BUCHAREST · ROMANIA
Little Paris, and the road to the castles.
Belle Époque boulevards and Communist-era monoliths, the Old Town after dark and the Palace of the Parliament by day. Then two hours north to Transylvania, the salt mines and the Carpathians.
Only in Bucharest
Three things you can only do here.
Old towns and grand boulevards turn up across Europe. A megalomaniac’s marble palace, a Cold War still standing in the streets, and Dracula’s own mountains a morning away do not.
The heaviest building on earth
The Palace of the Parliament
Ceaușescu flattened a fifth of old Bucharest to raise it, and never lived to see it finished. The Palace of the Parliament is the heaviest building on the planet and the largest in Europe: 1,100 rooms, marble by the acre, chandeliers the size of cars. A guided hour takes in only a sliver, and that is still more than you can take in.
- 1 Bucharest: Palace of Parliament Tickets and Guide
- 2 Bucharest: Palace of Parliament Tickets and Guided Tour
- 3 Bucharest: Parliament Palace Skip-the-line Ticket
The Cold War, still standing
Ceaușescu’s Bucharest
Four decades of Communism are written all over the city, and the best guides walk you straight through it. Revolution Square where the crowd turned in 1989, the grey ranks of the Civic Centre, the breadlines and the secret police. The story told, more often than not, by people who lived it.
See all 40 →Two hours to Transylvania
Real Dracula Country
Drive north and the plains give way to the Carpathians, where the real Transylvania begins. Bran Castle on its crag plays the part of Dracula’s lair, Peleș is a storybook royal palace in the pines, and Brașov is a Saxon old town under the peaks. The day trip Bucharest is built around.
- 1 Bucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
- 2 Bucharest: Dracula Castle, Peles Castle & Brasov Old Town
- 3 Bucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peleș Castle & Brașov Day Trip
The trip everyone takes
Bucharest’s single most popular day out.
More travellers book this than anything else here. If you lock in just one thing before you arrive, make it this one.
The classics
Bucharest’s Most Popular Tours & Day Trips
The Transylvania castles, the Palace of the Parliament, the Old Town walk and the salt mines. The days most travellers book first.
Where to begin
The experiences a Bucharest trip is built around.
The Transylvania castles, the Old Town walks, the Communism trail, the Palace, the food and the thermal baths. The experiences most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
The big question
How to do the castles.
Almost everyone wants Transylvania, and there is more than one way to get there. Here is how the day trips out of Bucharest compare, and who each one suits.
Little Paris
The boulevards they called Little Paris.
Before the wars, Bucharest dressed like Paris: wide boulevards, Belle Époque mansions, the domed Athenaeum, café terraces under the plane trees. Much of it survived, tucked between the newer blocks. A walking tour threads the cobbled lanes of Lipscani, the grand sweep of Calea Victoriei and the hidden courtyards most visitors walk straight past.
Walk the city: see the walking tours →The other Bucharest
And the city Ceaușescu rebuilt.
Then came forty years that bulldozed whole quarters for the Civic Centre and the colossal Palace at its head. A Communism tour walks you through what is left: Revolution Square, the balcony where the last speech turned into the 1989 uprising, the grey housing blocks, the breadlines and the secret police, often recalled first-hand by the guide.
See the Communism tours →Two hours north
The mountains start where the plains run out.
Bucharest sits on a flat southern plain, but drive north and the Carpathians rise fast: hairpin passes, glacial lakes and the Transfăgărășan, the road that climbs to nearly 2,000 metres and gets called one of the finest drives on earth. Snowbound half the year, wide open and breathtaking in summer.
See the mountain day trips →At the table
Eat and drink your way through the city.
Romanian cooking is hearty and underrated: grilled mici by the dozen, sour ciorbă, polenta and smoked cheese, pastries from the Ottoman south. A food tour grazes the covered markets and the old cellars, with a glass of fragrant Fetească or a shot of țuică to wash it down. One of the best-rated days on the whole site.
- 1 Taste Bucharest: A Food Lover’s Tour of Markets & Neighbourhoods
- 2 Street Food’n’Culture Tour
- 3 Discover Bucharest: Private Highlights and Traditional Food Tour
On the edge of the city
Palm trees and hot springs at Therme.
Just past the airport sits one of Europe’s largest thermal baths: a glass palm house over warm mineral pools, palm trees and waterslides, indoor and out, steaming gently through a Bucharest winter. Half a day to soak, swim and sauna after the castles and the cobbles. A genuinely odd, genuinely brilliant way to spend an afternoon.
See all 16 Therme & spa experiences →By place
The city, and the country around it.
The Old Town for the boulevards and the bars. Transylvania for the castles. The Carpathians for the mountain roads. The salt mines for the caverns, the Black Sea for the summer coast, and a hop over the border for Veliko Tarnovo.
By activity
Or pick how to spend the day.
Walk it if you want the history. A castle run if you want Transylvania. The Communism trail if you want the recent past. Plus food and wine tours, the thermal baths, vintage-car rides and a ghost walk after dark.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Bucharest? A long weekend that pairs the city with the castles and the calm beyond it.
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