On the Road Again - Romania

We are off to Romania for a two week tour of this ancient kingdom.

We left Minneapolis at about 4:00 pm on Sunday and headed out on a seven-hour flight to Amsterdam.  One nice thing about this route is that it takes us almost directly over our lake cabin in Northwest Wisconsin.  Here I am, monitoring the trip on the in-flight navigation system.  I  added the red arrow to the photo to point out the cabin.  I always enjoy watching this late afternoon plane pass nearby Gordon.  On Sunday, we went over at about 4:20.  It was about 45 minutes behind schedule at this point since we had a "mechanical problem" that had to be fixed.



What is new at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam?  Free Interenet access!  You can now get two thirty-minute shots to surf the net or check your e-mail before you have to pay.  Break out the laptop on your next visit.  Especially if you have been frustrated at the usual ten to twenty dollar daily charge at most airports.

This tour of Romania is being provided by Eduardo of Medieval Tours.  We wanted to get a day of rest before beginning with the actual tour, so Eduardo just met us at the airport, drove us to downtown Bucharest, checked us in at a hotel and then gave us a quick orientation to the downtown area today.  The real tour starts tomorrow.

We are staying at a small four-star hotel around the corner from the Radison.  It is just a couple of blocks to Victory Square, the cultural center of the city.

Eduarado suggested a nice restaurant near the Piata George Enescu.



This small area holds the main concert hall.  We'll return to Bucharest and see more of this area at the end of the tour.  The concert hall, like the museum across the street are both closed on Monday.  But, here is a quick peek at the concert hall.



 

Later, when we returned to the restaurant for dinner, we found the menu easy to read with English descriptions below the local entries.  But the local entries (Were they in Italian because this is an Italian restaurant?) such as Fettuccini al Salmone were easy to understand.  The only confusion was that many items were served in "pink sauce."   I found a great sounding recipe for a pink sauce at thus site, but I suspect that there was more than a touch of paprika in the one I had here.  Perhaps since Romania and Hungary share a common border, the pink sauce here includes a bit of Hungarian paprika.