BUCHAREST (Bucuresti), with a
population of over two million, may
be the largest city between Berlin
and Athens, but it's by no means the
most beautiful. At first sight the
city is a chaotic jumble of
traffic-choked streets, ugly
concrete apartment blocks and
grandiose but unfinished Communist
developments. Lying 64km from the
Danube, Romania's southern border,
but 600km from its northern
frontier, it's also far removed from
the country's more obvious
attractions. And yet, it's Romania's
centre of government and commerce
and site of its main airport, so
most visitors to the country will
find themselves passing through
Bucharest at some point.
Founded by the princes of
Wallachia and dominated by their
Turkish overlords, Bucharest only
came into its own with Romanian
independence in the late nineteenth
century, when it was remodelled by
French and French-trained
architects. The city was dubbed the
"Paris of the East", as
much for its hectic and cosmopolitan
social scene as for its
architecture. The Romanian
aristocracy was among the richest
and most extravagant in Europe, but
this lifestyle depended on the
exploitation of the poor, and in
Bucharest the two coexisted in what
Ferdinand Lasalle described as
"a savage hotchpotch",
with beggars waiting outside the
best restaurants and appalling slums
within a few steps of the elegant
boulevards. Under Communism these
extremes were reduced, but
Capitalism has brought back
conspicuous consumption and a new
poor. Despite the signs of
Westernization and a new prosperity,
with glossy shops full of designer
clothes and a rapidly expanding
restaurant scene, few Bucharestians
can afford to indulge in them.
The architecture of the old city,
with its cosmopolitan air, was
notoriously scarred by Ceausescu's
redevelopment project, which
demolished an immense swathe of the
historic centre and replaced it with
a concrete jungle, the Centru
Civic , including a huge new
palace for the Communist leader, now
known as the Palace of Parliament
. The palace has become one of the
city's prime tourist sites and is
best viewed along the approach from
Piata Unirii. The other site that
can on its own justify a visit to
the city lies to the north of the
centre: the Village Museum ,
a wonderful collection of vernacular
buildings collected from all regions
of Romania. Between these two poles,
in the centre of the city, the National
History Museum lays out the
story of Romania's development from
prehistoric times to the 1920s. It's
in much the same style as every
other county museum, but this is the
biggest and best in the country.
More than most European capitals,
Bucharest is an insider's city.
Behind the congested arteries lies a
tangle of backstreets where concrete
is softened by abundant greenery and
the inhabitants manage to rise above
the bureaucratic obstructions and
inadequacies of the city's
infrastructure. The people
are a cosmopolitan mixture:
Romanians, Gypsies, Turks, Arabs,
Africans and Pakistanis, now joined
by thousands of Chinese who add yet
another layer to the thriving
underworld of traficanti ,
prostitutes and beggars.
Accommodation is more
expensive in Bucharest than
elsewhere, and you're more likely to
be hassled, hustled and overcharged.
Though power and water cuts are now
rare, many hotels are overheated in
summer and freezing in winter, when
snowdrifts grip the city and the
temperature plunges to -20°F (-4°C).
Unless Bucharest is your only
destination, it's as well to head
for Transylvania or the coast as
soon as possible. There are good
train and road connections to the
rest of the country, but local
services to the towns and villages
in the immediate vicinity are often
limited or tortuous. However, there
are some monasteries and mansions,
notably at Snagov and Mogosoaia,
which can be visited as day-trips.
