Roaming in Romania...

So we're in Romania! It's lovely and warm - unseasonal I think but we're not complaining! We arrived at lunchtime yesterday in Bucharest and sorted ourselves out within a couple of hours with a nice hotel in the historic part of the city. It took some wandering around with the rucksacks on but all good in the end! We had a great receptionsit who chatted for ages about all the things to do and good places to eat - a veritable fountain of knowledge! (Although quick to confess she doesn't really like Bucharest!). We whiled away a couple of hours in the lovely Cismigiu park and lake (though the lake is bone dry - perhaps it's a summer lake; we haven't found out!) We had a GREAT Romanian traditional meal at 'La Mama' on recommendation of both the receptionist and Lonely Planet. Meatballs & Meat stuffed Cabbage rolls with lots of 'peasant style' country potatos and veg - all delicious!

Today we had a good lie-in after yesterdays 4am start! We did a lot of walking around the city (not wanting to miss out on our usual morning 'hikes'!) We stopped at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant which had a host of tradtional costumes, an old wooden church and house (all inside!) and lots of artifacts - good stuff but not as good as...The National Village Museum - another mile out of town, past the Arc de Triumph (yes Bucharest has one too!) and to the gardens of Herastrau. They've collected together dozens of buildings from around the country and carefully restored and recontructed them all here. They've separated them up into the different regions they've come from and made proper little 'villages' with many peasant houses, farm buildings and churches. You're able to walk in amongst them and go inside many. It may be a poor hard life but in almost all cases they were rich with colour and 'love' There are many ornate, besutiful hand carved gates and ornaments inside and most are decorated with cheerful woven rugs and pottery. Really enjoyed that! We walked back into the Historic part of the city and checked out the Palace of Parliament. It's the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon apparently). It was built in 1984 by Ceausescu and covers 330,000 sq metres and cost an estimated 3.3 Billion Euro! It's pretty sizeable and I'm sure we couldn't see the half of it from the road as it's depth is at least as wide as its width! We did pass the Bank of Transilvania and it was all I could do to stop Chris going inside and asking if it was a blood bank.

Next stop - the Mountains and castles of Dracula's stomping grounds...