Part 3 of the Romanian diaries, resuming from where we left off last night with Imperial ****, which impaired our abilities to find the nearest pizza outlet not one jot.
Ciao Napoli is the Bucharest equivalent of those kiosks you get as you stumble out of Oxford Street tube; except the pizza slices are a quid and don’t contain horse meat.
You’ll have realised by now this blog is just a way of storing my holiday snaps for posterity. The stroll up from the Old Town towards the old Communist HQ is atmospheric and a bit tacky at the same time.
It’s 6pm on a Tuesday and central Bucharest is quiet, outside of the strip bars (it appears). We didn’t hear another English voice on our walk, despite the city having adopted English signage for our visits.
We considered another beer, but remembered we were on our way to a bit of culture in the Romanium Athenaeum and nipping out to the loo between concertos is harder than nipping out between songs at a gig at the Portland Arms.
The main concert hall is a work of beauty that will make a great micro pub.
Our chance to watch yer proper classical music coincides with the visit of child prodigy Vadim Perig from Kiev.
There’s a beautifully convoluted process to buy the £7 tickets, but at least the lady in the wooden kiosk doesn’t say “You can’t come in looking like that“.
With half an hour to kill Mrs RM goes in search of craft beer and popcorn, and stumbled across the relics in a side room. Literally stumbled.
No craft beer or popcorn, in fact no refreshments, just a crowd of Old Boys and scruffy American classicists (scruffier than me). The seat numbers were inscribed in small characters behind the seat, leading to much confusion and folk whispering louder than normal people shout at Napalm Death gigs.
It was lovely, but I fell asleep during the Wagner.
Back to pubs tomorrow.
retiredmartin 
Beautiful city. I wouldn’t go there for the beer or the craft-beer bars, but the scenery is stunning and I suspect the food and wine is good too. With the way things are going in Western Europe, I’m starting to like Eastern Europe more and more.
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Do you mean the way that things are actually going in Western Europe, or the bizarre way that Infowars etc. portray them as going, Morten?
For instance, the murder rate in Germany, even with recent attacks, is only about one one-fifth, of that in the 30,000-shooting-deaths-a-year US, and half that of the UK.
Sorry, sometimes it has to be said.
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I wouldn’t go anywhere for the beer, Morten (well, perhaps the Coopers Tavern or Star for flat Bass), but the pubs do add a certain style to the Old Town in the way the craft bars make Norrebro. You need to be able to look up to appreciate the architecture, something many folks don’t do.
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With ‘Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta’ not amended to Queen Elizabeth Avenue you must have had an old map so did well to find your way round.
Did the “atmospheric and a bit tacky” area remind you of a railway archless Bermondsey ?
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Very Bermondsey pre-2011,Paul, and I know you’re an expert on the railway arch revolution.
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– although I’ve been over many many more railway arches than I’ve been in.
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In the event of a Brexit-style referendum in the country would they vote Romaine or Leaf ?
Lettuce know young Martin.
I thang you.
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Boom-boom! Thank you Prof.
Since Romania has a perfectly sensible written constitution – like all EU countries bar this one – which says expressly, that Parliament is “the supreme representative organ of the Romanian people and the sole lawmaking authority” there would appear to be little chance of Romania getting itself into the same s***bath as this one!
Now that is a hoot.
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Perhaps we wouldn’t be in the s***bath we’re in now if so many Romanians hadn’t thought their own country was a s***bath and moved to the UK ?
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“Leave voters told that Romania 97% Romanians and not Roma – Shock”
The Government could have used number restraints under EU law too, but didn’t bother, just like they didn’t implement the EU-wide police database-sharing system, nor e-Borders properly, to count people in and to count them out again, but hey ho, we are where we are.
Let’s enjoy a beer at least.
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“You’ll have realised by now this blog is just a way of storing my holiday snaps for posterity. ”
(chuckle)
“Authentic Dracula experience”
Crikey! I’d be a bit leery of who exactly gets to feast on what in there.
“outside of the strip bars (it appears)”
Suuuure. 🙂
“What were you doing at 13 ?”
Getting fitted for prescription glasses.
(i.e. preparing for when I went blind… from pin up poster girls) 🙂
“but I fell asleep during the Wagner.”
Definitely not Ride of the Valkyries then.
Cheers
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