Club Royal Park Hotel Chisinau

By now I'm feeling as crippled as my skinny-ass three-month passport, still getting by, but not by much. Every confrontation leaves a scar, just like every act of kindness plants a seed of forgiveness. Lately I’ve had more of the confrontation than the kindness unfortunately. Now I’m entering the old USSR and frankly am not sure I’m up to it. The old Warsaw Pact is 'Commie Lite.’ The old USSR is the real ...

... bottle in the world - along with countless vintage bottles from the pre-war era. The champagne section was also amazing; our guide took us through the process of how they make sparkling wine, and standing in a room with 3.5 million bottles of the stuff doesn't happen that often. The tour ended in the spectacular tasting suite with a generous glass of red and white each and our guide taking us through tasting, as well as answering ...

... and dining area with air conditioning * 20m2 > 1st bedroom with large cupboard and 2,0x2,0m bed and anti allergic mattresses * 14m2 > 2nd bedroom modern sofa bed (open 156x210cm), study table cupboard * 8m2 > Pvc double glazed windows > connection telephone on 2 places > ...

Day 13 - Marco Moldova has been ready to amaze our GSE Team and Milestii Mici Winery is one such place. Ion, drive us in the morning to this winery: Milestii Mici is first of all a village in the Republic of Moldova of over 9000 inhabitants, situated at 18 km from Chisinau. Since ages, the locals extracted white stone from underneath the village, several hundreds of kilometers of the underground extraction site exist at the moment, a part ...

... with his wife, Alexandra, an interior designer. He guided us around their webpage, through many of their works, which span from the whole composition of Varo Inform, the Moldovian Yellow Pages, to the branding of one of the most prominent candy companies in Moldova, Bucaria ('Joy' in Romanian), to billboard advertising to poster art for restaurants. I found the breadth of their work inspiring and especially enjoyed the poster art. We ...

... into the old lady's ear about the need in the civilised world for manners and respect, changed tack with a dry "yeah, that will help - please just make her nice and angry before she serves us. Thanks love". Our wouldbe ticket seller was indeed a fearsome woman, a Shrek Princess by any yardstick. And while she may have looked outwardly like Laurie Oakes after a drunken fight, as she calmly proceeeded to nod at our bit of paper and thence to print out ...

... Les' machines. On the way back, stopped in a very neat resort complex and ate piles more food. One of the national dishes which we had both last night and tonight was mamaliga - a corn bread topped with eggs, sheep milk cheese and sour cream. Finally, back to the airport where, after much red tape, I was reunited with my suitcase! And then we flew back to Budapest via Vienna again. Another very big day.

... the police station later to do it. With that though, I was on my way, less the money for a really cheap lunch. Since my lunch today was free, I couldn't really care less! Which brings me to my other story for the day. Before the whole crooked police incident, I went for a wander in what was formerly Chisinau's Jewish ghetto. While stopping for a few pics outside the one remaining synagogue in the city, I got invited in by a friendly Hassidic Jew that was watching me from the ...

Moldova was good: - extremely Soviet national capitol - flower markets - Cricova wine - food -cheapness -commercials on MTV -soviet hotels -views of vast open spaces--it looks like Montana not Europe -SUPER LADAs and even new Ladas - police zipping around assorted tiny Soviet cars from decades ago including the Lada 4x4 - ultra-modern train stations - the ...

... in search of my luggage which in typical Wadzi fashion was invariably lost. However, as I was somewhat lackadaisically filling out the lost and found form a kind luggage attendant found my luggage after most of the bags from the second plane load of people had been off loaded of course. So I get my luggage and the kind attendant scurries me to front of the long snaky queue waiting to put their bags through the x-ray machine, and amid muted grumbling I put my bag ...