Day 71:
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| Romanian Orthodox Church |
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| CEC Palace, built in 1900 |
After taking a shower by turns, we had breakfast in a bakery and took the metro to go to the historic centre. Interesting buildings there, some big museum (that we DIDN’T visit) and orthodox cathedrals in which we listened that inspiring -and quite funny- monk chants. But the most surprising thing was the HUGE
Palace of the Parliament: the world's largest civilian administrative building, most expensive administrative building, and heaviest building. Not less surprising was to see shacks in the middle of the city, surrounded by all that big and luxurious buildings. That’s the Romania that we probably expected, not the renewed and modern that we found in most of our trip. Anyway, a big contrast.
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| Palace of the Parliament. Bucharest |
Later, we took our time to get out the city (just the opposite that when we arrived) and get lost in the suburbs. We stopped at 15:00 in
Sinaia (125 km from Bucharest) to have lunch. Lots of laughs... And after that we tried to find Sinaia’s castle, which was the reason to stop there. It’s up in the hill, hidden in the forest, like the little wonders have to be.
Peles Castle, a marvelous construction with more than 100 years (and 170 rooms), was the residence of
King Carol I of Romania. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the museum because we arrived later and was closed! Anyway, we all get amazed by this castle. Absolutely recommended!
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| Finally!! We found the castle... hidden in the forest |
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| San Nicolas Church. Brasov |
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| Peles Castle. Sinaia |
Sinaia is surrounded by
Bucegi Mountains (they are part of the
Southern Carpathians), which are full of huge forests and nice peaks –I’ve to came here again to do some hiking!-. The road continues through this spot until it arrives to
Brasov, city of the mythical
Transylvanian region. We didn’t have so many time to see the
Black Church and
San Nicolas’ Church, but the city looked nice. A comfortable little hotel in the nearby village of
Christian was our accommodation that night. 12 € per person and nice private rooms with TV, bathroom and... Jacuzzi!! Superb. We returned to Brasov centre in my car (6 on board, Monroy in the boot, someone had to sacrifice) and watched the Real Madrid match in a pub, while eating some pizza... so nice! After some beers I decided to come back to the Hotel, but the rest continued partying until late... and had problems with a cheater taxi driver when returning to the Hotel... fortunately, things didn’t become serious.
Other pics...:
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| The other face of Bucharest city centre |
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| Monroy sacrificing himself :D |
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| Mad Mollo and the mad lion! |
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| La Jandarmería !!! |
