Airways Lounges – Crisp Selection

    British Airways Lounges – Crisp Selection

    As evidence that I need to get out more, I was overly excited to see that British Airways have replaced Kettle chips with Tyrrell’s crisps in the lounges. Not that there’s anything wrong with Kettle chips, but a change is as good as a rest or whatever the phrase is. Hopefully they’ll change the flavours about a bit and won’t try and stock the vegetable crisps that Tyrrell’s make….

  • Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow

    Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow

    This is what I think is my seventh visit to this hotel, and also the third time that I’ve posted about it. I might need to switch to a different Accor hotel for future visits to give me something else to write and moan about….

    No welcome gift, which is mildly irritating since I’m trying to compile a list and it’s constantly this hotel that fails to deliver one. It’s not important at all in the scale of things, although Accor themselves said that customers should rate the hotel down on review sites for this, which is probably not what the hotel franchise holder wants to hear. On more important matters, the room was spotlessly clean and was well provisioned, so no complaints there.

    For the second time this year, the hotel didn’t offer me a drinks vouchers. I had to query it, at which point the staff member discovered that it should have been given out.

    Service at the bar was polite, but the staff were serving customers out of turn. Since I wasn’t buying anything, just getting a free drink, I’m happy for them to serve their paying customers first, but the staff didn’t know at that point that I wasn’t buying anything…. The drink is again under-measured and the staff member slid it across the bar at me. That requires some confidence, as if a staff member gets it wrong then the drink will go crashing into a customer.

    The free drink is though generous, it’s any drink other than champagne, so I went with the reliable if unexciting London Pride. What more interested me though is that another customer asked if they had any craft beer. This was a very good question, and one I haven’t bothered to ask as I knew the answer. The hotel doesn’t have any incidentally, although it really should….

    The hotel doesn’t have any information in the room about, well, the hotel. So I had to go and take a photo of the breakfast sign I had noticed by the lift to get the times. I’m not sure why the hotel can’t provide this information in the room on an information sheet that nearly every other Ibis does. Anyway, the room was quiet and I didn’t experience any issues with noise either internally or externally. The wi-fi was also fast, efficient and easy to connect to.

    I hadn’t noticed this book corner in the hotel before, looks good.

    Well it looked good until I saw what they had done with this book. Grrrrr….

    I went down for breakfast at 06:29, a precise time as they were serving the hot food from 06:30. I had a yoghurt and fruit selection whilst waiting and the hot food was brought out pretty much exactly on time at 06:35 or thereabouts.

    The hot options are fine, although the sausages are of an unexceptional quality. The bacon was what I’d consider part-cooked as the bacon wasn’t rendered enough for me so I was left cutting bits of fat off. But, I’m irritating like that, I’m sure most customers were entirely content with the bacon. I don’t usually eat scrambled eggs, but another customer asked for fried eggs and a polite member of staff said that the kitchen couldn’t offer those.

    These pastries really aren’t great, although I still suspect that they’re sourced from a central supplier agreed by Accor, so it’s hard to blame the hotel. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these are from Brakes. The staff were all efficient at the breakfast area including one who was using customer’s first names, which is unusual, but adds a bit of personality to the event.

    Overall, the hotel came in at just over £30 as part of the Black Friday offer from Accor, so given that includes breakfast is a very reasonable price. There’s some tidying up needed on how they deal with the ALL (Accor’s new loyalty scheme) as they’re well behind most other Ibis hotels, but their reception staff are helpful and efficient. The bar staff, as I’ve noticed on my previous visits, verge between helpful and hopeless, but there we go. Still recommended, although I saw people using the Hoppa service again when they could have just got on any TFL bus free of charge to the airport….

  • Flights – Heathrow T5 to Bucharest (British Airways)

    Flights – Heathrow T5 to Bucharest (British Airways)

    My flight today was the 10:05 BA886 service operating from London Heathrow T5 to Bucharest in Romania. I haven’t been to Bucharest before, although I’ve been to Romania when I visited Oradea a couple of years ago. The aircraft being used today was G-TTNC, an Airbus A320 which was acquired new by British Airways in June 2018. The aircraft had come from Toulouse this morning and after it had returned from Bucharest, it then flew to Brussels.

    The boarding process was well managed and the boarding by group was enforced. One of the staff was quite forthright in dealing with customers who tried to board before they were meant to, but if there’s going to be a policy on things like this, it may as well be enforced. I was surprised how many customers tried to ignore the instructions that the staff members were making and although some might have been lost in translation, there were a few customers with headphones who seemed just a little oblivious to everything going on around them and they just wanted to board.

    I had an emergency exit row seat, so there was plenty of space, and no-one was seated next to me either. I felt sorry for the crew, playing Jenga with bags to try and fit them all in the overheads. They had to put some bags in storage elsewhere on the aircraft and so they were perhaps fortunate that there were twenty or so seats which were unused. As I’ve posted about before, the amount of bags that are brought on board is going to have to be reduced at some point.

    The emergency exit row.

    This is the first short-haul BA aircraft that I’ve been on which has wi-fi availability. I can cope, well – just about, without Internet for a couple of hours, so I wasn’t tempted, but it’s a useful service.

    For those who do want to use it, the wi-fi service costs £2.99 per flight, which seems reasonable enough.

    The descent was quite bumpy, with one customer walking down the aisles stumbling somewhat, but the crew were on hand. The crew were always pro-active and helpful, offering a really friendly service which always felt efficient but unhurried. The flight arrived in around ten minutes before its scheduled time and the pilots offered useful and timely announcements. The flight wasn’t the cheapest at £66 return and it would have likely been cheaper with a budget airline, but the cost wasn’t unreasonable and I felt that £33 for each journey was entirely acceptable.

    Incidentally, the border process at Bucharest Airport was efficient, although the staff took quite some time with every incoming individual and so I’m not sure what they were checking. There were lots of signs about the coronavirus as well, with a fair few passengers wearing face masks. Anyway, what I was going to mention was just as I was being called forwards, a customer came from the back of the queue to ask the member of border staff to hurry up. He was ushered away by another staff member in what was a polite manner, but I have to say that any customer who is rude to border or customs staff is taking a huge risk….. I suspect that his request for a swift route through the border wasn’t granted.