Sep 5 2025

If you want to swim in Bucharest we’d suggest elsewhere. 

The morning was the tour through the Palace of the Parliament. The GYG booking was a rip off. Essentially he just handed us off to the official guide. And we had to wait to enter as two people had been passed through the security point without paying. I mean they could have checked our wrist bands. 

The fingerprint of communism. 

The Palace was nuts. Versailles built in the 1980s. Incredible craftsmanship and design and with emphasis on Romanian craftsmanship. But mostly empty and unused. The amount of everything else that could have been done with the money instead…

After the tour we went on our quest for a swim. There appeared to be a public outdoor and indoor pool. Google was trying to send us a long way round. It appeared we could get in from the main road. No. This was a very broken and run down entrance to a stadium in a similar condition. And very blocked. So we went around the corner to what appeared to be entrance to the the workout gym and the basketball gym. But not the pools. Fortunately a pictographic sign indicated there might be an entrance a bit further up the road. So we did find a driveway and a lifeguard having a smoke waved us in. We sought out the person under the tent who couldn’t sell us a ticket but told us we could buy a ticket.. at the parking machine. Problem was the machine wouldn’t accept any of our cards, and only 10 RON notes. Well it might have accepted larger but that was scratched out. 

So we thought we’d try inside the indoor pool. The attendant, literally hiding behind the desk, eventually told us she couldn’t sell us tickets to the outdoor pool. Only the indoor! She unhelpfully suggested we try another machine. Except there was none. 

By then I was determined so I paid the 80 RON to swim indoor. Too expensive for Lori. 

Then I had to figure out the maze of the change rooms with minimal to no signage. And my Romanian is not that flash. 

Then another swimmer gives me the gears for being barefoot. Even though I was showering. When I walked out on to the swim deck he demanded I rewash my feet at the side of the pool saying “There are signs” (there was one that looked like it was stuck on a corner wall nowhere near the change rooms) and “There are children here” (Dude it’s the kids that bring the tinea in!). 

And then I made the mistake of choosing his lane. 

I think I got away with the error of not having a swim cap. 

And the water was too warm. 

We also learned that the trams and metro are on different ticket systems which meant a long walk back. 

We walked because we had intended to stop at the nearby Cartureşti Carusel but, disappointingly, this one didn’t have a cafe like the one in the old town. Our main reason for going. 

That afternoon we met our new guide Georgi, and group. Larger: 13. So will be a little more complicated to manage we think. 

And we had dinner at the same restaurant. 

Bucharest was not our bestie