Result! Alex Burman has my phone! Apologies to Bosnia for suggesting there might have been a thief in your midsts, it was my fault, I left it at the hostel in Sarajevo. It was passed to Alex (could be male / female, nationality also currently unknown), as he / she was also heading to Belgrade. Missed him / her by a couple of days, alas, but will hopefully hook up in Budapest in a few days. Alex, you genius, I owe you beers.

Everyone apart from Holly from Shrewsbury told us that Bucharest was dreadful, and screwed up facial expressions generally added weight to the words, but we quite like what we've seen after today's little wander. Certainly holds more intrigue than Belgrade so far, with numerous different architectures and places with stories to tell.

We'll explore further tomorrow, as we were a tad fatigued today, following last night's train journey (non sleeper variety). Left Belgrade at about 4pm and got in this morning at about 6am. Oh how we laughed as we watched the cool kids get on late and pick the compartment we'd already tried where the window wouldn't open, not going to be quite so cool in that little greenhouse, but then our light didn't work, so from 8pm we were consigned to a few rounds of the "who am I?" game in the dark and then semi-sleep, frequently interrupted by ticket checks, passport checks, the train blasting it's horn and slamming on the brakes, and then finally Romanian workers joining us, getting the first morning train into Bucharest from the outskirts.

Oh, and not the best start today. Requested £100 worth of Romanian Lei from the ATM at the station, and it gave us the equivalent of two £50 notes. Magical decision, thank you very much Mr. ATM, £50 notes being about as welcome a payment method as gold bars in your average Romanian shop or cafe. No-one even wants them in England, never mind a country where it costs £25 to travel on a train for 13 hours! Anyway, a bank finally obliged, after our hostel host provided no more assistance than the location of his two favourite shisha joints. Which we didn't ask for. Didn't even bring up the subject. Might go tomorrow, though...

It was really good, Bucharest! Didn't stay long, conscious of the imminent start of our Russian visas and yet still being many hundreds of miles away, and I'm writing this a few days on now, but an impression of the city is still pretty fresh in my mind. An incredible contrast between the crumbling, hotch-potch of buildings in the old city, where planning permission can only ever have been a question of sufficient space to fit a new proposal in, and the huge scale of the new city of the 80s, with huge boulevards and public spaces surrounded by kilometres of uniformly designed ten storey office and apartment buildings, crowned by the absolutely enormous Parliament Palace. Easier to show through photos than describe, though, so take a look.

Didn't really get the chance to meet anyone. Word of Bucharest's unpleasantness must get around, either that or the European summer backpacking season is tailing off now, but we saw very few other travellers, and the opportunity to mingle with locals didn't come along either. So I couldn't say I was warmed by the place, but a worthy addition to any Eastern Europe itinerary, and interesting enough to leave me wanting to find out more.

A quick hostel dorm-mate review, Friends Hostel: four very new-age looking girls (hippy clothes, really crap haircuts, piercings designed to shock parents) from around Germany / Austria / Switzerland, one of whom didn't give me back the can opener I kindly lent her (another addition to the lost items list), and a pock-faced old-ish guy who seemed to spend his entire time there sleeping, messing on his laptop or popping out for a cigarette. Don't recall anyone else, apart from a friendly guy from Madrid who we chatted to just as we were leaving. Said London was sh*t. High fives, amigo!