Bucharest, Romania

We spent one week exploring Romania’s capital city. It was very hot while we were there – 35 – 37 C (95-99F) so we only spent a couple of days walking around and the rest in front of the air conditioner! R and C also managed a quick 2 day trip to Istanbul to visit the orthadontist and pick up C’s Invisaligns.

Our apartment was only a 20 minute walk to the center of the old town. The city is full of communist-style, poured concrete, grey apartment blocks. Ceausescu had whole neighborhoods torn down in order to build these apartment blocks and he famously also built a huge palace for himself (first and last images below) which now houses the parliament and several museums. The avenue leading up to the palace had several fountains and a main fountain where normally they do a sound and light show, but it was unfortunately closed for renovation while we were there. The old town consisted of several streets with restaurants and bars along with a high percentage of strip clubs. It felt like it belonged in Asia rather than eastern Europe.

There was also a nice stip of classier restaurants on the river along which we had to walk each time we went into the old town. We visited the Communism museum which was recommended to us and it was very interesting, although difficult to find since it is wedged between a night club and a cafe. It was the first museum in Romania where they talked about anything after 1918. It was dedicated to Ceaucescu’s time covering what was happening in Romania from when he was born (1918) to when he was executed in 1989.

Next stop: Zlatibor, Serbia. This wasn’t on the plan, but 6 others families that we met in Budapest were all meeting up there for a month and invited us to join them.

Our trip to Zlatibor was interesting… We spent 2 days driving there. One day to the border where we spent the night (on the Serbian side) and then another driving across Serbia.

On the first day, we suddenly got caught up in a bush fire. The car in front of us ignored the fireman’s warning to turn around and his car nearly got consumed in fire! Just after I snapped the first image below, big red flames shot across the road!

Then, that evening we had a run in with the custom’s officer at the border. The immigration person stamped our passports and told us we were good to go (in limited English). So, we drove further up where there were cones blocking the road. We waited at the cones for about 10 minutes, but nobody came out. We thought that maybe we are supposed to remove the cones ourselves… I got out of the car and moved the cone so R could drive through, at which point a big man came storming out of what looked like an abandoned office and started shouting at me that I shouldn’t be doing his job for him! Well, he finally let us go through where we could then cross of the bridge (and had problems nearly running over feral dogs).

The next day, we had another small excitement when the road we were driving on was suddenly blocked on the only bridge across the river.

We were in a small town in the middle of nowhere and the only alternative route was a very small farm path through the town and then a 4 wheel drive across the river. All the cars both ways were diverted through this path and trying to pass each other on the one lane road….

But, we finally made it to Zlatibor.