Everyone had told us that Easter Sunday would see the city closed down. They didn't mention that Easter Monday was also a public holiday.

We had a late start to the day and when we went wandering around the old town again, every shop we had planned on visiting was closed. Che's hips were playing up after all the walking and staircases we have climbed over the last three weeks, so we decided to visit the park closest to the hotel.

The area in behind all the hotels along this stretch of Calea Victoriei, would appear to be a poor one.
We sat on a park bench and just watched families and elderly couples strolling around in the sunshine. Always open to making assumptions, I suggested that many of the elderly would have gone into retirement in the post-communist time and on pensions of 400E or more lately 200E per month don't have much money for anything other than rent and basic food.

Writing this three days later, having heard many stories and conflicting opinions, it’s hard to know what is true, what might be elements of truth and what is just an ill-formed opinion. Not much point in my contributing to this or passing judgement, which it now seems many on our cruise want to do.

Ches had decided that today would be hair wash and treatment day, and that’s a three hour process, so we went back to the hotel for a short doze and at 2.30 we headed out to a French Bakery we had passed in the morning.

Much of old Bucharest is built in the Parisian style. Initially a "Thracian – Celtic" country called Dacia , conquered by the Romans, invaded by the Goths and then the Huns it remained independent as three provinces ) Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania, )until 1541 when it became a province of the Ottoman empire meaning it was ruled from Constantinople (Istanbul).

As in other European countries, 1848 brought up the revolution upon Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania, through Tudor Vladimirescu and his Pandurs in the Wallachian uprising of 1821. The goals of the revolutionaries - full independence for Moldavia and Wallachia, and national emancipation in Transylvania - remained unfulfilled, but were the basis of the subsequent revolutions. The uprising helped the population of all three principalities recognise their unity of language and interests; all three Romanian principalities were very close, not only in language, but also geographically.

After the unsuccessful 1848 Revolution, the Great Powers rejected the Romanians' expressed desire to officially unite in a single state, forcing the Romanians to proceed alone their struggle against the Turks. Heavily taxed and badly administered under the Ottoman Empire, in 1859, people's representatives in both Moldavia and Wallachia elected the same "Domnitor" (ruling Prince of the Romanians) : Alexandru Ioan Cuza.[49]

Thus, Romania was created as a personal union albeit that did not include Transylvania, where the upper class and the aristocracy remained mainly Hungarian, although Romanian nationalist spirit inevitably ran up against the Hungarian nationalism at the end of the 19th century. As in the previous 900 years, Austria-Hungary, especially under the Dual Monarchy of 1867, kept the territory firmly in control, even in parts of Transylvania where Romanians constituted a vast majority.

In an 1866 coup d'état, Cuza was exiled and replaced by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who became known as Prince Carol of Romania. He was appointed Domnitor - Ruling Prince of the United Principality of Romania, as Prince Carol of Romania.

Romania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78 in which she fought on the Russian side.

In the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Romania was finally officially recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers. In return, Romania ceded the district of Bessarabia to Russia "in exchange" for the access to the ports on the Black Sea shore, and acquired Dobruja.

In 1881, the Romanian principality was raised to a kingdom and Prince Carol became on the 26 of March King Carol I of Romania. He was a member of the German royal family and having asked Queen Victoria if she would appoint someone to rule them, settled on a German.

The 1878–1914 period was one of stability and progress for Romania.

All this history is relevant because? ……………R 30;.. Well, it explains how Romania as a “country” only existed from the mid 1800’s and therefore why Belgrade doesn’t have a medieval core. It pretty much developed from the mid 1800’s and was largely driven by architects from Paris and therefore has not only a Parisian feel and appearance but even down to the establishment of patisseries that have survived soviet rule.

The café we went to had been established in the 1800’s. We shared pastries, and then headed back to the hotel for the hair treatment.

At 7.30 we were back at Café Capsa for dinner. Our waiter, back after his two days off, agreed that we could order from the restaurant menu, so Ches went with Duck and I had the Venison. For desert, the chef said we couldn’t order as he wanted to serve us his special Easter desert.

It was a strange meal because the waiter didn’t want to leave our table. He stood to the side giving us a running commentary on the politics and social aspects of modern Romania.