Our exile in Bucharest began with a bang on Tuesday (24 April) when we arrived to 29 degrees and discovered that Air Serbia had damaged the towing handle on James’s bag. Somewhat like snails who carry their homes on their backs, our bags are literally our lives and since we had a car waiting (and weren’t sure what to do), we figured ‘sort it out later’. Never, ever sort it out later - turns out we needed to hunt down the baggage handling agent in the lost and found office and report the damage... to get a number... to then make a claim for compensation. Let’s just say Air Serbia still hasn’t coughed up a number. BUT the cloud has a shiny silver lining and the world’s best luggage company, Osprey, has come good on its AMG (All Mighty Guarantee) and sent James a brand new bag to replace his much loved, 7 year old, wheeled back pack. We’ve decided to battle on with it without a handle until we reach Ireland and are having it delivered to a friend’s house in the meantime.

To take the edge off the disaster and because we’d had a bit of turbulence and were simply too ‘bleh’ to cook, we treated ourselves to dinner in an actual restaurant. It was a huge luxury since we hadn’t eaten out once in Serbia in five weeks due to the national obsession with smoking - ‘everywhere, all the time’. We visited a joint in the old town here in Bucharest which does a 3 course lunch (until 1800 hrs) for only 27 lei (around €6). We’d forgotten how generous the servings were and ended up with leftovers and dessert which kept us going for another lunch and 2 days of desserts.

Exceedingly well priced restaurant meals is just one of the major things going for Bucharest. The other is of course the culture. The first time we visited Bucharest we had only allocated 10 days at the beginning of a 6 week trip around Romania - and 10 days just wasn’t enough. This time we’re here, in the same apartment, for almost 6 weeks. We researched, planned and booked 3 ballets and 3 operas to cover our six weeks and hope to fit in a symphony too if the planets align.

The day after we arrived we hoofed it down to the National Opera house - only a 40 minute stroll away. The last time we went to a performance here it was around minus 15 degrees outside - but sweltering inside due to winter heating. This time, the entire Balcony section was almost asleep by the intermission due to a lack of summer cooling... that and it seemed like a very pared down version of Swan Lake from a production perspective. In fact, for the first Act it seemed like there was more action in the balcony than on the stage what with the flapping of fans and programmes in order to stave off heat exhaustion. However - had we left at the intermission we would have failed in our duty as an audience and the following two acts were superb! Bravo! Stupendous! Took us a couple of hours to wind down after we got home. Whilst we don’t enjoy the complete lack of climate control in Bucharest’s National Opera House, we do adore the price. For the front row, centre of the balcony seats are only 35 lei (55 for ballets) so between €8-€11 each. The other thing we love is the starting time - 6.30 pm kick off means even for a 3 hour plus performance you’re out by 10 pm - perfect for us and also the under 10s - culture is so important for youngsters, even on a school night. Thankfully not a school night for us and crawling out of bed at 9 am or so seems less slack when the light didn’t go out til after midnight.

The following day we hunted and found a local food joint. This time it’s a Turkish place in the ground floor of one of our adjoining communist blocks. It’s not that we don’t have a kitchen in our AirBNB - but it’s neither the biggest nor the best - so a meal which we can share from our Turkish kitchen will come in handy every few days - lovely meaty casseroles alongside Israeli cous cous and the like. We stocked the freezer with a few dinners and then chilled out - we really need to build up some resilience to evening outings once more.

After Thursday in the Hobbit Hole with some very basic strolling, we wandered up the main street of Bucharest on Friday - just for a look in the designer windows. Calea Victoriei is where Gucci and co hang out along with many of Bucharest's most beautiful (and most decrepit) buildings and palaces (that’s Romanian for ‘really posh buildings’). We trundled into the Capitol Hotel for a look at their lunch buffet and by 1.30 pm or so were easily impressed (and hot and tired) - so it seemed the most natural thing in the world to sit down for lunch for around €14/A$26 - including 500mls of wine and excellent service. It also meant we didn’t have to cook prior to the Friday evening performance of Turandot. Nessum dorma brought the house down (as it does) and we walked home via Ceaucescu's Palace of Parliament (pictured) and the colourful, sparkling fountains of Unirii Boulevard. (This walk has now become our every-evening-constitutional-post-dinner outing - traffic still screams up and down the boulevard - but the wide pedestrian zones, mature trees, fountains and the opportunity to use the pedestrian crossing at the palace end and make the traffic stop - priceless!)

Speaking of walking, it’s only been a year since we were in Bucharest - so definitely no need to do the free walking tour of the old town again. However - the Walkabout crowd have designed a new tour around the concept of Old Paris / New Berlin and we joined it (along with 50 odd others) on Saturday evening (28 April). Bucharest has so many stunning buildings from it’s Paris era when famous architects were asked (begged/borrowed/stolen) to come to Bucharest and bring it up to western capital standards. Many have been restored - some are in crumbling ruins. Some - like the stunning Hotel de la Boulevard have been emptied of business because they can’t get insurance due to a behemoth of an apartment block standing over it. One of Bucharest’s many earthquake damaged the apartment block - which can’t be demolished because people live in it and refuse to move out... It seems like crazy bureaucracy was pretty much invented here and is now polished with a diamond saw on a regular basis. There is also a campaign called ‘Save or Cancel’ - trying to get buildings rescued and repurposed while it’s still possible - thus ‘ruined pubs’ and a garden bar set up in the backyard of an old palace. It has been so profitable they may soon be able to renovate their palace. The New Berlin part of the tour is the street art which was pretty good... just not maybe as good as Belgrade (and aren’t we lucky to be able to form that opinion). There were weddings everywhere along our walking tour - we counted 6 - which meant six wishes for us as we had seen a bride. Saturday is the top wedding day of the week in Romania - considered lucky. By the time the tour finished we were up the other end of town and it was 8 pm - just dark. So it was a blast to meander home via Calea Victoriei and see all the stunning buildings once more, but lit up in their night-time finery.

It was such a long walk... we think we hit the 10 km mark altogether - that Sunday saw no more than a gentle walk in a nearby park to recover and a trundle to the supermarket. Monday saw a bit more activity - though most of it was spent in the apartment investigating our bags, making changes, researching replacements, tagging handles with bright ribbon in the hope the baggage handlers don’t target my bag next time. We even went on ebay and almost bought a second hand one... but at the last minute realised it was a fake... that’s how good Osprey bags are - they’re getting faked! The very next day Osprey offered the replacement pack - so lucky, lucky, lucky we didn’t buy on ebay.

That was the week that was - forthcoming outings for us? Aida, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo & Juliet - amongst others... and a trip to the Apple Store (sigh... nothing exciting - just a cracked screen for no reason whatsoever...)