Bucharest

Monday, April 15th

This morning we said goodbye to Rich and Delia....


Another beautiful day so we decided to walk the Calea Victoriei and explore more closely some of the sights we saw on the bus tour on our first day in Bucharest.








Kretzulescu Church is an Eastern Orthodox church in central Bucharest, Romania. Built in the Brâncovenesc style, it is located at one of the corners of Revolution Square, next to the former Royal Palace.
The church was commissioned in 1720–1722 by the boyar Iordache Crețulescu and his wife Safta, a daughter of prince Constantin Brâncoveanu. Originally, the exterior was painted, but since the restoration work done in 1935–1936 (under the supervision of architect Ștefan Balș), the facade is made of brick. The frescoes on the porch date from the original structure, while the interior frescoes were painted by Gheorghe Tattarescu in 1859–1860.
The church, damaged during the November, 1940 earthquake, was repaired in 1942–1943. In the early days of the communist regime, Kretzulescu Church was slated for demolition, but was saved due to efforts of architects such as Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory. More renovations took place after the Bucharest earthquake of 1977 and the Revolution of 1989. To the side of the church now stands now a memorial bust of Corneliu Coposu who was a leading symbol of anti-communist resistance in Romania for nearly half a century.


Revolution Square (Romanian: Piaţa Revoluţiei) is a square in central Bucharest, on Calea Victoriei. Known as Piața Palatului (Palace Square) until 1989, it was later renamed after the 1989 Romanian Revolution.

The square also houses the building of the former Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party (from where Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife fled by helicopter on December 22, 1989). In 1990, the building became the seat of the Senate and since 2006 it houses the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform.





Prior to 1948, an equestrian statue of Carol I of Romania stood there. Created in 1930 by the Croatian and American sculptor Ivan Meštrović, the statue was destroyed in 1948 by the Communists, who never paid damages to the sculptor. In 2005, the Romanian Minister of Culture decided to recreate the destroyed statue from a model that was kept by Meštrović's family. In 2007, the Bucharest City Hall assigned the project to the sculptor Florin Codre. The statue now stands in front of the Library of the University of Bucharest.





The Memorial of Rebirth (Memorialul Renaşterii in Romanian) is a memorial in Bucharest, Romania that commemorates the struggles and victims of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Communism. The memorial complex was inaugurated in August 2005 in Revolution Square, where Romania's Communist-era dictator, Nicolae Ceauşescu, was publicly overthrown in December 1989.
The memorial, designed by Alexandru Ghilduş, features as its centrepiece a 25-metre-high marble pillar reaching up to the sky, upon which a metal "crown" is placed. The pillar is surrounded by a 600 m² plaza covered by marble and granite.











The statue of the sitting man...represents Iuliu Maniu (1873-1953), leader of the National Party in Transylvania and later of the Peasant Party and prime minister for three terms. As the most prominent adversary of the Soviet influence he ended up in a political prison where he died after 6 years of imprisionment.


The Romaniam Atheneaum built by french architect, Albert Galleron, represents one of the architectonic jewels of Bucharest.


Biserica Stavropoleos (The Stavropoleos Church) Religious that shelters a collection of old icons (18th century), as well as fresco fragments recovered from the churches demolished during the communist regime.








Lunch at Caru' cu bere





We had a good day exploring the city. Think we would enjoy spending more time here. It is really a beautiful city. Now it's back to the hotel to pack up and get ready for the trip home.......