Wednesday 26 November 2014

Bucharest, mon amour

SHARE
I walk past this house every day. Half the houses in the centre of Bucharest are like this. The Romantic fascination with decay is what made me decide I wanted to live in Romania within thirty minutes of getting off the train in 1990.



More scenes from Bucharest. They explain is why I love Bucharest so much. It reminds me of Havana, which is the capital of a Communist dictatorship but also the antithesis of the modern world. Havana, Bucharest and Tbilisi are my three favourite cities.

Should you be interested, I wrote about my first visit to Havana here. I urge you to go there, dear reader, before the old man dies.



3 comments:

  1. It does look tempting. Dilapidated grand is very pleasing. The Italians and French are also masters.Dominic Johnson

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dilapidated is romantic unless you have to live in it. That is one difference between locals and foreigners in 1990's Romania.
    marc

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. My father, a passionate anti-Communist I'm pleased to say, loved to quote Karl Marx: One man's picturesqueness is another man's poverty. No doubt he would have said 'person' were he writing today

      Delete