Bucharest

There is a Metro very close to the apartment. We took the Metro today to go to Gara de Nord, which is the main train station. We wished to find out information; schedule and cost for trains from Bucharest to Istanbul. It was Jeff’s first time on a Metro. I am sure it must have been an interesting experience for him. Had coffee and Rolitas Vegetal (similar to a veggie patty) at a café at the station (CoffeeRight). Also found out that trains run everyday from Bucharest to Istanbul. It leaves Bucharest at 1:35pm and arrives in Istanbul at 8:30am. The cost approx. 150 Lei’s for a 6-person sleeper car. We are not sure if we should take the bus or the train. Need to find out information about buses still. Also we have not yet planned a departure date from Bucharest. We do have a flight confirmed on Germanwings from Istanbul to Stuttgart for January the 5th, and I really would like to spend atleast 4 days in Istanbul so it seems like either the 30th or the 31st of December should be the best time to leave for Istanbul.

We walked over to the historic quarter of the city. We walked into a bookstore..(we saw many bookstores and found out that almost all of them only sell books in Romanian). One bookstore had a book on underground restaurants in Bucharest and it mentioned one called Hanul Manuc which looked really quaint and interesting. I wanted to go there after seeing the pictures but had no idea where it was. We were talking about this restaurant and walked into a lane, and were very surprised to find the hotel and restaurant right in front of us. We had our lunch at the restaurant. The ambience was just as nice as it looked in the book. The food was all right. It turned out to be a lot more expensive than what we anticipated. The menu had a set of prices and we but our bill was for twice the amount. We did not try to ask the waiter for clarification as they did not speak English and we dint want to bother with it.

After Lunch, we walked to the City center and spent time at a park, visited the theater, the Athenaeum. Got home by 6pm and called it a day. We did try fast food restaurant called Emmi’s across the street from the apartment. Tried a falafel which was quite interesting.. it had fries along with ketchup and mayonnaise along with the regular stuff. Actually it tasted quite good. Went to bed early.