Essential Bucharest

24/01/2016

Bucharest windows

07/07/2015

After biking just a few kilometres outside Bucharest, one can find the ruins of Chiajna Monastery that is believed to be cursed and haunted. It was built at the end of 18th century, but soon abandoned during the plague that devastated the area. Actually there was no ceremony that ever took place in the monastery. The tower of the church fell in the earthquake of 1977 and the bell was thrown in Dambovita river. Locals say that they hear the bell tolling on full moon nights :)

13/02/2015

Greatest Enchanted Themed Library In Eastern Europe Just Opened In Bucharest

http://www.boredpanda.com/greatest-enchanted-themed-library-in-eastern-europe-just-opened-in-bucharest/

Cărtureşti Carusel, or also called

01/02/2015

Rainy winter day on General Berthelot street. It seems that these beautiful houses are left in disrepair to match the gloomy weather.

31/01/2015

Contrasts on Calea Victoriei

31/12/2014

Abba - Happy New Year

Essential Bucharest wishes you a Happy New Year! Let's discover Bucharest together in the year to come!

Music video by Abba performing Happy New Year. (C) 1980 Polar Music International AB

26/10/2014

Although French Street is one of the oldest in Bucharest that kept the medieval route, most of the houses are from the end of the 19th century. This due to the great fire from 1847 that burst from this street and destroyed a big part of the city.
The street was named French Street at the end of the 18th century after the French Consul settled his residence here.

21/10/2014

Flemish - Moorish house in Bucharest
Corbeni Street, No. 3

10/09/2014

Moved churches of Bucharest

We are at the end of the 70'. Bucharest was hit by the devastating eartquake from 1977 and has to be rebuilt. After returning from an official visit in North Korea, Ceausescu decides that the reconstruction has to make Bucharest look like the "magnificent" city of Phenian, the Korean capital.
But in order for the new Phenian to grow, the old Bucharest has to be destroyed. Many buildings are razed to the ground without discrimination: monasteries aged more than 300 years together with residential buildings and private houses. Instead, construction of new huge buildings starts, together with large boulevards with blocks after blocks after blocks...
Still, some of them manage to escape this tragic fate due to the ingenious solution designed by Eugen Iordachescu, of moving buildings on rails, without affecting the structure. In Bucharest this is the case of 8 churches and two blocks of flats. The Churches were moved up to 300 metres and hidden behind the newly built blocks, making it very hard to find for one who doesn't know the city.

21/07/2014

Xenofon Street, the only stair street in Bucharest, houses now some of Bucharest's landmarks: Romanian Opera House, Romanian Athenaeum, Arch of Trium, National Art Museum, Carol Park Monument, National Theater, Peasant Museum and House of the Parliament. The street leads to the small Suter Plaza with its Suter Palace (now the Carol Park Hotel), a splendid building from the beginning of the 20th century.

18/07/2014

Dambovita was transformed in a big, open space gym. Yoga, fitness or pilates is what you can try to recharge your batteries after a stressful day :)

09/07/2014

Bucharest behind the blocks

Catalin chose to celebrate his birthday with his friends and with Essential Bucharest in a tour behind the blocks. You can see here what they discovered.
Amazing places, great people, cool guide! :)

09/07/2014

Catalin chose to celebrate his birthday with his friends and with Essential Bucharest in a tour behind the blocks. You can see here what they discovered.
Amazing places, great people, cool guide! :)

22/06/2014

Bucharest International Air Show & General Aviation Exhibition – BIAS 2014

05/06/2014

The modern buildings of Marcel Iancu are some of the hidden treasures of Bucharest. Marcel Iancu was a Romanian architect, painter and visual artist, co-inventor of Dadaism together with Tristan Tzara. Due to antisemitic persecution before and after the second World War, he emigrated to British Palestine in 1941.
Until 1941 when he left, he designed more than 40 houses in Bucharest. At this moment, there are only 20 left, the other being destroyed during communism and even after 1989.
Some of them may not seem very impressive today (mainly due to brutal changes to the initial design), but for that time they were really avant-garde, opening the way to the modernist style in the Bucharest's architecture. Enjoy!

