Highlights off Bucharest, Romania

With a big thank you to all of you who sent me your guest posts, I'm glad to inform that today, for the first time ever, all the posts on Vacation and Travel Photos front page are yours! For this last one about some of the highlights off Bucharest it's thank you Paul from I Love Romania Travel :)

Hello, my name is Paul and I write a blog about the country of Romania. This is my first time writing a guest post on a different blog, so please bear with me as I stumble through it. I am here to tell you about the beautiful city of Bucharest, Romania which was once inhabited the Dacian Empire, before being concurred by the Romans, and much later it was a temporary home to Vlad Tepes (the real Count Dracula).

The first mention of Bucharest in written documents date back to the year 1459, and you can see remnants of the city from that era being unearthed today by archeologist around Lipscani St, note the removed bricks from the road on the right, and construction curtains on the left in the picture below.

During the time Nicolae Ceausescu led the country, some historic buildings were replaced with communist government buildings. One of those buildings is the “Peoples House”, now called the “Parliament Palace”. The Parliament Palace measures 270 m by 240 m, 86 m high and 92 m below ground, it has 12 levels, and holds 8 titles in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Parliament Palace (photo below) is the second largest building in the world next to the Pentagon building in the United States, and if you travel in the opposite direction on the main road that leads to it, you will see Bucharest’s version of the Arc de Triomphe, which is found in Paris, France (in the early 1900’s Bucharest was know as the “Paris of the East”).

Bucharest is certainly worth visiting at any time of the year, it is home to 37 museums, 18 concert halls, and 22 theatres. You can also find many top rate restaurants, discos, and a nightlife that is equal to any large European city. The city has hosted concerts performed by music legends such as Madonna, and Sting in the past, and in June of this year, Bob Dylan will give a concert. Bucharest is also able to boast about having one of the lowest crime rates of any European capital city, and the lowest prices for hotel rooms compared to any European city of equal size. If large cities are not your cup of tea, it is a relatively short trip to the Carpathian Mountains, or Black Sea from Bucharest.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and I would like to include also a couple of pictures of other buildings you may wish to see in the city of Bucharest:

Above the Palatul Justitiei, in English the Palace of Justice who is next to the beautiful Dambovita River and bellow the Ateneul Roman, which is the city's main concert hall and home of the "George Enescu" Philharmonic and of the George Enescu annual international music festival.

"I hope you enjoyed this post"?! Paul, I loved it and I'm guessing I will not be alone in this opinion! I'm sure that thanks to you, Bucharest will surely be added on some traveler wishlists - mine is one them! ;)