Our last day in our jam packed Romanian Adventure! We left Brasov early, catching the 9.30am train and arriving in Bucharest at 12.05pm.

Upon arriving in Bucharest we caught an Uber to our hotel, the Victoria Poshtel Bucuresti. The check in was friendly, letting us check in straight away and immediately dealt with the fact we wanted a twin room rather than the double we were originally given. Although originally we hadn’t been given towels for the bathroom we gave them a quick text and they were able to guide us to where to find them. We paid £27 for the night, although really it was about £32 as when I gave her the money upon check in she didn’t have any change to give me! Still all in all it was good value.

Just a few steps up from our hotel we happened across the Umbrella Alley. I’d seen this a  couple of times on Instagram but had been able to really pinpoint where it was so this was good fortune!

We had lunch over at Simbio, in the courtyard. The setting was very nice but the sun was glaring down on us a bit. We’d made a reservation, which I’d recommend since when we arrived he moved people from our table so we could get seated. We decided to have a light lunch, a really delicious sandwich and a beer.

We headed into the old town and went to Carturesti carusel, probably the most beautiful bookshop I’ve ever seen in my life. As well as taking pictures it’s worth a look around because it sells a big range of stationary and games so it doesn’t matter if you can’t read Romanian!

 

Afterwards we went to the Romanian Kitsch museum, a fun way to learn about some aspects of Romanian culture. The woman at the reception was really friendly and it turned out we were the only ones at the museum!

 

The museum is absolutely jam packed with things to see and we even took some time out to play some retro games. There are different areas of the museum dedicated to sections of Romanian culture such as communist kitsch, Dracula kitsch and religious kitsch. It was certainly fun to walk around. I believe the entry fee was 30 lei (around £5.50).

We visited St Anthony’s church, a beautiful orthodox church built by the Romanian Prince, Mircea, in 1559. His remains are at the church. The church is the oldest religious building in Bucharest still in original condition and I have to say the condition is good!

Right next door the Curtea Veche, the palace of Vlad the Impaler. Built in 1459 the site was excavated during the 1950’s and the condition is certainly not as good as the church but it was still an impressive site to visit.

Another beautiful building in the old town was Stavropoleos Monastery. The church was originally built in 1724 but earthquakes had caused much of it to crumble. Although the church section of the building is original the rest of the building was rebuilt this century. I felt the building was very beautiful. We didn’t enter as we weren’t appropriately dressed but I would recommend it from the photos I’ve seen.

Speaking of dress it was at this moment a bird decided to shit on me and I decided that was my cue to go back to the hotel, shower and get ready for dinner!

For our last meal of the holiday we decided to treat ourselves to something fancy and made an 8pm reservation at Alioli, a Spanish restaurant. Spanish food is a shared favourite of both mine and Rachel’s so it felt the perfect choice.

Sitting down the surroundings were lovely, although we were a bit annoyed at first as a table down the other side of the restaurant had let their children run around and they kept playing hide and seek behind my chair. It was only when the children full on got under our table, knocked it and sent some wine flying that the parents intervened!

The service was really friendly, with the woman talking us through the menu, offering ideas. She bought us wine that wasn’t on the menu based on our likes and it was delicious.To start I had croquetas and Rachel had something called Migas de Jamón y Chorizo, a potato- egg- chorizo mix. Both were absolutely delicious!

Once again for our main the waitress asked if we’d like to try a duck paella, not on the menu. It sounded really interesting so we agreed and we’re glad we did because it was absolutely delicious. The flavours were so gorgeous and the portion just right.

We decided to end our meal with ‘Muerte por chocolate’ or ‘death by chocolate’ which was an incredibly rich chocolate dessert that we wished we’d actually shared!

Rachel and I awaited the bill nervously, our main meal hadn’t been on the menu nor had the two bottles of wine we’d consumed. Rookie mistake but we had no idea what our meal would come to!The bill came to us at about 250 lei, just under £50. Our wine and paella they’d charged equivalent to the lowest price meal so it was excellent value. Although our most expensive meal of the holiday to pay less than £25 each for an exquisite 3 course meal and 2 bottles of wine was amazing value.

It was the perfect end to our trip. The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and flying home by 8am. Romania was such a beautiful place to visit and I’d recommend it to anyone!

Steps walked: 18,008