Wednesday, August 13, 2025
We did an all-day tour of Bucharest today. Tour guide Stefan (our waiter was Stefan, the Capt is Stefan. Everyone is Stefan) apparently got paid by the word. I was delighted at first, then thought “Shut up, Stefan” a lot.
We stopped by the palace of Parliament. It’s the heaviest building! It sinks 6-8 mm each year. Ceausescu started it in 1983. It wasn’t finished in ’89 when communism ended. They tried to sell it. Didn’t go. Finally got it finished in 1996. They invited Michael Jackson to open it with a concert. He started out with “Welcome Budapest!”
Darn 😂
They call it the people’s palace because they figured after all that building every person in the country must have spent at least a day working on it. There are 17,000 chandeliers. You can rent any part of it to help pay for maintenance.
We went to a super cool museum that a guy started in the 1930s – the outdoor house museum (Heritage Museum). He found classic versions of houses from all over Romania, took them apart, then put them back together at the museum (Stefan said, “Like Legos!” I thought that was cute. That was before I thought “Stop talking, Stefan”). There are over 300 houses on display.
We went to revolution square and had a guest speaker who was 15 years old when he was involved in the revolution in 1989 (hi TB). He was very interesting to listen to. I got a seat on some comfy concrete steps in the shade. I think I would have just collapsed after he talked 30 minutes on a hot day.
We had lunch with people from MN and dinner people from OH and VA.
Our room on the boat is comfortable. Last time we river cruised our window was at waist height and we could be on the bed and watch the river. The high windows here only show us the sky.
The potd is from when Keith found a shop that sells his favorite Portuguese custard tarts.
Hi