Bucharest is, without wishing to be too rude, the ugliest city I have ever seen. There is almost entirely without redeeming features, except perhaps my couchsurfing hosts, but they're planning to leave anyway. You know how some things are so ugly, or so kitsch, that they become beautiful or cool again? Well Bucharest is uglier still. It's like gone through ugly, through so-ugly-it's-beautiful and carried on going so that it's ugly again. And, as someone who positively adored Bratislava, that's really saying something. It's really that bad. (If you haven't seen Eurotrip and how it portrays Bratislava, go see it. It's far from a good movie - it is to the backpacking experience what l'Auberge Espagnole is to Erasmus, but without any of the latter's more subtle cinematic charms - but I did laugh pretty hard watching it).
Ok, so it's not that bad actually. I'd arrived on the overnight train and, though I'd slept well, I was exhausted and overwrought and the skies had clouded over menacingly. The next day I'd slept, the sun was out and I could appreciate the wonders of Bucharest a little more. And wonders they are, in their own way. Not in the usual sense; worth seeing, as Johnson would have it, but not worth going to see.
Pride of place necessarily goes to the Palace of the Parliament, Ceaucescu's greatest folly. It is apparently the largest civilian administrative building in the world (the Pentagon claims to be the largest office building in the world). Interestingly enough, it is also the third ugliest building in the history of mankind, just after the Centre George Pompidou and just one place ahead of the Highland Council Offices in Inverness. Who knew? It's simply enormous, a squat grey cube with ungainly pillars and unending balconies. You really can't miss it. It is home to the parliament and to the National Contemporary Art Gallery, perhaps the strangest I've ever visited. The rooms are gigantic, white washed and bare. I began to worry about taking the wrong turning or getting lost walking between the art. It didn't help that three floors were dedicated to a temporary exhibition about some architect or other, profoundly boring to my eyes anyway. Of the rest, there were a couple of good works, the large, cartoon like anti-war sculpture in the foyer and a couple of cartoons with some wit and originality. Too much was banal, though; the kind of art that too easily gives fodder to that common criticism - My kid could have done better than that! It's probably great if you like architecture though.
The centre of Bucharest is carved up by wide, wide avenues, criss-crossing seemingly forever from one side of the city to the other. Things are on a grand scale here. After all, much of it was designed by a man who went to North Korea and came back inspired. What more can be said? The massive blocks closest to the parliament are all designed to echo and fit in with the parliament but many were not completed. In fact, most of Bucharest appeared to be under construction, victims of the two main forces that shaped the city: Ceaucescu and earthquakes. It's a city to give building control and health and safety inspectors epilepsy.
Tiny old churches, frequently saved by the Church's collusion with Communism, nestle against massive concrete apartments. Old houses crumble against modern shops. The old city centre is a maze of falling down houses and partially constructed shops, with the debris and detritus of construction and destruction littering the streets. Corruption is apparently rife and building is totally unregulated. There are red discs on the most dangerous buildings, the ones with the worst earthquake damage. It's never clear whether there's a real threat or whether someone has paid someone else to put them there, allowing the building to be knocked down cheap and replaced with yet another concrete, rent-earning monstrosity.
I did grow to like it a little more as time passed. The sun helped, and a recognition that after the fun that I'd had in Cluj, Bucharest was always going to be something of a come-down. Some sleep, a nice place to stay and a host prepared to show me some of the less obvious, but vaguely prettier parts, did no harm either. I'd almost be tempted to say some of it was quite pretty.
Romania has been undoubtedly the most interesting part of my trip. The contrast with Hungary is striking. From Budapest, the train takes you East through the Carpathian Basin towards the Romanian border. The countryside stretches out, flat to the horizon. The fields are large, expansive; modern fields. The only reminder that you are not in France are the interminable stops in tiny stations, the platforms nothing more than concrete beds next to the tracks. For four or five hours there's nothing but fields and flowers and sky.
At the border with Romania everything changes. Not immediately, but quickly. The fields wither away to become small strips of individual crops with no borders between them. Hayricks become common, every bit of spare grazing, from the side of the tracks to the paths between the houses, is mown and heaped in drying stacks. For the first time I see horse drawn carts and then horse-drawn ploughs. Old women, in long dark skirts and colourful headscarves hand-weed the higgledy-piggledy patches of crops. Further east, the train begins to snake its way through low hills, densely wooded, far more like the hills of the Czech Republic than the vast plains of Hungary. There are the same thick, dense hedges and ancient trees too, but slightly wilder, more full of birdsong and flashes of colour than previously. It's really beautiful, by far the most beautiful scenery I've seen.
And the memory of a kind Hungarian had stayed with me as I entered Romania. When I booked my ticket in Bratislava the woman didn't tell me - or didn't know - that I needed a seat reservation. I, of course, hadn't any Forints as I thought I'd only be passing through Hungary. So when the ticket collector asked for my reservation I was a little surprised and slightly nervous. I thought that perhaps he was just looking to extort something extra from an unwitting foreigner, but the other passenger in the carriage didn't look perturbed. Perhaps he was in on it. The conductor called another conductor and they conversed for five minutes. All I had was some Slovak Crowns and, randomly, a $20 dollar bill. So the conductors eventually decided to charge me in dollars. Ok, I thought, as long as you don't throw me off the train, I don't really care. 500 forints, or $10, the conductor said. Suddenly the other man stepped in and handed over a 500 note. We all looked surprised and the conductor seemed just a little miffed. So I thanked him profusely (he spoke some English and I some German, between them we managed). He said it was really nothing, it was fine. "But $10 is not nothing. Are you going to Cluj, I can pay you back maybe when we get there?" "No, actually it's about $3.". I guess that you really do need a reservation and no doubt the conductor would have been happy with the actual fare, had I had it. When I didn't I suppose he saw an opportunity for a little tip and the stranger, seeing this, stepped in. So thank you strange Hungarian man. If we ever meet again, I hope I get the chance to repay the favour.
