Bucharest, Romania

We are currently staying with Darren's lovely cousin Melissa in her home on the outskirts of Bucharest.

Yesterday was a complete washout as it rained all day, so we stayed in and I made friends with Rio the dog, but annoyingly she much preferred Darren to me.

The weather was back to normal today so we set out on a massive tour of the capital.

We hopped off the bus and walked round a lake to the Arc de Triumph. This was built to commemorate Romania's victory in the first world war, and the traffic around it is as busy as its Parisian namesake.

Then we went to the Palace of Parliament, which is supposed to be the heaviest building in the world.

It has over 1,000 rooms and lots of them are absolutely unbelievably massive.

Apparently the dictator Nicholae Ceausescu visited North Korea in the 1950s and got the idea of creating an enormous building to show off his power and influence.

Almost all of the materials, and all of the workforce were Romanian, but the Communists were overthrown before it was finished so it was never used for its original purpose.

Today it seems that they can't think what to do with these massive rooms and corridors, so they are empty, but spotlessly clean.

Moving on towards the city centre I was very impressed with the ponds and fountains along the main road and in the middle of a huge roundabout.

All that I needed was a glass of wine and some peanuts and I could have spent the afternoon there.

Unfortunately there was not a bar nearby, but in the distance you can see the Palace of Parliament.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Bucharest looking at beautiful buildings.

We also found a great spot along the river and I was very jealous of this bike.