Today we disembarked our ship in Giurgiu and drove
through the countryside to Bucharest.
Bucharest began as a fortress in the 15th century and saw glory days as
the summer residence of the Wallachian princes.
The city was burned to the ground by the Ottoman Turks then
Austria-Hungary and imperial Russia fought over it for a century. Wallachia and
Moldavia united to form Romania in the mid-19th century; after this Bucharest
enjoyed a prosperity that was reflected in its extravagant architecture, some
of which manage to survive World War II bombing and communist building
programs.
On reaching Bucharest our first visit was to the colossal
Palace of Parliament which is one of the largest office buildings in the
world. This building was too large for me to be able to take a picture of the entire building so I took a picture of a model of the building.
The Palace of Parliament was
ordered by Nicolae Ceaușescu, the last communist leader of Romania, but was not
completed until eight years after his death.
The Palace now houses the Romanian Parliament and three museums. We visited the Senate area of the Palace of
Parliament, which was opulent to say the least, filled with crystal
chandeliers, mosaics, marble, gold leaf, and stained-glass windows.
A new cathedral is being built close to the Palace of Parliament.
We were given a coach tour of Bucharest city before arriving at our hotel in the old town of Bucharest. This included Bucharest’s very own Triumphal Arch, modelled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and sites where protests brought down Ceaușescu’s regime in 1989.
The day’s sightseeing ended with a short walking tour of
the old town of Bucharest where we visited the rather lovely Stavropoleos Church.
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