We meet P at the metro and walk to the natural history museum Grigore Antipa. There are many stuffed animals and many school classes. The number of stuffed animals and fossils is especially impressive, as is the building itself.

An elephant fossil is, sorry, the largest and most complete elephant fossil ever found of the species Deinotherium or Terrible Beast. According to Wikipedia, the species name Deinotherium gigantissimum is now invalid. Bummer.

Another fact about one of the greatest contributions to this museum’s collection:

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Mihalache Ghica’s collection was enriched in 1882 with the most valuable donation made by Hilarie Mitrea, a doctor from the village of Rasinari. That donation included over one thousand species of animals, from insects, fishes, amphibians, to birds and mammals, most of all collected from Indonesia during the time when Mitrea was a doctor in the Dutch colonial army.

We walk into St. Joseph’s Cathedral on our way to the National Gallery. Roman Catholic I only realize inside even though I could have deduced that from the name of the building.
The organ tuner is doing his work here, which is an interesting sound. I record it.

At the National Gallery, our admission tickets are stamped adrift.
Three huge floors of enormous work. There are many attendants, and at least one is in every room.
I know only a few of the artists. However, Brancusi is the most famous, and I hadn’t realized he was Romanian.

The famous photographer and curator Edward Steichen bought a work of art by Brancusi and had it shipped to the US. Upon arrival, customs misidentified it as an industrial object and a tax was levied on it. Steichen photographed the artifact, and it became a symbol of beauty and innovation that defies pettiness. Anyway, the Bird is not here, but the other well-known work, Sleep, is.

The European part is also substantial. Room for Dutch masters. A Rembrandt.
We wander the halls saturated.

On a street corner, we eat our late lunch at Dumicat. Review mode: excellent.

https://checkout.ialoc.ro/order/5d0100b0-7130-419e-9139-811009679805/menu

After lunch, we walk through town to the Armenian Church. An angry guard gestures while making a phone call that the church is closed. We buy souvenirs and have a drink at Frog. Review mode: nice place. Especially students (recommended by A).

I haven’t felt a chill like this morning in the bedroom in a long time. Overnight it has been three degrees. After the simple breakfast of a nice tight crusty bun that makes sesame seeds jump around when you cut it and when you take a bite, we meet P at the Universitate metro station near us.

We drive to the metro station Aviatorilor, which means Pilots, but I can’t find not why that is. We walk through the King Mihai I park. Mihai I was the last king of Romania, sitting on the throne until 1947. He was married to Anna Bourbon Parma, a woman with an insane root system in European royal houses (Wikipedia):

Anne was the younger sister of Prince Jacques of Bourbon-Parma and elder sister to Prince Michel of Bourbon-Parma who was the second husband of Princess Maria Pia of Savoy (eldest child of King Umberto II of Italyand Queen Marie José), and Prince André of Bourbon-Parma.
As a granddaughter of Robert I, Duke of Parma she was first cousin to: King Boris III of Bulgaria; Robert Hugo, Duke of Parma; Infanta Alicia, Duchess of Calabria; Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma; Crown Prince Otto of Austria; and Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg.

Carlos Hugo, the nephew so of the wife of the last king of Romania we know. It was he who married our Princess Irene in 1964 in the Catholic Church, which caused a crisis in the royal family. Nowadays, I would be surprised if anyone cared who and where a princess married, but these are different times. And we are so many off-the-rails princes in the royal house later that the most loyal royal fan has soaked up a layer of calluses, for that matter. Claus was one of the few with decency and a clean record.

We visit Bucharest’s open-air museum, located near or in King Mihai I Park. It is a special historical collection of houses that nicely shows how people in the different regions of Romania used to be housed, let’s say 50 years before and towards the turn of the last century.

One metro stop to Piața Victoriei and a short walk to Casa Oamenilor de Știință, a traditional restaurant. We eat in the garden. It is just doable in terms of temperature (i.e., just not too cold). We are helped by a waiter who speaks hardly any English but is very helpful. He doesn’t write anything down. He walks back and forth muttering to himself. Our order arrives flawlessly.

We descend to the Atheneum, a very beautiful building. The low light shines beautifully into the entrance. We walk down the spiral staircase to the concert hall. The double basses are on the stage. A piece by Faure is on the music stand.

I try to mark the points we visit on Google Maps as much as possible:

https://www.google.nl/maps/@44.4499354,26.0510414,13z/data=!4m6!1m2!10m1!1e1!11m2!2sYBbyeDvurrBxTqe_yvDSYk1OR-Y7tg!3e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAyMC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D