"Next Next Prague" a Bucharest Travel Page by Orchid

Budapest kicked off the start of an 8 week sweep around the former Warsaw Pact Bloc. We were met at the airport by the proprietors of the apartment we had booked over the internet, and driven into town.
The apartment, in a residential block was fine, on B-dul Magheru, right in the centre of town, close to Revolution square and the University.

Bucharest is a huge sprawling metropoli. It has many fine buildings in its historic heart, mixed up amongst utilitarian concrete facaded apartments (whose slightly run-down hallways and rickety lifts conceal comfortable interiors)

An entire suburb of old Bucharest was demolished to make way for the Palace of Parliament. it is a grand structure however, tastfully decorated with local materials. Not what one would expect of the megalomaniac dictators edifice complex. It's quite a long walk from the Piata Unirii metro station to the entrance on the northern side of the building, past an avenue of classier apartments (a little sterile as the area lacks the number of small shops and restaurants in the busier neighbourhoods). The tour is well worth the hour or so it takes.

The area to the west of Magheru Boulevard is the University district. A lively area, with many bookshops, coffee shops and faculties of the University located. The busy streets are thronged with students, making it a lively place to stay.

I'm not sure of the rationale of the 'turd on a spike' monument in Piata Revoluteii, where the uprising of 1989 is said to have begun. Nearby is the former HQ of the hated Securitate. Many were arested or killed in the square in December 1989. Here was the site of Ceaucescu's last speech, where he was booed by the crowd, and stood uncomprehending on the balcony of the CC Building, and later whisked by helicopter to hiding in the countryside, where, a few days later he, with his wife was tried and summarily executed.