Knowing we had an early departure the following morning for our flights, I let Rory make the most of our dark curtains to sleep in. Til about noon! The pesky air con seeks on a timer so it required putting on again if you wake hot. Anyhow, Bucharest had decidedly non black out curtains and were bright yellow.
Once we were both awake, Rory found the channel for the Olympic Games opening ceremony where we observed the strange order of the Portuguese alphabet and the names of countries. For the second time in our holiday (if I recall correctly as it could easily be more!) housekeeping called to ask if our slack arses we’re going out and wanted our room cleaned? Actually in both issuance cities the rooms didn’t get cleaned on a day each whilst we were out so we retreated to their lobbies. Points to the boutique hotel in St P who called down to reception when they were done, Mercure missed this!
We set out for brunch, deciding initially on pancakes but then realising that we’d more often see waffles. We found a first floor cafe and settled in. We both got iced coffees but it wasn’t clear is any coffee had been harmed in their making! So we chased our waffles with Turkish coffee. Interestingly our bill annotated my sweetened and Rory’s unsweetened coffees differently. And you always get a glass of water with your Turkish coffee (sometimes just a shot glass).
From the cafe I used their wifi and the Turkish Airways app to book the Sarajevo to Istanbul leg to then try and change my Emirates flight to depart Istanbul. It’s pretty hard to get out of Sarajevo – at least to somewhere I want to go and/or Emirates flys from! Emirates, for those who care, doesn’t fly to Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia or anywhere in that Balkans block! The options are Budapest or Istanbul. Given Budapest is a six hour bus ride, I picked turkey as a transit location – it is also cheaper as a fare adjustment than Budapest.
So, the why of the booking at the cafe? Well Rory and I, on our phones, my iPad and his laptop, found last night doing some malicious forwarding of websites to adware sites. Same sites that worked fine that same morning. So I’m rather dubious about entering credit card details into these sites now when I’m on hotel wifi. Maybe it’s reds under the bed but whatever. However, Emirates app nor it’s mobile website seems to allow for departure city changes. This I was exploring on the iPad yesterday. So I think we’ll need to take the iPad on an excursion or wait til Sarajevo to sort that change out. I wonder if the apps are more secure though…
After our waffles and coffee, we wet for our Turkish bath or hamam. Genders are segregated. We were both given a mitt of sorts and I was also given some one size fits most black knickers… Which I wore over my bikini bottoms and not really sure why? Look like the others? I coulda saved wet bottoms to carry home tho!! Anyhow, you strip down and take your red and white checked towel to keep your modesty moving from the mezzanine balcony with change rooms back to the central area and then are guided to the spa room, via the anteroom.
When you enter the spa room, there’s an elevated marble platform and the guide unravels my towel and lays it on the platform for 15mins of sweating. After your sweat time, your guide returns and gets your mit and rubs you down, front and back with warm water. Following this you rotisserie again and from a copper basin that was resting on the platform she takes a white pillow case, inflating it with air and then squeezing out all the bubbles. After all this, I noted largish soap flakes on my towel, so I figure those were inside the pillow case. She suds you up everywhere before taking you to the periphery where there’s taps and a marble basin with flowing warm water. Here, she rinses you off and does her darnedest to make your hair a knotty mess. Or it was a head massage – not entirely clear!
The bath has a domed ceiling, with holes out to the sky, glassed in. The room is otherwise not artificially lit (though there are a few hanging bulbs for night time as its open til midnight).
My scrubber lady, come in in the same one size fits most knickers and she’s at the upper end of “most”. She then goes and dunks her matching black bra into the flowing warm water and put her bra on. Each scrubber has a disc with a number on their bra. I suspect this is for tipping. We are Aussies and we weren’t accosted to tip, so we didn’t!
Wow! I am probably too prudish or shy to go a full Turkish bath! Although maybe if I was in my twenties again, as opposed to forties. The horror! It sounds like an amazing experience. Did Rory also have the honour of the black undies?!
My brother had to leave his boxers on, which he said was sorta weird!! As in, I think he tried to remove them but was told otherwise. At least, that’s how I recall it!
If you’d seen the masseuses, you’d have felt a OK!
I probably wouldn’t have done that. The waffles look amazing, though!