That's what I called myself when I tried to define myself as a travel enthusiast, a captive traveler. The sense is that if I end up in a place that I like a lot and feel good about, then I will return there regularly. For this post, the name captive traveler will change to the captive walker.
The captive walker on Victory Avenue! This is me. If I go for a walk in the city where I live, Bucharest, Romania, nine out of ten walks are on Victory Avenue. I think the explanation for this choice is easy to give...
This avenue is one of the oldest in the city.
It was founded by the ruler Constantin Brancoveanu in 1600 and was called Mogosoaiei Bridge because it was paved with... tree trunks. At the end of the 1800s, more precisely in 1877, when Romania gained independence from the Ottoman Empire and the victorious army entered the city on this avenue, the name was changed to Victory Avenue.
Because it's so old, Victory Avenue has it all. Palaces and dilapidated houses, shops, churches, restaurants, and cafes. All full of history. I love looking at these buildings and monuments and then looking for information about them. In this way, every walk also becomes an opportunity to learn something new about the city where I live.
This boulevard is the subject of a blog series in #pinmapple and now, when I write for 
About this young lady, I can say that she is a typical character of this place, full of shops and boutiques. Fresh out of the hair stylist and beautician, nails matched with pants, eyes in the smartphone, and shopping package. She suddenly appeared in front of me and I desperately wanted to have her in my photo collection, but I couldn't just photograph her, because she would get upset, for sure. I caught the moment when she was absorbed in her phone and rushed to trigger the camera, which made the image, but not the best quality.
Since I am a grandfather and have a granddaughter, I try to imagine what my granddaughter will be like in a few years. So I looked after this mother and her little girl I came across and again managed to photograph without being noticed.
What I forgot to mention is that the weather is wonderfully beautiful and warm now that we are almost mid-January. Usually, not so many years ago, it was mid-winter at this time, with high snowfalls and very low temperatures. Now the sun is shining and warming up like a spring day, and I tried a few "contre-jour" shots with the sun in front of me.
I also like places more hidden from view and discovered this inner courtyard, of a newly built building. So something new on the old boulevard...
Then nostalgia overcomes me at the sight of Eforie Street, a small sloping street leading off Victory Avenue.
I spent most of my adolescence and youth watching movies on this street. This is where I became a cinephile. On the right, it says on a building: CINEMA EFORIE. That was a kind of film museum, where films from all over the world were shown, five or six different films a day.
It was a small theater and to buy movie tickets I would come at 3 am to stand in line at the ticket office. This happened mostly between 1970 and 1980. It was hard to see a quality film then. Now I watch as much as I want directly on my smartphone!
I've said before that there is a lot of repair and renovation going on, and there are a lot of buildings that need it. While I'm glad these buildings will get their former beauty, I wonder if I'll live long enough to see it all finished.
And yet, there are still plenty of buildings awaiting renovation and consolidation.
But let's leave the buildings and get back to the people. The totally unseasonable heat outside has brought people out for walks and coffee shops.
I even met a fellow photographer, but a photographer who had a model. Again, I was unprepared and I photographed at a speed I didn't notice that a tree trunk occupied the center of my photo and stole the clarity of my image.
He didn't even notice that he, in turn, became my model!
I've walked here hundreds of times and never noticed this. I didn't notice the poems! I discovered something very beautiful on this walk. Short poems or fragments of poems by Romanian poets who are no longer alive, printed on some metal plates and placed on the poles that do not allow cars to climb the sidewalks!
This poem was written by one of the best Romanian poets, who died very young, in an accident, so he didn't have enough time to write... Nicolae Labis! One of my favorite poets, all the more so because he grew up in the same places in northern Romania where I grew up.
the poem,
although it is from pure implications and ramifications
or from clear crystals that sparkle and break,
entering it, to shiver like in winter in a forest,
because they look at you hotly, through the ice, wolf eyes.
I don't know how to translate a poem, and I don't even know how to show the rhyme properly, but still, I tried to translate this short poem by N. Labis, a poet who died at the age of 21!
I am glad that I finished this walk in the land of poetry. It was a terrible surprise, I didn't know about this beautiful initiative and I spent an hour reading, after decades of break, poems written on the pavement.
