Bucharest

The border bridge is a gentle arch over that epic waterway, the Danube, on the banks of which some of the world's greatest cities were built. And Ruse, too, that industrial riverside city where you boarded the bus across the water, and into another world again - a Latinate world, saying farewell for now to the Cyrillic and Slavic. And yet, the two worlds collide and intermingle infinitely, on the streets as much as in our minds.

You carry north with you one very much Latinate word, from that great Slavic kingdom to the south - 'merci'. The French greeting is also, surprisingly, the standard in Bulgaria. Somehow, France rubbed off on Bulgaria enough to implant this one key word deep in the culture, if little else (that I could detect). Your pockets rustle with these little words you've been collecting, like little sweet wrappers accumulating. When you're back home, you'll dig them out of your pockets, crumpled and faded, and throw them away, but won't forget all of them; you'll remember the taste of a Bulgarian 'merci', a Romanian 'buna', a 'zdravo' in Bosnia, sweet and sour on your tongue.

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The bus keeps pace with a tram, gliding effortlessly into the centre of the capital. It, too, is covered in spray painted tags, and is devoid of passengers. A guy sits in the cab, flirting and joking with the female driver. Without much fanfare, the bus pulls into a small car park in the central reservation of a multi-lane road, and it appears this is your stop. There's no pedestrian crossing to the pavement on either side, so you wait for a red light for the traffic and run across. You're right outside a grand hotel, facing a beautiful plaza of high fountains. There is a huge Pepsi can affixed to the roof, a garish ad. You will be able to see it, softly lit, from your balcony at night, a kilometer or so away.

You have a great time exploring here with your friends, who flew out specially. You barely get any sleep because of the thumping music from the bars downstairs. That (and wine?) might be why Bucharest is a bit of haze in your memory, grand and stunning at some turns, forgettable and character-less others. They say it's a 'Little Paris', which doesn't really make the case for you to visit Big Paris. There's a lot of places you'd rather go first, by this measure...Read more