Day 32 – July 14th – Urziceni to Chisinau (Moldova)
Our final day on Romanian soil had dawned. Our room was extremely opulent, and deserved for us to have a longer stay. Sadly, Julie had eaten something the previous day that we assumed had a foreign bug in it, and she spent the evening and early morning quite ill. This meant that I had dinner last night alone in the lovely outdoor eating area beside the pool. She braced herself to come to breakfast with me, but there was clearly not the same appetite for the otherwise very lovely breakfast that was served.
Urzecini was about 60k from the Otopeni International Airport, which was north of the city Bucharest. We drove away from our lovely Vila Royale at about 10:30am, with plenty of time to make our 4:30pm flight to Chisinau in Moldova. Our final drive in our small car was uneventful, although we still had to have our wits about us. We certainly didn’t want anything going wrong at this late stage. Our wonderful GPS set a course that kept us out of the city of Bucharest, and within an hour or so we drove into the large Otopeni International Airport, negotiating our way to the ‘Autonom’ rental car section. Our car was checked and ‘passed’, and then we were driven to the Terminal for the agonizing process of getting on another flight.
We were very early, but it was better to be early than running late. We found a table in the cafeteria, and allowed the hours to pass until boarding time. The most frustrating part of this process was to be asked to ‘board’, only to be loaded on to a waiting bus which stood waiting for almost 30 minutes while every passenger was accounted for. It was very hot and stuffy on the bus, and there was nowhere to sit down. We were reflecting on the occasional ‘downsides of travel’ at moments like this!
Our plane was an Airbus ATR 42-400, a propeller job which fed from the rear only. It seemed tighter than a Dasd-8, with probably the most uncomfortable seating that I had ever experienced. At least it was only a 55 minute flight over some of the most glorious countryside that I have ever seen. The countryside was very flat, and the fields were laid out like a multi-coloured carpet, the greens and yellows of the fields reflecting the vast amount of agriculture and cropping that were basic to the country of Moldova.
It was lovely to be greeted by Major Kotrutsa Veacheslav (known as Slava) and his 20 year old son, Slava Jnr. Major Slava is on staff of the very impressive Regional Headquarters of The Salvation Army here in Moldova, and with whom Julie struck up a warm friendship during her visit here in January (in deep snow then). They graciously drove us to the centre of the city to our accommodation at the Aparthotel, which did not give us a very good ‘vibe’ from the outside appearance. It actually looked more vacant and abandoned than a Hotel, especially when we were taken around the rear for entry which almost confirmed our worst fears. It probably resembled a lot of buildings that had not recovered from the communist rule which ended in Moldova in 1989.
However, we were led inside into a darkened entranceway, but when the door opened to our room, it revealed quite a lovely refurbished apartment which was tastefully furnished including a washing machine, fridge and a kettle! We were relieved and happy.
Slava and Slava Jnr left us to it. It was now 7:30pm and it had been a very long day of travel. We are here for five nights, so it was great to be able to fully unpack and even put on a load of washing! We went for a brief walk to get some of the local Moldovan currency (AUD$1 = 14 Moldovan Lei). Working out the currency conversion in a new country is often confusing. However, the ATM seems standard now around the world. We bought some groceries, shared a light dinner in the magnificent plushly furnished Italian restaurant beside our otherwise shoddy building, and were happy to retire early for the night. By now Julie had recovered from her ‘bug’, but now I was fully choked with a virus that was trying its best to make my life a misery.
Tomorrow Slava Jnr has offered to take us out of the city for the day, to visit a Cave Monastery with a resident Monk, and also the underground ‘city’, a winery that has developed following WW2 in the underground ‘city’ that was created by the mining of the vast amounts of limestone that was used for the building of surrounding towns and cities. More about that tomorrow.
From our lovely apartment in the otherwise rather rundown looking apartment block in the downtown centre of the beautiful city of Chisinau in Moldova, we send our love.
KRA
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