Turning Back the Clock at the Grand Hotel Bucharest
Vertigo. A stomach flip on stepping towards the floor-to-ceiling windows. Below, the Romanian capital spreading out: copious concrete, the Universitate Metro, the National Theatre, an insect crawl of cars. Seagulls riding the thermals, level with my eyes, and the mid-morning light somehow both faded and bright, throwing the city into a strange relief and making it appear like a postcard from the 1980s. After the overnight sleeper from Chișinău, I also felt outdated, like a tattered rag doll, keen to be reunited with the smell of coffee, freshly roasted, which Romanians, like Italians, excel at.