Bucharest
Bucharest , the capital of Romania (“The Little Paris”)
Located in the Southern Romania, it is the country’s biggest city, with 2.2 million inhabitants (2012). It was first documented in 1459 AD and inhabited since 500 BC. Bucharest is the Capital of Romania since 1862 AD. The legend says that the name Bucuresti (Bucharest) comes from a shepherd who founded the town on the Dambovita river, whose name was Bucur (this means in Romanian happiness). The name Bucharest could also come from the name of the beech forests – Bukovie, other sources link the name of the city with the Albanian name – bukureshti – which means “it is beautiful”.
It has an elegant French inspired architecture built in the period between the two World Wars, reason for which it used to be called “The Little Paris“
Romania’s capital sometimes gets a bad rap, but in fact it’s dynamic, energetic and lots of fun. Many travellers give the city just a night or two before heading off to Transylvania, but that’s not enough time. Allow at least a few days to take in the very good museums, stroll the parks and hang out at trendy cafes and drinking gardens. While much of the centre is modern and the buildings are in various stages of disrepair, you’ll find splendid 17th- and 18th-century Orthodox churches and graceful belle époque villas tucked away in quiet corners. Communism changed the face of the city forever, and nowhere is this more evident than at the gargantuan Palace of Parliament, the grandest (and arguably crassest) tribute to dictatorial megalomania you’ll ever see.
Even if the city doesn’t have thousands of years of history, it does have a rich heritage and culture.
Is the sixth largest in EU capital, but is also the largest center for industrial and commercial areas of Romania.
The official language is Romanian, a Romance language belonging to the Italic branch (Latin), having much in common with languages such as French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
The has also Slavic influence and contains words from other languages of the Balkan language area (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, Greek, and Serbian).
Bucharest is divided into six sectors and is the largest city and the main political, administrative, economic and financial, banking, educational, scientific and cultural center of Romania.
Bucharest has been undergoing major modernization programs in recent years and is still going to continue with these projects in the years to come.
Those who knew Bucharest in the past but have not visited it after 2010 will be surprised by the scale of the changes that are taking place. The center of Bucharest is being completely revamped, and there is a major project in every part of the city.
