"Bucharest - Trapped Between Past And Future" Bucharest by edvin_br

Bucharest is the heart of Romania. Its a center of politics,commerce, industry, education, transportation, culture and more. Bucharest is situated in the souhren-east side of the contry and 2 milion people live in the city.
Its easy to get to the city, there is the new modern Otopeni airport that connects from bucharest to hundreds of cities around the globe... another way, less convenient is to get to Gara De Nord, the cities main railway station that turnd out to be not the most admirble place in the city... but in the last years it was renovarted and less gypcies are hanging around in the area. Bucharest also has some motoways that connect to Pitesti, Ploiesti and one that in the near future will be ready to Constanta. Bucharest will also be connected to Budapest in the future but it will take a while (around 2010). The transportation in the city is very good, including metro, trams, trollybues and buses that all of them using new, modern vehicles.
When you finnaly get to the city its not a problam to find hotel because almost every week there is an opening of a new one, so you just have to choose between hotels of 1-5 stars, hostels or apartments.
In Bucharest people love to eat so its full with restaurants that im sure you will like.
There are also a lot of possibilities to shop and to have fun. Alot of new shops such: Lacoste, Nike, Adidas, Puma, Kenvelo, Benneton and more can be found in Bucharest and there are also very impressive shopping centers such: Bucharest mall, Unirii shopping center, Carrefour, Cora and the huge Dambovita complex which will be the biggest in the region is on the way. There are thousends of crazy pubs, clubs and bars where you can go wild.
So if you wanna go now to Bucharest (and i hope you would) im sure you will find your own way to have the best time in this amazing city.

The Patriarchal seat

Bucharest dosnt have too long history but its long enough for me to tell you some amaing stuff about this wonderful city.
The city was first mentioned in 1459 and according to the legend was founded by the shepherd Bucur and was called in its name by Vlad Tepes (Dracula). the oldest remain of Bucharest is the Old Court that is located in the cities old town and can be visited also today when you will be around Lipscani Area. Another old remain of Bucharest is Manuc's Inn that uses today as a hotel.
Bucharest devaloped much when it was under Turkish roll and it even became the capital of Romania.
Bucharest had started to flourish and had it best years in the end of the 19 century. The city even called that days: "The Paris Of The East" because of its beautiful buildings, boulevrads and parks. A lot of neo classic style buildings were built, resembles to Paris. Calea victoriei was the center of the city, the most cultural area with shops,cafes, hotels and banks and most of the high socity were hanging there, In the street area you could find the military circle (1912), Capsa (1886), Post Palace (1894-1900, today the History Museum), Savings Bank Palace (1896-1900, today the Cec Palace) and more. Anothr importent area was the Palace Square with Athenee Palace (1914, today Hilton), Imperial hotel (dosnt exists), the National library (1891-1895), Romania Athenaeum (1886-1888) and the Royal Palace (the original was demolished in 1913 and the actual was built between 1930-1937, today the National Museum of Art). there is also the magnificent Church of the Patriarchate, built between 1654-1658. there is the beautiful Arch of Triumph that situated in the Soseaua Kiseleff Blv, taht is an old, green and very pleasent boulevard with charming houses. The old Unirii Square (also known as Senate Square) was the area of the Justice Palace (1895), once there wasnt the Dambovita river the seperate the two sides and it was a very nice place, today the buildings in the area are a bit overused and you can see it on thier colores. Another beautiful building which was destroyed in the WWII is Sturdza Palace that used to be the foreign affairs ministry. all that devalopment of classic buildings and huge boulevards gave Bucharest a feeling of a very western city at those times, with very culturald people and way of life.
All that came to an ened in the second world war, the city was bombed a lot by the Germans in 1944 and a lot of special buildings (Imperail hotel, Sturdza Palace, the National Theater were destroyed. A big earthquake in the 70-ties also maid a lot of damage to the beauty of the city and it was a reason for Ceausescu, the Romanian roller to destroy much more parts of the old beautiful city and building a lot of ugly socialist style blocks.
Today not much left of the old glory of Bucharest and its hard to notice the old areas that stil exists because of the density of the ugly blocks which covers the cities skyline.

Charless De Gaulle office building

Today Bucharest is a huge city, everything is moving there very fast. The city get a lot of investments and there is new houses, offce building, shops and restaurants in every corner. You can see in Bucharest tons of luxury and new sport cars which racing one another in the streets by night , you will see also the younger generation taht will resemble you to western contries but you will also see the gypcies and the mess in the city. All that will leave you with a feweling that this city is not a regular enormus place but it has some megic that no other city in the world has...

• Pros:Rich and interesting history
• Cons:Too messy and much of the old town dosnt exists today
• In a nutshell:A city of paradoxes and contrasts