After 18 hours of travel we arrived at our the Marmorosch Hotel, a Marriott Bonvoy. Travel was seventeen hours of air/airports (two connections) and one hour of very slow traffic from the Bucharest Airport to our hotel by Uber. The traffic though allowed for a good look around and our driver was very informed and his English (learned from watching movies) was understandable. His knowledge of history and dates was amazing.
Speaking of history, the Marmorosch is also very historic. It is the old Marmorosch Blank Bank Palace built in 1923 and served as one of the largest banks for almost 100 years. The restaurant is named The Blank and the bar is The Vault.
Once inside the door you are greeted by a marble staircase leading up to reception that is located in front of brass framed windows and another door that opens to a huge atrium with a golden glassed ceiling. That is where another bar lounge and the restaurants are located. It is impressive to say the least.
This is the hotel that Uniworld Cruises has us booked in to begin our journey with them but we have arrived a couple days early--always our plan to assure that there will be no travel problems to delay our expected arrival. Upon check-in, we were assured that we could stay in the same room when the Uniworld booking takes over in two days.
Our first order of business was to get a light dinner and then sleep since our night was spent fitfully in an airplane between Charlotte, NC, and London. Did I mention that we walked a total of 3.5 miles yesterday, most of those in airports. We found a nearby cafe in the old town which is less than a block from our hotel and Bob ordered a very Romanian dish--spaghetti. I tried to be a little more regionally correct and ordered beef and lamb meatballs with fries. We'll save the more cultural dishes for the days ahead.
Our room looks out over the rooftops of the Bucharest Old Town and we enjoyed the view for a few minutes before closing the drapes and climbing into bed. Looking forward to tomorrow's walk through Old Town. The glimpses we had were very nice.
