Day 28 - Monday 22nd June

The Balkan Trails tour is over and today we have a free day in Bucharest before heading off early tomorrow morning to Vienna and then Abu Dhabi.

When we woke up this morning, the rain had gone and the sky was blue. We'd had a good night's sleep.

At about 8:30am, we went downstairs for breakfast. Although I had thought on previous stays at this hotel that the breakfast was rather limited, they have a wider choice than the other places we've stayed at in Romania.

In fact it's probably the best breakfast we've had in Romania. They have the best selection of fruit - some hotels have little or no fruit. They had poached eggs, croissants, muffins, cold meats, etc. They even had a new coffee machine.

At about 11:30am, we set out to walk to the shopping centre that is located on the other side of the old town. By this time it was a pleasant warm temperature with just a few clouds in the sky.

About a block away, I noticed some concrete rubble on the footpath. When I looked up, there were several damaged sections on the facade of the building and so it seemed likely that the rubble had fallen off the building.

This was one of the buildings that had been built during the communist era using cheap construction techniques. They look plain and ugly. Alex referred to them as "communist blocks" and they seem to be in every city and large town in Romania.

In the main square (next to Revolution Square), they seemed to be set up for a music event. There was a stage, hundreds of plastic chairs, marquees and floral archways.

In the old town, we walked through some cobblestone streets that we hadn't been to with Alex. We also discovered a glass-covered area that showed ancient Roman ruins below street level including brick archways.

It was a pleasure to walk through the old town on such a bright sunny day. They do a great job with the floral decorations and the open-air cafes. However, we did notice a strong police presence - including guards dogs with muzzles.

Yesterday Alex had shown us on the map where to find the shopping mall but, when we'd walked through the old town to the park and the canal,  it wasn't really obvious which building it was in. We tried an underground route hoping to get to the other side of the park but it only led to the railway station.

When we crossed several pedestrian crossings to the building we thought we needed to go to, it was hard to find the entrance. After we went up a couple of levels, it was about 1pm and I decided to leave Suzy there to look at the shops in peace and I headed back to the hotel via the old town.

I stopped at a sidewalk cafe (City Grill) in the old town  to have some lunch and I ordered an Angus Burger and an Ursus Premium draft beer. Although the beer was great as usual, the burger was the worst I've ever had.

For starters the burger was only small, there were only five wedges (which didn't look great), a small amount of lettuce and one cherry tomato. The bun was hard and didn't seem fresh. The burger cost 37 Lei (expensive for a Romanian cafe) and the beer was 7 Lei (normal price).

I know that hamburgers aren't the native dish for Romania but I can't imagine how they are going to attract too many international visitors if they can't prepare a simple meal like a hamburger. Then again I guess tourists come here for the scenery rather than the food. Needless to say I didn't bother leaving a tip.

At 7pm we headed out for dinner. The recommendation was to go to La Mama wich is only a few blocks from our hotel. We opted for an outside table under a large square umbrella. Suzy ordered mixed skewers and I ordered beef steak. Her choice was tastier than mine. We ordered a 1L carafe of house red.

We got chatting to the man at the next table who works for the South African embassy in Bucharest. We talked about our holiday in South Africa a couple of years ago.