• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Everybody saw this coming.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Come on, man.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

In my day, never was longer.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  July 19, 20195:00 am| 6 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture, Travel

FacebookTweetEmail

On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

 

Have a wonderful day and weekend, and enjoy the pictures!

 

I’ve manually re-assembled otmar’s submissions so they make sense. All issues were mine, sorry about that. I’ve reposted it correctly.

Today, pictures from valued commenter otmar.

The presidency of the Council of the EU is rotating among the member states on a 6 month basis. In 2019 it was Romania’s turn.

As I’m the Austrian representative in one of the EU cooperation fora, I get to visit each of those countries as they organize meetings as part of the presidency agenda. Romania isn’t that far away from Vienna, but this fast my first trip to that country.

I didn’t see much of the country, only some parts of Bucharest (and the road to the airport).

 

Close to my hotel, they are still building a new cathedral that is supposed to become the spiritual home of the local orthodox church.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Salvation_Cathedral

 

 

Directly opposite to the museum, this building called the “CEC Palace” and it acts as the headquarter of the CEC bank.

 

 

Walking to the old town center in the search for a decent dinner, we came along this building. According to maps, this is the National History Museum of Romania.

Regrettably, I had no time to visit any museum during this trip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Romanian_History

 

 

This Greek church was built in 1724 as part of a monastery.

 

 

We’re still in Bucharest, now on to the meeting venue: Back during the communist times, the strongman Nicolae Ceaușescu wanted to have a proper palace for his reign. This should be big, this should be beautiful and this should be purely Romanian. So they razed a good part of the old city, built avenues and a super-sized palace on a slight elevation of ground.

That thing is huge. Apparently it’s just slightly smaller than the Pentagon.

When the dictator was killed during the revolution in ’89, the building, that had cost a good part of the country’s industrial output, was still unfinished. After a long thinking process, the country decided to finish it and use it to host both houses of parliament plus a number of other organizations. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament

And of course, it is a perfect, representative location for international conferences.

This series shows the exterior of the building.

Don’t be mistaken, this is just the (north) side, not the main front.

We continue around the corner, and walk up the ramp towards the main entrance.

This is the official entrance to the building.

Walking away, one can finally see the full front.

Walking back to the hotel from dinner, I passed by the Parliament again, this is how it looks at night.

 

Now we’re inside the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest.

A few things to note:

* In case you missed it: that thing is huge.
* They took pride in building it purely from Romanian materials
* The design is, well, bombastic but not artistic
* Like what you get if you mix Versailles with communist megalomania

The area behind the main entrance is decorated in white marble.

The same applies to the main staircases.

They set up this room for the main events of the presidency like the summits of the heads of EU member states.

Our meeting was just next door in a similar setup. Nice room, distances to each others are way too long and the acoustics are terrible.

This room was designs for cabinet meetings during the communist times.

Our guide explained that the plan was to have the large wooden panel decorated with a wooden map of Romania. The one larger chair was supposed to be Ceaușescu’s. Behind him, there is a hidden door as his escape route.

In the bowls of the palace, there are two fully functional nuclear bunkers (apparently, Ceaușescu didn’t like the location of the first one, so they built a second) and a theater.

Here you can seen the overdone marble decoration again.

 

Thank you so much otmar, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Friday Morning Open Thread: Back Where She Came From
Next Post: The Mythical Moderating Influence »

Reader Interactions

6Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    July 19, 2019 at 6:48 am

    Otmar, Thank you so much for sharing your trips with us.

  2. 2.

    mrmoshpotato

    July 19, 2019 at 7:04 am

    The tower crane in the first picture looks great. The cathedral ain’t bad either.

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    July 19, 2019 at 8:49 am

    absolutely gorgeous :)

  4. 4.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo-expat)

    July 19, 2019 at 9:10 am

    Thank you so much for the lovely photos. I have longed to visit Central Europe, but have yet to manage it. I wish you wisdom, patience and a touch of bull-headedness in your position. More than ever we need representatives who believe in a global community and won’t back down.

  5. 5.

    otmar

    July 19, 2019 at 10:40 am

    @JPL: you’re welcome.

    I’m on the road again this weekend, but this time only by train and within Austria.

    Just passed over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_railway

    Very scenic and beautiful, but terribly slow.

  6. 6.

    J R in WV

    July 19, 2019 at 1:04 pm

    Thanks again, Otmar, for the good job. I especially enjoy and appreciate your Wiki links to articles about these buildings and scenes. I hope we manage to do an ordinary traveling around vacation in Europe someday with a rental car, while I can still drive well.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Recent Comments

  • Alison Rose on SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition (Mar 28, 2023 @ 3:02pm)
  • Cameron on SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition (Mar 28, 2023 @ 3:00pm)
  • Betty Cracker on SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition (Mar 28, 2023 @ 2:59pm)
  • Burnspbesq on SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition (Mar 28, 2023 @ 2:59pm)
  • rikyrah on SunBund Report: Squeaky Wheels Edition (Mar 28, 2023 @ 2:54pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!