loppear:
Rolling through the hills of western Romania
loppear:
A track-side flower garden as we crept up the first pass into the Carpathians
loppear:
Glimpses of the Carpathian mountains
loppear:
Incredibly sheer mountains of the Carpathians
loppear:
Village in the Carpathian mountains
loppear:
Followed this river out of the mountains, suddenly filled with brightly colored plastic chairs
loppear:
Hayricks behind every house on our ride through Romania
loppear:
Our hotel room for our one night in Bucharest.
loppear:
Party! (This nightclub did not get hopping later in the night, admittedly a Monday)
loppear:
We ate at Caru cu Bere after wandering around the pedestrian nightlife section of old downtown for too long
loppear:
A lovely night to be sitting outside in Bucharest
loppear:
Birds in the sunset
loppear:
I had minced meat stuffed in squash with dill, and we split a plate of sauerkraut to make up for forgetting to have any in Austria
loppear:
Stephanie had delicious smoked sausage and beans
loppear:
We people-watched from one of the numerous sidewalk cafes, drinking Ursus Black.
loppear:
Our morning tour of Bucharest: at the Parliament building
loppear:
It's the second largest building in the world, mind-bogglingly grandiose. The legislature is here, and they rent out the rest of the building for conferences.
loppear:
Lots of love for the French here, for reasons our guide couldn't quite make clear.
loppear:
The old palace and statue of the first king of Romania - they only got in four monarchs before WWI
loppear:
A monument to Romanian history, with the messy tangled 40 years of communism in the middle. Locals apparently call it "The Potato".
loppear:
The old Secret Service HQ, burned out but preserved for history, now a bank.
loppear:
The balcony where Ceaușescu gave his last speech. Our guide was about our age and so had an interesting perspective on the transition as a teenager.
loppear:
The military academy in Bucharest. Not pictured, a stone relief mural depicting their not-very-great military history.
loppear:
Many other exceedingly large communist building projects stopped abruptly in 1989. This was to be the "Arts" building.
loppear:
Bought by a developer to turn into a mall in 2007, who only managed to cut it in half before bankruptcy. Now they have two giant unfinished buildings.
loppear:
Our final train is still comfy
loppear:
Leaving Bucharest by train
loppear:
Everything we saw of Romania south of the Carpathians was corn fields.
loppear:
Train yard graffiti at the Bulgarian border
loppear:
Yep, this train is going to Istanbul