| Page Views: 18,437 Last Visit to Bucharest: - I Live Here | About my homecity - Bucharest by codrutz - last update: Jun 12, 2009 |
Bucharest - The Capital of Romania Bucharest is a really beautiful city, featuring impossible mixture of different architecture styles. You can meet Gothic type and Stalin-period-style buildings neighboring at the same street with post-modern hotel tower of concrete and glass. Unlike NY or Chicago, the street structure is not square-parallel, but rather star-like, so streets go like star beams from round circuses, thus forming blocks of different shapes - three, five, six-corner blocks, but not rectangular.
During the 50's, Bucharest was known as The Little Paris because of the similarities in boulevards and architecture. Also, Bucharest has a Triumphal Arch very similar to the one in Paris. Erudites in that period was known to study in Paris, the Romanian language is related to French, so the two cities were somehow linked. |
Modern times: Former president (dictator) Ceausescu changed to face of the city, with his tendency to gigantism for recognition. His palaces are really huge. The Palace of Republic was designed to overgrow both Pentagon building and Cheops pyramid and it does. It is so huge and stays on so big territory that you can't even recognize its size because of optical illusion. And the boulevard that leads to it is wider than Champs-Elysées in Paris. |
Downtown of Bucharest is comprised by the space between the Victoriei Square - where the Romanian Government is and the Unirii Square - in which south east end starts the grand (but not so interesting) boulevard to the Parliament Palace. Near Unirii Square there is also the old city center, the Old Princely Court and oldest streets like Lipscani, Selari, Covaci, Gabroveni, between National Bank of Romania and the geographical center of Bucharest, Sf. Gheorghe Square - considered km.0 of Romania.
The Revolution square is a double square that hosts to the north the Romanian Athenaeum (see first picture of the page) and the Hilton hotel, and the south part, with the National Library, the Senate building and the old Royal Palace that is now the Museum of Art. The newest landmark in town is a white marble spear with something like a squashed earth on the top - I really don't know yet the explanation :)
I guess it is nice to discover the old boulevards and buildings, old hotels from the time of "Little Paris", lots of churches (hidden behind blocks of flats by the communist regime) and the palaces like the one in the side picture, which is located near the Cismigiu Park - oldest park of Bucharest.
The farther from the downtown, the more territory is covered by beautiful parks. Herastrau, I think, is the biggest one and I think it's at least twice as large as Manhattan's Central Park. Again, in parks they mix French 'civilized' style with English wildlife simulation. There is also the Tineretului Park, more to the south, and a lot of other smaller parks. |
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| Pros: | "Architecture, people, shops, food, nighclubs" | | Cons: | "Crowded, not very clean" | | In A Nutshell: | "Formerly known as Little Paris .. now it's Bucharest day&night :)" |
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 Comments for codrutz about Bucharest | | | | |
BruceDunning Wed Jun 24, 2009 00:15 UTC
You have a fabulous presentation of your wonderful city. Be proud of the heritage of this historical city, and for all its struggles. I hope to get that way someday. | mirchica Fri Jun 12, 2009 08:48 UTC
You have a great ciry and page about it.I've always wanted to visit it and I'll do it soon.Only about the girls...Bulgarians are more beautiful,hehe ;)I love the "don't forget me" flowers,we call them 'nezabravka' :))) | nomad7890 Thu Jun 11, 2009 23:23 UTC
Love all the flowers! -Martha | beertjeisbest Mon Jan 26, 2009 15:36 UTC
The Infuriated doughnut, with his little fumes and indignant posture has to be my favourite corporate logo ever! |
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