Our Romanian micro-adventure: Horny priests and pigeons and Vino gets a granny battering!

[warning: may cause offence. If easily offended please don't bother reading this]

I am beyond lucky, or at least I consider myself so. To have so many people that I truly consider friends; really good friends. From a wide variety of different areas. Sometimes they intersect, sometimes they don't. At the moment, I'm really thankful for such as strong core of #female #friends who, incidentally find themselves in a similar position to myself, with free time and a thirst for #adventure.

One of my closest work colleagues and I were talking about the prospect of some quick #weekend #breaks this year and how she was keen to get moving again. Within the space of half an hour and the good fortune of a #Wizzair flash sale we had booked some 20 pound flights from Doncaster to #Bucharest in #Romania. I've been itching to go to Romania for some time now, but the opportunity had not yet arisen. A slightly longer flight than normal for a quick weekend getaway, coming in at three hours, we figured it was still worth a punt.

Quite quickly the idea caught on and a number of the other girls from work and one of my closest friends who knew them had booked on with us. I didn't really know what to expect of #Bucharest, and the sheer busyness of life in general and at work again in the run up didn't afford much opportunity to prepare myself apart from a few quick Internet searches. But thankfully five brains were better than one, although it really wasn't until the very last minute that we could start to get excited on account of frickin’ COVID that had infiltrated a number of our families and it was touch and go whether some of us would be able to travel at all at that time. We were lucky.

Flying from #Doncaster, takes me back to the days of when, as a child I could fly from Coventry to Galway in the Republic of Ireland from basically what was a shed on a car park. However, Doncaster's super in my opinion. Whether you pay for long stay parking or short stay parking, you are parked up right outside the terminal building and everything is quick and easy. Particularly when there's only one flight departing that day and you're on it. My only other experience flying out of #Doncaster was the flight from hell, with TUI, way back when to Ibiza, when the cabin crew had to abandon the safety briefing because they couldn't be heard over the gobby drunks who had spent the last couple of hours getting tanked up in the airport ‘Spoons.

The flight passed quickly, even though we were dispersed in different parts of the plane.

Initial impressions arriving into Bucharest at 11:00 PM were nothing out of the ordinary, the airport was a fusion of old and new but seemed particularly well catered for in terms of high end luxury retail, not my bag particularly. But processing was quick and easy and we were in arrivals before we knew it in search of a way to get into the city centre, where our apartment was located.

I think the objective for all of us was just to get there as quickly as possible with the prospect that we might be able to go out and about and soak up a bit of the atmosphere. So we opted for taxis, a quick Google telling us that it should cost approximately 15 euros to get into the city centre. We were #fleeced. Even though both taxis were using the metre, the pace at which the rates moved was rather erratic, especially at standstill at the traffic lights, and we ended up being billed 230 Leu, which was for some bizarre reason rounded up to 250, with the rather forceful suggestion that with tip should come to 300. You live and learn.

We were met at the Diamond Apartments, which from the exterior seemed a bit of a shabby building, by our friendly host. The apartment was lush, and particularly the view into the square below us. The huge window offered a great vantage point of the comings and goings at the little green shop across the road. Spacious and well equipped, it represented exceptional value for money at just over 80 pounds for the lot of us for the two nights. We dumped our bags and went in search of some nightlife. Even though the apartment was described as being close to the Old Town, which is where all of the action was supposed to be, we didn't find any clear sign of it, and anything where we did find was closed. What was going on we pondered? So, let's head for Offy and take something to drink back to the apartment but no shops were open either apart from the curious little green shop that seemed to respond to a knock on the door, but not for us. We figured it was some sort of front, that we weren't invited to. We walked and walked until things became a little gritty and we got tired of weaving through the hanging pylon wires, becoming paranoid at the exposed cables and dodgy wiring. We retired back to the apartments, resigned for a good night sleep, an early start and to make the most of the next day.

Feeling refreshed we were up and headed out. The walk to the #Old #Town, which incidentally isn't that old, only took about 15 minutes. This area was full of restaurants, bars and shops and, contrary to the reports we had read of the food not being that great or varied, we found the food and everywhere we ate to be exceptional, both in terms of price, quality and choice.

