First of all, this post is going to be photo-HEAVY I'm afraid. My Mum, Harry and I spent ten days in Romania, six of which were spent in the capital, Bucharest; the rest of them being spent in the countryside, but more on that in another post later this week. For those of you that don't know, I'm half-Romanian, speak it just about fluently and have been there countless times since I was born. Before my Gran moved to live with us a couple of years ago, she lived in Bucharest and has spent the majority of her life there. So, for me, it's like a second home.
Despite Romania being a country with a very complicated past, it remains beautiful (or, at least, I think it does). It's a country with stunning architecture, inspired by many different cultures including French and Spanish. Unfortunately a lot of these beautiful buildings were damaged or taken from their owners under Ceausescu and so they're largely abandoned and damaged. However, when we were walking around the city, I was still struck by how lovely many of them are.
Ceausescu's infamous palace |
We spent our days in Bucharest lying in 'till the early afternoon (which was absolute bliss), strolling down to the same restaurant each day for breakfast, visiting Mum's friends and practically-family, followed by spending the evening playing games with my friends outside when the heat has cooled down a bit from being thirty-two degrees celsius. They were my favourite days because they are so familiar to me. Being the creature of habit that I am, I don't feel bored knowing I've had days like these most years in my life, in fact it's quite the opposite, I love it. It was great to be able to share that with Harry too, and show him where so many weeks of my summers have been spent.
One thing I simply can't leave out is the food in Romania. Oh my, I can't describe in words how much I love the food there. Somehow, maybe because the majority of it is home grown or I don't know why, the food just tastes INCREDIBLE. Everything's tastier there. And their food quite frankly makes me happy. Maybe even slightly giddy. Inevitably I ate a lot, and I don't regret it at all. Romanians know how to make food and I certainly know how to eat it - it's a perfect fit ;)
Bucharest is definitely one of my favourite places in the world and I had the best time over the past week there. As I said earlier, the place is like a second home to me and in spite of the pesky mosquitos that never fail to consistently bite me, I'm sure I'd go there every year if I could.
Bucharest is definitely one of my favourite places in the world and I had the best time over the past week there. As I said earlier, the place is like a second home to me and in spite of the pesky mosquitos that never fail to consistently bite me, I'm sure I'd go there every year if I could.