Re: Eastern Europe PTR - Part 4: Chernobyl
Going to try and get this hammered out now. After Kiev, I had a 3am flight to Bucharest, via Athens, which got me to the hotel for around 9 or 10 in the morning. I just left bags there and went straight out for some cred whoring, getting a bus out to the first park, Terra Park.
Terra Park
In the right place then:
F**k this place. I could see rides operating and hear the usual fairground music playing, but couldn’t get in. A security guard who was trying to explain something eventually called someone to come out and talk to me. Apparently, outside of the weekends, it’s only available for group visits of at least 3 people. So yeah, despite it actually being open, they weren’t interested in actually taking any extra money. F**kwits. There were only two crappy coasters in there anyway, but still.
About a 5-minute walk away was a shopping mall with a cred, which was luckily open.
Zorky’s Planet
+1 and from there onto a tram to another park.
Orășelul Copiilor
Having an entire 3 coasters, this was the most major park of the whole trip. Too bad that they were crap.
It’s not just crappy Chinese parks that go in for blatant copyright infringement.
After grabbing the +3 I headed back to the hotel to check in and had a wander around for a bit. While the city itself is pretty big and spread out, the hotel was right in the old town area, so everything worth seeing was basically right on the doorstep and I was pretty much done with it in an afternoon. It was nicer than I thought it would be though.
This was the hotel, which was cheap, fab and with a nice view over the square.
Other s**te:
Having a full day free the next day, plus pretty much a full day the day after before having to head to the airport, I had time to kill. There were leaflets in the hotel room about a trip out to another city and a couple of castles in Transylvania, leaving from about a two-minute walk away, so I got myself booked on that for the next day.
I’m at work and just realizing that I haven’t uploaded any pictures of that bit yet, so I’ll shove those in later.
On the final day in Bucharest, before heading to the airport in mid-afternoon, I went out to some open-air museum place. On the way, I walked past Romania’s version of the Arc du Triomphe.
Worth the effort then.
At the museum, they’ve basically relocated some old buildings from other areas of the country. It was alright, but didn’t constitute more than an hour. While they’ve gone to a lot of effort with it, it was a bit boring really.
The best thing about the place is that they’ve hired Romanian Mario to do their maintenance.
I got the metro from there to go and have a look at the Palace of the Parliament, the world’s biggest parliament/public administrative building.
On the way, I took a picture of this because “zizi” is a French slang word with the same meaning as “minge”, or "pussy" if you will. I love being so cultured.
The parliament then. You could go in on a tour, but I didn’t have the time or inclination to be honest. It was impressive though.
The road leading up to it had close to 2km of fountains all the way down it.
I walked back o the hotel from there, past this park which had no creds, but looked very nice regardless:
I just picked up my bags and then a bus from here to the airport:
Took ages and had to stand the whole way. Should’ve got a taxi.
Bucharest. Meh. Was nothing wrong with the place, and I got four (out of a hoped-for six) creds, but I think by this point I was just starting to flag a bit and was a bit sick of the effort.
Going to try and get this hammered out now. After Kiev, I had a 3am flight to Bucharest, via Athens, which got me to the hotel for around 9 or 10 in the morning. I just left bags there and went straight out for some cred whoring, getting a bus out to the first park, Terra Park.
Terra Park
In the right place then:
F**k this place. I could see rides operating and hear the usual fairground music playing, but couldn’t get in. A security guard who was trying to explain something eventually called someone to come out and talk to me. Apparently, outside of the weekends, it’s only available for group visits of at least 3 people. So yeah, despite it actually being open, they weren’t interested in actually taking any extra money. F**kwits. There were only two crappy coasters in there anyway, but still.
About a 5-minute walk away was a shopping mall with a cred, which was luckily open.
Zorky’s Planet
+1 and from there onto a tram to another park.
Orășelul Copiilor
Having an entire 3 coasters, this was the most major park of the whole trip. Too bad that they were crap.
It’s not just crappy Chinese parks that go in for blatant copyright infringement.
After grabbing the +3 I headed back to the hotel to check in and had a wander around for a bit. While the city itself is pretty big and spread out, the hotel was right in the old town area, so everything worth seeing was basically right on the doorstep and I was pretty much done with it in an afternoon. It was nicer than I thought it would be though.
This was the hotel, which was cheap, fab and with a nice view over the square.
Other s**te:
Having a full day free the next day, plus pretty much a full day the day after before having to head to the airport, I had time to kill. There were leaflets in the hotel room about a trip out to another city and a couple of castles in Transylvania, leaving from about a two-minute walk away, so I got myself booked on that for the next day.
I’m at work and just realizing that I haven’t uploaded any pictures of that bit yet, so I’ll shove those in later.
On the final day in Bucharest, before heading to the airport in mid-afternoon, I went out to some open-air museum place. On the way, I walked past Romania’s version of the Arc du Triomphe.
Worth the effort then.
At the museum, they’ve basically relocated some old buildings from other areas of the country. It was alright, but didn’t constitute more than an hour. While they’ve gone to a lot of effort with it, it was a bit boring really.
The best thing about the place is that they’ve hired Romanian Mario to do their maintenance.
I got the metro from there to go and have a look at the Palace of the Parliament, the world’s biggest parliament/public administrative building.
On the way, I took a picture of this because “zizi” is a French slang word with the same meaning as “minge”, or "pussy" if you will. I love being so cultured.
The parliament then. You could go in on a tour, but I didn’t have the time or inclination to be honest. It was impressive though.
The road leading up to it had close to 2km of fountains all the way down it.
I walked back o the hotel from there, past this park which had no creds, but looked very nice regardless:
I just picked up my bags and then a bus from here to the airport:
Took ages and had to stand the whole way. Should’ve got a taxi.
Bucharest. Meh. Was nothing wrong with the place, and I got four (out of a hoped-for six) creds, but I think by this point I was just starting to flag a bit and was a bit sick of the effort.
