Relaxing in Bucharest

We (Aimee, Allyn, and I) flew from Iasi to Bucharest late Wednesday evening and stayed at the JW Marriott Hotel in the downtown area. It was an elegantly beautiful hotel and the service was impeccable! This is the reception desk and a close up of some of the beautiful flowers in a large arrangement on the table as you enter the hotel.









Directly across from our hotel is the Romanian Parliament Building. It is where the Romanian government meets and is second in size only to the US Pentagon in Washington DC. While we were there the parliament voted a referendum to consider replacing the President. According to the locals the government is corrupt and steal from the people. Much of what has been given by other countries to help Romanians ends up lining the pockets of government officials.



We ate lunch at Cucina in the hotel and it was delicious! They had a huge wheel of Parmesan cheese (at least two feet in diameter) that they would slice off and serve with bread, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.







We had pizza, pasta carbonara, and gnocchi with a four cheese sauce. You can tell by our smiles that we are happy with our choices!



We also spent some time at the pool and spa where Aimee and I got massages! It was very relaxing and Aimee said she felt like a princess!!!



One thing we really wanted to try was some traditional Romanian food and the concierge recommended Restaurantul Vatra. The interior was almost like a little house with several different rooms and was decorated with authentic items from the Transylvanian region of Romania.



We started out with huge basket of bread with a yogurt spread and then shared chicken ciorba. Ciorba is a traditional Romanian sour soup that was, in this case, soured with lemon juice. It probably doesn't sound great but was delicious! Our main course was roasted chicken and garlic with potato wedges and sarmale with Romanian polenta. Sarmale is cabbage, grape, or chard leaves stuffed with meat and vegetables. We had the grape leaves because Aimee said the cabbage leaves get kind of slimy. The waitress brought us bowls of water with a lemon slice in them to wash our fingers with so we assumed we could eat the chicken with our hands, which we did! For dessert we had papanasi and Vatra cake. Papanasi are like fried donuts or dumplings with sweet cottage cheese, fruit, and cream on top. They are a very well-known dessert from Romania.



While we were eating we were entertained with traditional Romanian music and dancing.



After eating we walked through a nearby park and watched the row boats and paddle boats on the lake. It was crowded with locals out for a stroll or just visiting.

When we got back to out hotel we watched Captain America in our hotel room. We had to pause the movie part through and save it to watch on Thursday because we were all falling asleep!

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