Bucharest Romania May 15 2024

 Bucharest Romania

May 15 2024

The first day of the tour was certainly a whirlwind.  The Grand Hotel in downtown Bucharest was certainly beautiful. Grand sweeping stair cases and marble every where, a fabulous breakfast buffet and of course the lobby filled with suitcases.  There were a total of four huge buses and of course we get on the bus which has the chronic late people on it.  Finally after leaving 15 minutes late in the morning we are on the road and still short a couple of people.  The bus gets across this huge traffic circle from the hotel and a Viking representative is running across the circle with two people in tow.  Boy did they ever get the razzberries when they got on the bus.  

The bus wound around through very heavy traffic to Nicolae Ceausescu's grand government palace. It is the largest building in the world next to the Pentagon.  Jim and I toured this palace when we rode through Bucharest back in 2008.  It is still in use today.  The tour guide said that if you were to turn on every light in the building it would use 25% as much power as all of Bucharest which is a city of over 4 million. My 25mm lens could not get the whole building in even though we were a very long way from the building.  

The tour proceeded over to this outdoor museum where building were brought in from all over the country in 1936.  It was a very interesting collection of the different traditional Romanian buildings from the early 1800 through 1900.  There were a lot of traditional artisans selling local crafts, all dressed in traditional clothing of their area.  

On to Independence Square where the 1989 revolution started which over threw the communist dictatorship.  It was here where the tanks opened fire on the citizens killing over 400.  However the government was over thrown and Ceausescu  was taken away, found guilt of manslaughter and executed within a very short time.  Of all of the oppressive communist dictatorships this was probably the most oppressive. 

After about a ninety minute bus ride we arrived at our ship the Viking Vidar.  It is a very beautiful ship and I will get a few pictures up in the next few days.  In the mean time here is a quick selfie of Agnes and myself from the safety lifeboat drill. 

What a whirlwind day.  

Terry