Queen Elizabeth Boulevard

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Apr 162010
 

Versiune în română

In case you’re wondering where I disappeared, the answer would be the northwest of Argentina, more precisely in the city of Salta, at the foothills of the Andes. I’ve seen some amazing landscapes here, but I had problems connecting to the Internet which made me unable to post. Don’t worry, I plan to make up for the break.

Today’s photograph shows one of the buildings lining Queen Elizabeth Boulevard, a boulevard located downtown Bucharest, only a few steps away from the University Square. Given the fact that this should be prime time real estate, I’m surprised that its restoration and cleaning is going as slow at it is. Except for two or three buildings undergoing renovation, nothing’s been done to restore this once beautiful street to its former glory.

More on University Square, Part 2

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Apr 142010
 

Versiune în română

The fourth statue located in the University Square is that of Ion Heliade Rădulescu, “Romanian academic, Romantic and Classicist poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician”, “prolific translator of foreign literature into Romanian”, “founding member and first president of the Romanian Academy”. The marble statue shows him holding a book in his hand, a fitted portrayal considering that he “is considered one of the foremost champions of Romanian culture of the first half of the 19th century”. The statue is the work of the Italian sculptor Ettore Ferrari and was unveiled in 1881.

More on University Square

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Apr 132010
 

Versiune în română

Two days ago I found out from comments on this blog that the University Square is soon going to be dug because of a underground parking lot which is supposed to solve all the parking problems of Bucharest (yeah, right, and I’m about to land on Moon). So I thought I’ll post a few more pictures from the square before it’s forever changed by construction work. I’ve posted pictures of two of the four statues located in the square (Spiru Haret and Gheorghe Lazăr) and today’s photographs introduce another one, the bronze equestrian statue of Michael the Brave (1558 – 1601), prince of Wallachia, of Transylvania and of Moldavia. He’s regarded as one of Romania’s greatest heros for ruling as a single leader over the three provinces that make up present day Romania. He achieved this in 1600 and the union lasted only six months. The three provinces only came together again in 1918. The statue dates from 1874 and is the work of the French sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824-1887). It’s the oldest statue in Bucharest representing a political personality.

The zodiac apartment building

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Apr 122010
 

Versiune în română

First of all sorry for the late posting. I’m on the road again and when one’s traveling things don’t always work out as expected. But all’s well that ends well and since I have a place to sleep for the night and an Internet connection I’m all good and ready to post 🙂

Very close to the flying cow villa from yesterday’s photo lies another interesting building, also located on Calea Dorobanţi. This one is decorated with ornamental panels showing the zodiac signs, which I think make a rather non interesting building look nice. The apartment complex was built in 1946 by architects Radu Dudescu and Mircea Marinescu and the ornamental panels were executed by Constantin Baraschi.

Flying cow

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Apr 112010
 

Versiune în română

Why is there a cow flying through the windows of a house in Calea Dorobanti? I was curious so once home I searched on the Internet for the name written on the small black plaque. Apparently she’s either coming to revenge her fellow cows or has a death wish and came to be sacrificed for the delight of the diners: the building houses an Argentinian restaurant.

University Square

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Apr 102010
 

Versiune în română

It occurred to me that even though I’ve talked many times about University Square, the center of the city, I’ve never shown it to you. Even though most people call the entire area around the square by that name, the actual University Square is the one with the four statues, located in front of the University of Bucharest building. This square is usually so crowded and full of traffic that I found it really hard to take a nice picture. The reason it’s looking so empty in today’s photographs is because I took these photos on the Saturday before Easter.

The Bicyclist’s House

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Apr 092010
 

Versiune în română

This beautiful French house located in downtown Bucharest is known by the name of “The House of Mitza the bicyclist” because it used to belong to Maria Mihăescu (1885-1968), the first woman bicyclist of Romania. This was back in 1898 when Mitza made waves by biking down Calea Victoriei. She was a very beautiful lady with lots of admirers and supposedly lots of famous lovers. She was also the first Romanian lady to wear a bathing suit at the beach. According to wikipedia, the house in the photo was a gift from King Ferdinand of Romania, whose supposed to have been her lover. The house was built in 1910 by architect N.C. Mihăescu, had the first floor modified in 1933 and was restored again in 1985. Right now the building is in dire need of another renovation before it starts losing the beautiful details of the facade.

Warm weather equals outside seating

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Apr 082010
 

Versiune în română

Taking advantage of last week’s warm weather some cafes and bars in the Old Center have already put out the tables for the summer terraces. Some of the smaller terraces had all tables full, which was pretty good considering that this was the Easter holiday and Bucharest was at its most quiet with half of the population gone to spend their vacation somewhere else.

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