TRIP REPORT: A Nighttime walk with an iPhone – Miles to Bucharest

A Nighttime Walk with an iPhone
Miles to Bucharest

There comes a point where even I get bored of a hotel room. And also, there’s a supermarket around the corner – as well as some Communist architecture that is scarcely impressive. Let’s drag the iPhone out for a nighttime walk around the Bulevardul Unirii and Palatul Parlamentului… 

In this adventure

• The Last Gasp of Silver (or British Airways did us all dirty)
• Off to Heathrow and the wonder of Terminal 3
• Lounging around Terminal 3 with Cathay Pacific and Qantas
• BA886 London Heathrow to Bucharest Henri Coandă (Club Europe)
• Exiting Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport and into the City – Of Trains and Trams
• The Mercure Urinii – An Accor ALL Hotel
• A Nighttime Walk with an iPhone
• A Morning Exploration around Central Bucharest
• Back to Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport and the Visa Satellite Lounge
• BA887 Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport to London Heathrow (Club Europe)
• Two Trains, A Tube and a Bus to Home
• Silver retained. But a New Battle awaits

Given that I had a bit of a rest before heading back out, I was in no normal state – heck, I was tired as hell after only a few hours of sleep on and off.

But I was hungry. And there was a 24-hour Carrefour within spitting distance of the Metro station. The were also a few mini Carrefours and MEGAs in the area. But a 24-hour supermarket. I miss them. The ones near me have shifted to 18 hours a day opening (which when you doze off after a long day at work and wake up at ten to midnight isn’t a great thing – realising that it’s instant noodles later on that evening).

Nonetheless, I walked down Union Boulevard and passed a McD’s, KFC, a noodle joint and other places on the way. Maybe I was in the mood to be snacky, as opposed to a full dinner as I desired basic carbs, meats and crisps, rather than a full meal.

Bulevardul Unirii (Union Boulevard) 

JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

One thing I saw a lot of… flower shops.

Certainly not a McDonald’s Hamburger – sorry, there are times when I want one… and this wasn’t that time.

Carrefour

Besides, one of the things I love when travelling is going around other country’s supermarkets and seeing what’s the same, what’s different and what prices are like.

Call it a boring hobby. But it’s enough to keep me entertained.

Hot sites 

Slice them up

Best use of the middle of an escalator – add more items for sale!

Ok, people. Calm down. KitKat,  Lion Bar or Nesquik cereals? What the actual…

Ethnic gifts here. 

With some snacks and nibbles, all in an attractive Carefour bag), I looked around. Certainly, where I was there were fountains – but at the bottom of the road, there was also the Palatul Parlamentului (Place of the Parliament) building.

I’m always up for an adventure. Armed with only an iPhone, I took my shopping for a walk. Finding places to cross the roads was… not challenging, but some obvious crossings weren’t available where one would think they were. Thus, there’s a lot of going around places. I could have bypassed a lot of this by going underground….

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Late-night discounts.

… but, where’s the fun in that?

Continuing the walk, it seemed I had hit the wedding dress part of Romania, with plenty of dress outlets on the parallel road against Bulevardul Unirii.

Eventually, I came to my objective. The back of the Palace of the Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului). This building comes from the days of  Nicolae Ceaușescu.

With a height of 84 m (276 ft), a floor area of 365,000 m2 (3,930,000 sq ft) and a volume of 2,550,000 m3 (90,000,000 cu ft), the Palace of the Parliament is the third largest administrative building in the world.

And man… even from the back of Bulevardul Unirii – it’s bigggggg.

If I’m shooting pictures I want to work with on the iPhone, I tend to save them as Digital Negatives (DNG).  This allows the camera sensor to work its best in ProRAW format, whilst giving me latitude to play with the image once in Adobe LightRoom Classic later.

There’s one big downside to DNG – It’s very much a space hog as there is very little (if any) compression in it, with files starting at 60mb a pop, and going upward (compared to JPG which are only a few Mb at most.

If you’re running a phone with less than 128Gb of storage, I would skip using it, unless you don’t keep much of a photo library on your device. For those with 256Gb or larger capacity devices… just keep an eye on the library size. Don’t be afraid to switch back to JPG or HEIF if you’re inclined (least of all, you have to get those files off the phone – Apple insists on using USB2 signalling for its iPhone 15/16 lines whereas the iPhone 15/16Pro have USB3 signalling,  but you might need a new cable as the one in the box is signalled for USB 2 speeds… because Apple hates everyone)

One day, I’ll write about the mess that is USB-C and why you can have USB2 speeds over USB-C.

With those images in the can, I walked back to the hotel, taking my time. Whilst there were a few people out, it felt safe enough to walk up and down the boulevard.

They see me tramming.

The Dâmbovița River at night 

NOODLE PACK

Why? 

Nighttime return 

And yes, after arriving back at the hotel, I pretty much conked out.

Next:

A Morning Walk around Bucharest.

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