Bucharest; Sunday, 22 October, 2017

Another lie-in and a filling breakfast and then it was off out. In this instance over to the metro station and a couple of stops north to the Parcul Herastrau – one of the city’s largest parks and its green lung.

I’d originally intended on just popping up to the park to visit the ethnographic museum, but the park had so much to see and do that I spent the whole day there.

The first stop I made was at the corner of the park by the Arcul de Triumf, a large triumphal arch in the middle of an incredibly busy roundabout (so yes, a copy of the Arc de Triomphe in every way). From there I wandered down the curiously named Aleea Michael Jackson (strange because on his one visit to the city he stood on the balcony of the Palace of the Parliament and said Hello Budapest.) The avenue runs up through the heart of the park with large trees lining the pathway, and in mid-October, showing everything with a myriad colour of leaves.

I then wandered down to the lake side and was impressed by the size of the lake, and the fact there were quite large boats doing cruises round it, so as you can imagine one of the landing stages was my next destination, getting there by walking through a garden dedicated to the founding fathers of the European Community.

The 25-minute cruise round the lake was very pleasant, particularly with the stunning colours of the various trees in their autumn finery. There wasn’t any commentary, but if anything, that made it more pleasant as there was just the sound of water going past and the wind rustling (and dislodging) the leaves.

Back at the landing stage I walked around the corner to the former Expo building which has now been turned into an enormous beerhall, though given the weather was so nice I decided to sit outside and had a very pleasant lunch.

Lunch completed I headed back through the park to the ethnographic museum which had been my goal several hours previously when I had set out. The museum is of a similar design to the many others I’ve been to with lots of rural buildings collected from across the country and rebuilt in the museum. Perhaps the most impressive were the half sunken pit houses which are semi dug into the ground and hunkered down almost invisible in the landscape. There was also a very impressive large wooden church that looked remarkably like a Scandinavian stave church.

I spent virtually the whole of the afternoon wandering round the museum before heading back out into the park and through the final rose garden area down to the metro back to the hotel. I quickly freshened up before heading back to the metro and into town to grab some dinner.