What is Black in the Black Sea?

Can a Person Swim in the Black Sea?

First! Where is the Black Sea?

Today, June 18, 2016, we are headed to Constanta located on the Black Sea. Constanta traces its history some 2,500 years.

Bus ride from Bucharest to Constanta

Legend has it that Jason landed here with the Argonauts after finding the Golden Fleece.  Fine mansions and hotels were built in the 19th century when King Carol I deduced to revive Constanta as a port and seaside resort. Constanta is the fourth largest port in Europe, ranked after Rotterdam, Antwerp and Marseille. 

A lovely town with a great history. Roman ruins discovered and carefully preserved, Marvelous beaches, nothing black about their beaches....lovely. Story of the Black Sea is the black sand (we did not see any) or that the Turks used color as directional id's and black was the color of north (more feasible).

We had lunch at a great resort, Mamaia, Hotel Iaki and walked to the beach, to get our toes in the Black Sea! YAY!!!!

From Constanta, we traveled back to Cernavoda to our riverboat the MS Treasures on the Danube River. 

Bus ride from Black Sea (Constanta) to Cernavoda (to board ship)

Cernavoda had a large nuclear power plant with two reactors, each of the CANDU type of Canadian design. The plant provides over 15% of Romania's power.

Today Becky and Beth wave hello to Tanya Kolchyk who is across the Black Sea in Crimea visiting her family.

MS TREASURES

Our ship/home til June 27

We are sooooo happy to finally be on the boat! It is precious! Only 77 guests are on board. Our room is beautiful, spacious, and well appointed. A bath tub!!! A walk in closet!!!! All drinks are free!!!! Life is wonderful.....

A King Named Carol

 A hunting we will go, Let's go find a Castle in Romania

North from Bucharest is Sinaia and Peles Castle

 Today we head toward Peles Castle via traffic and more traffic. Peles Castle, located 84 miles from Bucharest in Sinaia, Romania and nestled in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains (1873-1914.) Home of King Carol I and his wife Queen Elisabeth (1866-1914). Due to the electrical plant in the Peles Valley, Peles Castle was the first European castle entirely lit by electrical current; the castle also boasted built in vacuum cleaners and central heating.  During the 1990s a new floor was attached, and the main tower was also raised. The castle covers an area of 3200 sqm, has 160 rooms and 30 bathrooms. 

The castle shelters one of the most valuable painting collections in Europe, and a 1400-1700 century weapon collection of 4000 pieces. The castle is a true wonder, due to the sculpted wood and the stained glass windows. The whole castle was planned by King Carol I and resembled an Austrian/German hunting lodge.

Our buffet lunch of Romanian food was hosted in in The Montana Hotel in Sinaia right in the middle of this cute ski town. After lunch we took a Gondola ride to the top the Carpathian Mountains at the Sinaia Ski Resort. The views out over the forests were breath-taking. We even saw a deer as we traveled up over the forest on the Gondola.

We also stopped at a Shopping Mall and visited a grocery store that made Metropolitan Market, Whole Foods, and Larry's Market look like beginners in the upscale food markets. This store was outstanding.... 

 




We had such a fun day....we can hardly wait for tomorrow when we start our next adventure.

Connections Begin (Maybe)

Bucharest Glows

As we struggle to adjust to the time differences, we see a glorious sunrise. Good morning Bucharest! Why?, because it is 5:30am and we are up way sooner than necessary. We gotta get these sleeping hours arranged to fit the community in which we are about to participate. Independent though we are, we do need to be on time, but not 2.5 hours ahead....

 Becky gets us signed in for the next few days with Tauck and we head out across town  for the Romanian Village Museum (Muzuel Satului). This is one of Europe's oldest open air museums and exemplifies village architecture from all different regions of Romania. This village is in the center of Bucharest adding a large public park. The homes date back to the 1700's and are remarkable. It is a beautiful setting of truly lovely architecture. 

But let me tell you, it was HOT. I believe the temp was 32 degrees C which is equal to 89 degrees F. OMG!!!!! We had to sit on a bench in the shade to cool off. We could not wait to head back to the hotel on the Shuttle. 

