After the games and the drinks, Sunday started a little slow. We had a tour booked for 10am so we had a quick breakfast and boarded the bus. Firstly we drove around Bucharest and saw some of the sights, before ending up at the Presidential Palace.
The Presidential Palace is the second largest administrative building in the world, behind the Pentagon. It is 84m high with an area of 365,000m^2 with many underground floors including a nuclear bunker.
Construction was started in 1984 by Nicolae Ceaușescu. Nicolae had the area cleared an bulldozed, relocating 40,000 people. The location was chosen as it was on the highest point in Bucharest with hard rock footings to allow for bunkers and underground levels.
It was based on the palace in Pyongyang and Nicolae had grand plans for entertaining and impressing guests. He was overthrown and executed before the Palace was completed. Originally Bucharest planned to demolish the building, however it was found that it would cost more to demolish than to finish, so it was completed and is used for meeting and press conferences. The Romanians see it as the peoples palace as a diverse number of Romanians worked on various parts of the palace, using Romanian materials.
The Palace has 1,100 rooms, of which 400 are used. There are eight underground floors, the lowest is an atomic bunker which also contains a number of tunnels to other important Romanian buildings.
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| The Presidential Palace |
In order to enter the palace, passports had to be surrendered and it cost extra to get permission to take photos inside.
The rooms inside were massive:
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| One of the halls |
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| The Banquet Hall |
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| The view from the Palace balcony |
Here's some shots from inside the palace:
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| One of the entry halls |
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| Busts and tapestries |
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| The Theatre Hall |
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| The Theatre Hall Chandelier - The biggest one in the Palace, weighing 5 tonnes |
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| The roof |
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| Roof of one of the halls |
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| Same roof |
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| Even the Palace was not immune from Romanian wiring |
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| Columned Hall - The doors are the end retract into the wall allowing the corridor to be extended |
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| Pattern on the floor tiles representing the layout of the Palace |
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| Roof of a meeting room |
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| The "feminine" meeting room |
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| The retractable doors |
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| Stairwell into the main greeting room - this was mirrored on the other side so Nicolae and his wife could enter from both sides of the room. It consists of 65 steps as Nicolae took power in 1965 |
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| Ceiling of one of the meeting room |
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| Roof pattern. The small black holes are used for air-conditioning to allow cool air to blow through the rooms |
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| The Banquet Hall - the blank panel on the wall was for a huge portrait if Nicolae |
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| Banquet Hall |
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| The other side - portrait space for Nicolae's wife |
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| Details on the columns |
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| Roof of the Banquet Hall |
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| Religeous portraits in the hall - these were brought in by a film-maker who filmed the movie "Amen" in the Palace after being prevented from filming in the Vatican. The portraits were put up for the movie and retained as they looked good and were a thumbed nose at the original communist owners who were anti-religion. |
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| Outside concealed garden |
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| Roof in the council room |
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| The Council Room - the space on the walls is for maps and portraits. There is a hidden wall on the patterned section to the right of the left-most light. It could only open from inside, so Nicolae planned to station someone there so he could escape if there were troubles. |
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| Area behind the balcony |
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| Nicolae's office |
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| Skylights in the office |
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| Wall and Roof in Office |
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| View from the balcony- the stage ahead is for a Maroon V concert |
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| View to the left |
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| View to the right |
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| Old Boys on the balcony |
After finishing up at the Palace we then continued our drive into Bucharest, our next stop was the National Defence University of Romania, which houses a set of murals showing the military history of Romania:
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| National Defence University of Romania |
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| Statues of Romanian Troops: "Glory to the Romanian troops, inheritors of ancient heroic traditions,
undaunted fighters against fascism for the fatherland's liberty and
independence". |
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| The leftmost mural - showing history from 100AD to 1800 - including the Roman legions and European Revolutions |
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| The right mural showing the World Wars and the rise of Communism |
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| An unfinished communist building |
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| The Dâmbovița River running through Bucharest, a tributary to the Danube. |
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| Streets of Bucharest |
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| Bucharest |
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| Romania's Arcul De Triumf - built when Romania achieved independance |
After the tour we ended up at a restaurant for lunch. They served a meter of beer for 67 Lei ( about AUD$35 or 130kr) for 10 beers..
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| Me and the beer |
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| And more beer |
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| And food - 980g of sausages - Platoul Hangiului (Romanian Sausages, lamb sausages with pork and beef "mioritici", Kransky sausages stuffed with Emmental cheese, Plescoi Sausages with braised cabbage) - 50Lei (AUD $17 or 100SEK) |
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After lunch we headed out to one of the malls to look for gifts and then back to the hotel. After and hour quiet time I headed back down to have a few more drinks with the team and a few of us headed out to dinner about 9pm - pizza! I ended up in bed around midnight as we had an early start the next day.
On Monday we had an early flight back to Malmö, needing to leave the hotel at 6:45am.
Overall it was an excellent weekend and a great group of guys. Thanks to the Skåne Old Boys for making me feel so welcome and for the Dracula and Romanian Old Boys for their hospitality.
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| The Taxi |
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