My Images of SEE – 19:53, Monday 15th August

So by 21:30 last night, we cracked open the beer and tested out the collapsible cups. Liam’s small one worked, however, my large one began to leak after a while, so we gave up. The younger lad wanted to go to sleep, so we all retired then. Surprisingly, aside from the heat, getting to sleep was OK.

We awoke at sometime in the morning for a ticket inspection by the Bulgarian officers. I then drifted back to sleep. At 02:00 or 03:00 we woke again at customs who checked out passports. We were fine, but our co-travellers didn’t have proper papers. We found out that they were Turkish actually, of Greek descent. We then slowly went to sleep again. We then had another tap at the door later for the Romanian customs. Again, we were fine, but problems with our colleagues. They had a visa, but a transit one, not a visiting one. I think the elder one settled it by saying he had a hotel reservation.

We then slept, by 6am my alarm went off, but still no where near. We got woken up by our Russian carriage hostess. This was at 08:45. We packed up our bedding and handed it in before getting our belongings and waiting to disembark. Once we did, the station we entered looked worn, but western. We made for the exit, and to follow my maps to the hotel. About 5 minutes into our journey a guy stopped us. Liam was weary. He said not to go any further down the road, it was ‘Gypsy Town’. We looked perplexed. He said that with the backpacks, we would look like tourists and will be …(he then motioned a fist into the palm of his hand to indicate ‘roughed up’) We turned around and went back to the train station. Luckily I had spare Euro’s, so I changed enough for a taxi (as the ATM was broke), but when we left the station I noticed the Metro. We took this to Izvor, then walked around the park to the back of the Parliament.

It was 09:30 and hot already. We went in to dump our bags, but our room was ready. This was a very, very welcome surprise. We showered, then slept right through to 13:50. I was apprehensive about leaving the hotel since the ‘Gypsy Town’ remark. Actually, more about the fist action. However, we walked up to the river, following it east towards Piata Unirii. To the west was the Parliament building. It was massive, kind of out of place, but elegant all the same. It certainly fit into its surroundings, including the boulevard we were on. 

After pictures, we then went to a shopping mall. I guiltily had our 3^rd McDonalds since being here. However, we hadn’t eaten properly since lunchtime in Sofia. We then walked up one boulevard, past the university, grabbing an ice cream. The then turned left to where the university library was, onto Piata Revolutiei. There was the Royal Palace that looked very grand in this well kept quarter. Turning south, we then saw the now Senate building, but was where Ceausescu made his ill-fated speech, 4 days before being executed. I expected the square to be bigger to be honest.

We then walked down to a small arcade of café’s, all supplying shisha. It was very aromatic. 2 minutes away we located a Turkish restaurant, which we attended. The food, cocktails and baklava were excellent, but our dearest meal to date, that being £40 total max. 

We then continued south to the end of the boulevard, then over the river and right to the corner of the Parliament. That square was the most recent/modern of all we had seen. Even the 1980’s reconstruction now looked worn. However, everywhere there were facades of buildings from the time it was dubbed ‘the Paris of the East’, but they fell into disrepair.

We walked to the front of the awesome parliament, and gazed down the never-ending boulevard. The Piata in front of us was certainly grand, but doesn’t to my mind serve any purpose in being that big. We then followed the perimeter to our hotel.