One of the most interesting things we were told today is that our marvelous hotel the JW Marriott was once part of the Romanian government complex and was used as elegant office space and hotel for importants. 

Tonight we cross the street to the Parliament building and enjoy a private dinner. 

The Palace is huge and ornate and over-the-top and is the world's largest civilian building with an administrative function, and the second largest in the world after the Pentagon.  It has 1300 rooms, though was never completed.  It was begun in the 1970's after then dictator Ceausecu visited North Korea and saw the massive buildings dedicated to their leader and government activity.  In order to build the palace Ceausecu wiped out large portions of Bucharest to have the empty real estate for his project.  We were told the building can be seen from outer space.

Dinner was lavish and wonderful.  We began with a traditional yeast role with salt to accompany our pink prosecco.  (Don't know source of the tradition; the roll was yummy and warm.)  We began to meet fellow travelers over cocktails and dinner.  Quite a grand meal catered by JW Marriott.  During dinner a string quartet serenaded us.

Calea Victoriei (comparable to the French Champs Elysses) was paved smooth 100 years ago to assist the wealthy women walk as they we're wearing heels in those days.

Bumbling Around Bucharest

Four Days of Wandering and Exploring 

Romanian City of Bucharest

June 15, 2016

Oh the glories of sleeping in a bed, with sheets and comforter....having a marvelous breakfast at 11:00 o'clock....in a splendid hotel....in a brand new country...Romania. We walked to the bus, took a ride around the city, stopped in the Old Town, wandered and wandered and wandered. Becky discovered an old monastery, Stavropoleos Monastery and Orthodox Church built in the early 1700's right in the middle of Old Town.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavropoleos_Monastery)

The temperature is in the upper 80's and we have to stop and get something to drink...Explorer's Irish Pub...a beer and a plan...another beer and a better plan...another beer and what plan??? Sitting on the main street outside enjoying the shade and people watching. Our wait person was friendly, helpful and very cute. Wifi is everywhere........

Even though we have a difficult time every time we try getting on wifi.

We discussed the very positive aspects of Bucharest. Beautiful wide streets, loads of traffic, many preserved older buildings, a lot of large buildings, many blocks of government housing, lots of graffiti, very attractive people, great looking shops, lots of people walking/strolling, families, quite a few gay gathering spots and a large amount of very good looking restaurants.

Arch d' Triumph -- honoring Romanians lost in WWI

Beautiful older homes/buildings

Grafitti

 .

This building was called Stalin Communist Buiding, built by locals and housed the controlled \press. Today it houses the Freepress and all newspapers

The restaurant we chose for dinner: The Red Angus Steakhouse! recommended by the  Marriott and our travel people located in the Old Town. We sat next to Vlad the Impalers' home (also known as Dracula) A large statue of him stared at us as we drank our Prosecco and ate marvelous rib eye steaks from Australia! Our wait person was terrific and interested in what we thought Romania, as we continued to praise what we had seen, he was obviously pleased but he did tell us that there was much corruption within the government. He also informed us that there were very few if any refugees in Romania.

    

Even after all of this wandering we still had not achieved our 10,000 steps -- if you can believe it.  So we walked "home" using the maps feature on the iPhone, with Beth using her exceptional navigational skills.

Total steps taken for today:  11,891

      

            

Tomorrow is now Yesterday

Amsterdam and Bucharest

We've been thru umpteen time zones. We've travelled 24 hours from Becky's door to hotel in Bucharest. We had a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam where it poured rain the whole time. 

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Pouring rain in Amsterdam, making us feel welcome and at home. Little did we know that our luggage was sitting out in the rain for the 5 hour lay over. When we opened our suitcases, everything a damp or sopping wet!

Bucharest, Romania

The shuttle from airport to the Marriott hotel in Bucharest was at least 1 hour due to traffic.

 We can hardly wait to go to sleep. We have not seen any of the refugees. Today is 14 June and we're pretending to be awake during the early evening in the JW Marriott overlooking the Parliament Building. We could not go to sleep until we opened our luggage and distributed our wet clothing over the room to begin drying. Out our window, Across from the Marriott, the Palace Parliament where we will have dinner on Thursday June 16.