Bucharest
Bucharest is a capital city of Romania, situated in southern part of the country. Today it serves as a commercial center of the country. There are a lot of people who mixes up Bucharest and Budapest. If you are one of them, you need to remember words: BIG or LONG.
To be able to identify Bucharest you need to know about its history. In short after visiting North Korea and other communist countries, former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu decided that he wants to build the biggest Parliament and longest boulevard in Europe. Under the false pretext of the 77’s earthquake, around 7 km worth of buildings from the Old City Center have been demolished. 44,000 people have been relocated. A series of important buildings have been demolished, without any care of the patrimony or their architectural value and the construction began.
Longest boulevard was built on a river for it not to intervene with the length. For Romanian people this boulevard symbolizes tragic events which happened more than 30 years ago. Once a beautiful Old Town and a heart of the city was destroyed and replaced by massive block buildings. It was a disaster for everyone living in there as their houses were demolished and some of the people were only advised to move a day in advance.
Around 30 years ago in 1989, during revolution in Romania communist dictator was killed. Even after his death Romanian people continued to build the Parliament. Nowadays it is still not finished, however, its most iconic landmark in Bucharest - a massive, communist-era Palace of Parliament – a government building, which has 1,100 rooms. Unfortunately, even as it is the second largest governmental buildings in the world and largest in Europe, after filling the building with various governmental institutions, European Commission and allowing various events to take place inside they only use up to 30 percent of the building.
We entered Bucharest coming from central part of Romania and we visited north before that, it was so hard to comprehend how lightly this communist dictator just wiped off half of the city’s history if not more.
Even though Bucharest no longer has so many cultural or historical sites, they still have some of them saved. Therefore, we recommend to not hesitate and visit it as it is totally worth it! At least for couple days.
Helpful tips
Restaurants. Lunch, lunch and one more time lunch! They have great deals in their lunch menu. You get amazing price quality ratio as you can choose even from best restaurants in town who has this opportunity. We tried couple and we loved it! One of them was famous Armenian house Hanul Manuc – a must visit place for its history and for the food! Second was Taverna Covaci, there we also enjoyed a lunch deal meal which was delicious.
Oh! And one of our favorite places was Caru’ cu Bere – oldest beer bar in whole Bucharest which has spectacular art nouveau interior decorations, great beer and moving performances.
Markets. In Bucharest as in every other location on the world enjoyed by tourists you will have a chance to buy overpriced souvenirs. Especially overpriced they are in the Biggest building in town – Parliament, thus, we recommend buying souvenirs downtown instead.
In South you should keep in mind water as we encountered that you should not drink from tap. However, in case you disagree, just double check this with your host or owner.
Transportation. To get to Bucharest you can use car, bus, train or plane, which ever you think is more convenient for you. Best way to get around the city is by taking metro, also there are trams and buses, sometimes taxi might be an option as well.
Best of luck planning your holidays in Bucharest!
Is there anything else you would like to visit while in Romania?
If you have anything in mind, please let us know and let’s discuss it.
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