Did I like #Bucharest? I think my jury is still out on this one. I loved the company, that I can confidently say. I think I love #Romania, but I would be very keen to see some of the other, smaller more contained and historical cities and countryside. Bucharest for me felt rather sprawling, with a lack of specific attractions per se. Granted, there were lots of bars and restaurants, a big red light area if that's what you're after, but apart from mooching about, didn't really feel like there was a lot to see, albeit we must bear in mind that the current situation related to COVID in Romania is different to that in the UK and as such some places were closed or operating on limited capacity.

I'm a big fan of a #mooch though and, had I been on my own probably would have filled the time just by walking around rather aimlessly. We also found out that there was actually a curfew in place, which would account for bars and shops not being open after 10:00 PM and perhaps, rather than our elaborate story of the green shop being a front for a drugs den, they simply weren't going to answer the door to giddy tourists who could potentially report them to the police for serving alcohol beyond the curfew.

Try as we might the only aspect of culture we were able to enjoy, and I use that term particularly loosely was the entry into a beautifully ornate Orthodox Church. We stood in silence and admired the beauty and affluence, a stark contrast to the very visible poverty outside and huge wealth disparities that we witnessed. The silence broken by a faint mumbling. Who's that noisy bugger breaking the silence, we mused? A span of the other visitors noted a robed priest draped in one of the pews and what was that on the floor? A woman knelt down covered by his robe in full flow confession. We couldn't hear what she was confessing as neither do we speak Romanian nor were her words clear and unmuffled. Childish giggles ensued and we departed swiftly.

I fully acknowledge that I'm not necessarily reporting on touristic sites per se in this blog post, but I tend to enjoy travel experiences being made up of observations on ordinary life. Another such observation is concerning the immense fear my ginger, vino loving friend has of #pigeons. In a city that seems to have more pigeons than Pigeon St, this was quite a spectacle to behold and some fun sport to sprinkle a few bread crumbs at her feet and watch her freak out.

Always good value, Auntie Vino was the subject of yet another humorous yet grievous incident. There are lots of people homeless and begging on the streets in Bucharest in all seriousness. One particular road we walking to in search of #Ceausescu's Palace (yes we were keen to see the Dictator’s home) confronted us with many people asking us, we assume, because it was in Romanian, for money. An old man approached us and put out his hand and we shook our heads and he was swiftly followed by a much older lady who proceeded to beat Vino with her plastic shopping bag around the body in a vicious and unprovoked attack, but one of much hilarity. This old lady was only doing probably what many people wanted to do before her.

The next day, which was the second and last day we walked from our apartments in search of insight into political oppression (we sure know how to get our kicks hey), noting the change in the city moving away from gritty and quite #dilapidated to one of wealth and #affluence. We were again unlucky and were turned away at the museum when we arrived because we hadn't pre booked tickets. Being what we figured the only 5 tourists in Bucharest, perhaps even Romania, at that time, we questioned why they couldn't have made availability, because we doubted that anyone else was going there, but help was not forthcoming.

So we got our steps up, finished with the most beautiful brunch in a beautiful setting at #Pescarus and very easily caught the 783 bus back to the airport. And so it's home again, jiggity jig!

And I'm really delighted to learn that the experience of the microadventure has inspired some of our group to book subsequent mini breaks, seeing what is possible and the #rejuvenating effects of even such a short break.

So, taking a micro break to a place that has just emerged from tight restrictions related to COVID, what were the challenges? To be fair the only frustration associated with travel this weekend was the return back to Doncaster in which the 300 or so people on board the plane channelled through two border control desks, and we waited and waited and waited. In addition, until the very last minute the Foreign Office website was saying that you needed a PCR test to go to Romania and a few unlucky ones of us had purchased the test before realising that the requirements had changed and no pre arrival test was necessary.

But if that's as bad as it gets, it's pretty good. As for weekends away with the girls, whether you're on your own or not, do it, it's good for the soul. Inane giggling at the priests’ penance (I said penance! Smut brain!) or cheap white wine supped in bed next to your bestie, take your pick, but it's a big, fat, thumbs up from me.