To the north of Bucharest’s city center is the beautiful Herăstrău Park (Parcul Herăstrău). This large city park surrounds a lake and part of the Colentina River.
Victory Avenue (Calea Victoriei) is a historic street that leads north from the heart of Bucharest. My posts about Old Town and Revolution Square cover a lot of the sights along the street. This entry covers some other sights between Revolution Square and Victory Square.
Revolution Square (Piața Revoluției) in Bucharest was the site of brutal dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s infamous final speech on December 21, 1989, during the Romanian Revolution.
While exploring the concrete mess along Union Boulevard (Bulevardul Unirii) in Bucharest, you’ll realize there’s not much of interest along the way. You have to go behind the buildings to really explore. Why? The blocks of buildings located in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Civic Center project (Centrul Civic) were also meant to hide churches.
Near the southwest corner of Bucharest’s Old Town is the National History Museum. This excellent museum is housed in the old Postal Services Palace. A statue of Roman Emperor Trajan holding a wolf adorns the steps out front.
Unlike the hidden churches in Nicolae Ceaușescu’s horrible urban redevelopment project, the churches in the Old Town of Bucharest remain in the open and easy to find. There are five of note that I visited.
Bucharest doesn’t get enough respect. I was told to skip it because it’s boring, ugly, depressing, pointless, and many other negative things. All of the reasons are wrong.
When I arrived at the airport in Bucharest, I had to go to Bucharest North Railway Station (Gara de Nord). Not wanting to get ripped off by a taxi, I decided to take the 780 bus which goes directly from the airport to the train station. I bought my ticket from a machine, entered the bus, validated the ticket, and sat down.