Romania
About Bucharest
Bucharest wears its contradictions in plain sight — Belle Époque mansions that once earned it the name 'Little Paris' stand in the shadow of Ceaușescu's Palace of the Parliament, the heaviest building on earth.
Leafy boulevards and faded villas give way to a packed, neon-lit old town where the bars are in no hurry to close, and small Orthodox churches sit quietly between the concrete blocks. It is raw, cheap and unpolished, a capital still working out what it wants to be.
Bucharesters are warm and blunt, the first to complain about their city and the first to defend it.
Eat hearty sarmale and mămăligă, knock back a shot of țuică, and finish with a plate of sticky papanași.
Get to Bucharest
Round trip from Prague, any dates in November 2026.
Buses from Bucharest
Day trips from Bucharest
- Half day
Mogoșoaia Palace
~40 min
A red-brick Brâncovenesc palace from 1702 set on its own lake just past the city limits, with arched loggias, a walled garden and shady paths along the water — the easiest escape from the Bucharest concrete.
- Day trip
Peleș Castle
~2 h
The fairy-tale neo-Renaissance summer palace of Romania's kings, all timbered turrets and carved galleries, tucked into the forested Carpathian resort of Sinaia. One of the most beautiful castles in Europe and worth the mountain drive.
- Long day
Bran Castle
~2.5 hThe clifftop Transylvanian fortress marketed the world over as 'Dracula's Castle'. The Vlad the Impaler link is mostly legend, but the white-walled keep above the Bran pass is a genuinely striking medieval stronghold.
About Romania
Carpathians, Saxon towns and bears
Painted monasteries, fortified villages across Transylvania and mountain roads with genuine wilderness on both sides of them.
Explore RomaniaRegions, highlights and when to go