Bucharest walking tour & city guide

The Old Town and Calea Victoriei

The Old Town, around Lipscani Street, is a compact grid of cobbled lanes that was once the city's merchant quarter. Today its restored buildings hold cafés, bars and the ruins of the Old Princely Court, while small churches such as Stavropoleos Monastery, with its carved stone porch, hide in quiet courtyards.

Calea Victoriei, the city's oldest and grandest avenue, runs north past the domed Romanian Athenaeum concert hall, the former Royal Palace, now the National Museum of Art, and Revolution Square, where the 1989 uprising that ended communist rule began.

The Palace of the Parliament

Built in the 1980s on the orders of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Palace of the Parliament is one of the largest administrative buildings in the world, with more than a thousand rooms. Whole neighborhoods were demolished to make room for it and for the wide Unirii Boulevard in front. Guided tours show its marble halls and the view from its balcony.

Parks and practical tips

Bucharest is a green city. Cișmigiu Garden, the oldest park, has a lake for rowing in summer, and the large King Michael I Park in the north surrounds Herăstrău Lake, next to the open-air Village Museum with traditional houses from across Romania. The Arcul de Triumf stands at the start of the leafy Kiseleff Road.

The metro is cheap and covers the main sights, and ride-hailing is widely used. Spring and early autumn are the most pleasant seasons; summers are hot and winters cold and often snowy.