Bucharest was once referred to as “Little Paris.”

When we arrived in Bucharest in the evening, all we saw on the way to our hotel were old, gray, square, Soviet-style buildings. Even the train station looked old & needing repair. But, the next day when we started touring the city, “Little Paris” began emerging.

As you get closer to Old Town, beautiful, old, baroque buildings seem to be everywhere. Most of these gems were built at the end of the 19th century up until WWI. With a little imagination you can see women in their fancy dresses with stylish hats & men in suits with bowler hats walking in the streets much like in Paris at the end of the 19th century.

One highlight was visiting the Roman Athenaeum which is grand concert hall. It is built in the Neo-Classical style & was finished in 1889.

The most iconic structure fitting with the “Little Paris” theme is the monument that looks almost identical to the Arc of Triumph in Paris.

In Old Town, we visited the Cărturești Carousel which is considered among the world’s most beautiful bookstores

It was built in 1903 by a family of wealthy Greek bankers & they used it as their bank headquarters.

In the 1950s, the building was confiscated by the Communist regime & used as a general store ending up being forgotten over the years. 

After legal battles lasting many years, in 2007, the building was returned to the original owners & fully restored.

Bucharest has a very nice Village Museum where old homes & churches from around the country have been moved & displayed to show how life was once lived by people in Romania’s different regions.

Nicolae Ceausescu was Romania’s communist dictator from 1967 until revolutionaries captured & executed him on 25 December 1989. His Communist government was considered to be the most repressive in the Eastern Bloc countries.

Revolution Square Today

Ceausescu was a highly paranoid man with only a 4th grade education. He began building the Palace of the Parliament in June 1980 after forcing 40,000 people to relocate.

The structure was only 70% complete when Ceausescu was killed. For 9 straight years its construction consumed one third of Romania’s national budget & almost bankrupted the country. Without a doubt, this massive spending to erect a building to satisfy his vanity along with his abusive government lead to Ceausescu’s demise.

After his death, the Romanian people had the choices to destroy the building, sell it, or finish it. Funny note: the only 2 possible buyers were Rupert Murdoch & Donald Trump who who wanted turn it into a hotel & casino.

Since it was cheaper to finish it rather than to tear it down, the Romanians chose to complete what they could & use it as Romania’s Parliament. Smart choice. However, there are still many areas such as the indoor swimming pool that will never be completed.

Today, it is the world’s 3rd largest building & at 4.1 million pounds, it is the heaviest building because it is completely made from marble. It’s so heavy that it sinks half a centimeter a year. It was much more impressive than I was expecting.

Every country has something that I fall in love with. In Romania, it is the lemonade. Every restaurant & even small convenience stores sell a wide variety of lemonade drinks. The most common varieties are mint, strawberry, & plain. I also saw mango & lavender flavors. All are made with fresh ingredients.

I have always had a weakness for anything with embroidery or looks like it has hand stitching. Maybe this is because when I was a teenager, I embroidered my own clothes, Regardless the reason, a few of these lovely peasant blouses are going home in my suitcase.

One day while sitting in the park enjoying the lovely weather I thought about how different Romania would be today had it not been for two world wars & being placed under communism for almost 45 years.

When you compare Bucharest to places like Vienna which greatly benefited from the American Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Europe, you can easily see how events can drastically change a country’s future.