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Other entries in Bucharest

Overnight to Romania

Amazingly, these were the first couchettes of our journey. We set off from the impressive Keleti Station (1884, restored 1984) at 19.15 on the overnight train to Bucharest (which was then going on another day and night to Thessaloniki via Bulgaria). The couchettes worked very well for us, but it would have been crowded with 6 in a compartment and all our luggage. Peter slept well at the very top of the train. It was a bumpy ride but only the border guards really kept us awake, and not for long.

We saw some of the wild and beautiful Carpathians scenery in the early morning, having travelled through most of it asleep, then we had a few hours of the Romanian plains, watching people walking to work, horse-drawn carts, people herding animals, interspersed with oil wells and run-down industry. We arrived here at 11.15. We have found a hostel, called the Funky Chicken (Helga's, our first choice, was full) and will stay a few nights before we head into the hills to the north for a few days.

Everything seems very cheap here - there has been massive inflation over the last decade or so (a bit better now), so the currency has a confusing number of zeros. The buildings are a mixture of imposing, decaying and grim - the Ceaucescu regime built blocks of flats everywhere and a massive parliament (never finished) that is the 2nd largest buildng in the world, after the Pentagon! This country feels a bit more different from home, but Romanian is a bit easier to understand than Hungarian (or Russian), especially written, as it is largely Latin-based. However, it is a city you can get used to and enjoy, but we would hate to be driving here.

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