Most people we met told us not to bother to go to Bucharest as they had found it an uninteresting city. It has a population of 1.1 million people. However, we enjoyed our short stay there and were not bothered by the beggars or Gypsies like we were warned we would be. It is a city that has no real centre that jumps out at you and says 'Come visit, come stay, come look around, come shop'.
In the 1980s, the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu wanted to stop foreign debt and look good in front of the rest of the world so he exported Romania's food while his own people had to ration food and endure power cuts to save money. he had one sixth of Bucharest bulldozed to build his House of the People, now the Palace of Parliament. It is the world's second largest building with the Pentagon being larger but it would have been the largest if the 10% planned had been built.
We couldn't go to Bucharest without visiting the famous Central Committee of the Communist party building and checking out the balcony from which Ceausescu made his last speech in 1989. Onlookers shouted 'Down with Ceausescu' and he made his escape by helicopter from the roof. Many people were shot and killed and we could see the bullet holes in the buildings.
We visited the Ethnic museum and learnt about the old traditions of the people. They never put crosses in their cemeteries and so when someone died they made 3 crosses, one for the house, one for the church and one for the village and they were place on a tree in the village.
In the historic part of the city (1600s) there are still some old buildings standing but others have been covered by new buildings. There is even a section of old cellars that they have dug up and built walkways over but they are sadly filling with rubbish.
A modern glass building has been built inside the old shell of this building. There were a few tall modern buildings but not many. Near our hostel was a huge pillared building that the dictator had planned to be the radio and communications building but it was never completed. Today contractors are gutting it and turning it into a mall. It will look fabulous when it is finished.
