Bucharest

If the carriages of the train from Sighişoara were numbered we couldn't find the numbers, so it took a while to find our seats. The compartment was already occupied by a lady of our generation and a dog. It wasn't her seat, but the dog was not friendly and keeping it in the compartment would keep it out of other passengers' way. Amazingly, the woman and her husband spoke English. They lived part of the year in the USA and part in their native Romania. She knew we were foreigners because we worried about finding the right seats. “Romanians just sit anywhere.” The long-haired dachshund was indeed over-protective of his owners, but spent most of the journey grumbling to himself under the husband's seat. He barked at the ticket inspector, but did not attempt to bite anyone.

We arrived in Bucharest well after the scheduled time, but our Airbnb host, Cristian, was at the station to meet us. It seemed that nothing was too much trouble for Cristian and Irina. After depositing our luggage in their flat, which was just across the road from the station, Cristian accompanied us to a local takeaway, explained the menu (traditional stews, which appealed much more than burgers) and made sure the transaction went smoothly. He then took us past one supermarket to one with a better range of wines to choose from.

Between our guide book and our hosts' recommendations we had a long list of things we wanted to do. First, we went to the National Village Museum, more because I was intrigued by an open-air museum of buildings than out of passionate interest in homesteads, churches and mills. In the event, we became so engrossed that we spent more than half the day there.

One of the tidier village houses.

"Mill with bosom" according to the information board.  Some of the translations were a little suspect.  Originally located at Orichioi, Lake Razelm, it was used to grind maize and wheat.

Relocated from the Danube delta

A 'half-buried' house originally from Castranova.  Half-buried houses were not homes for poor people, according to the information board, because their construction required almost double the amount of timber compared to a conventional house.  The design was a response to a climate of strong winds and major fluctuations in temperature.

It was only after about 3 hours that I realised that no exhibit boasted inside sanitation.  Romanian villagers are not softies!

We had intended to visit the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, but we'd used up so much time at the Village Museum that we went straight to the starting point for a guided walking tour. The metro allows easy access from one carriage to another.  In fact you are barely aware of the join.

Despite the comfort of the metro, by the time we'd got to the walking tour assembly point we had spent so much time on our feet that we decided to go and find a beer instead.

On our 2^nd morning we headed for the Palace of Parliament, the world's second largest building and originally built in 1984 by Nicolae Ceauşescu. It is seriously huge – like Ceauşescu's ego. We elected not to go on the tour of the interior, and instead guided ourselves around the city centre until it was time to return to the station and move on.

Ceauşescu's 3.3 billion euro folly.

Across the road from the giant palace was a park with a pretty big children's playground.

The Dâmboviţa River.  Several fishermen were trying their luck from the bridge and catching tiddlers.

Cristian explained that the Romanian language is a Romance language and thus related to French.  It must be a very distant relationship.  We did see the odd word on a sign that looked familiar, but it didn't sound anything like French.  For example, the Romanian for "Thank you" is "Mulţumesc", which Lonely Planet spells phonetically as mool-tsoo-mesk.  Cristian told us to say "merci".  "It will be understood everywhere."