01/06/2014

Bet Hamidras Synagogue - Calea Mosilor

26/05/2014

Holban House - Nicolae Filipescu Street, No. 32
Only the facade remained intact from this beautiful house built before the Independence War from 1877. The old house was put down and a new, modern building appeared, defying the memory of those who lived there and the spirit of the neighborhood.
A very sad story related to this house during communism: In the harsh winter of 1984-1985, Clementina Holban, the owner at that time, dressed in a sheepskin saying that "she is going in the forest" and went in the basement to cut the living room furniture with an ax, to put in the stove and try to heat the house.

21/05/2014

Foisorul de Foc (The Fire Tower) was used in the past as a observation tower by the firemen. It was also built to act as a water tower, but surprise, after it was built the water company realised they had no pumps powerful enough to fill it with water. It started to become ineffective when the telephone was introduced, so the need of a fire tower reduced. Now the building acts as a Firefighters' Museum.

17/05/2014

Bucharest's Synagogues

In Bucharest just a small part of the Jewish District stayed untouched after the second world war and then after the demolitions from the 80's that were supposed to make room for the new city, the megalomanic dream of Ceausescu. Only 6 synagogues survived the brutality of history (out of 70 at the beginning of 20th century), most of them being hidden from the eyes of travellers behind huge concrete builduings.

17/05/2014

In Bucharest just a small part of the Jewish District stayed untouched after the second world war and then after the demolitions from the 80's that were supposed to make room for the new city, the megalomanic dream of Ceausescu. Only 6 synagogues survived the brutality of history (out of 70 at the beginning of 20th century), most of them being hidden from the eyes of travellers behind huge concrete builduings.

11/05/2014

Comana Natural Park, only 40 km from Bucharest, is unique in Europe, and includes dozens of species of plants and animals protected by the international laws, being considered the second Delta of Romania (of the Neajlov river), after the Danube Delta. The natural park covers 25,000 hectares, being the largest protected area in the southern part of Romania.

I arrived here by bike with my friends Larisa and Marius, on our way to Ruse, Bulgaria, celebrating 1st of May, Labour Day :)

10/05/2014

Festivalul Filmului European - editia a XVIII-a, 2014

The Festival of European Film started in Bucharest on 9th of May, Europe's Day. Over 40 movies will be screened, sharing European values.

Details below:

http://www.ffe.ro/?id2=20140000&dta=&lng=1

regia si scenariul: Adrian Sitaru imaginea: Adrian Silișteanu cu: Ioana Flora si Adrian Titieni

06/05/2014

Cotroceni Area

A few pictures from Cotroceni, an area where hundreds of years ago there used to be a forest where outlaws were hiding. Now it is one of the most elegant districts of Bucharest. Most of the houses were built in the interbellum period by the high classes (especially doctors) in the Neo Romanian and Art Deco styles.
A perfect place for a walk or for a bike ride.Don't forget to stop in the garden of Infinitea and relax over a cup of tea.

06/05/2014

A few pictures from Cotroceni, an area where hundreds of years ago there used to be a forest where outlaws were hiding. Now it is one of the most elegant districts of Bucharest. Most of the houses were built in the interbellum period by the high classes (especially doctors) in the Neo Romanian and Art Deco styles.
A perfect place for a walk or for a bike ride.Don't forget to stop in the garden of Infinitea and relax over a cup of tea.

30/04/2014

"Space taken by 60 people" - Car, public transport or bike? You decide!

27/04/2014

Mogosoaia Palace - only 50 minutes biking from Central Bucharest.
The palace was built in 1702 by Constantin Brancoveanu, the Prince of Wallachia. Devastated many times since its er****on, it is very well preserved these days and stands as a cultural center as well as a very popular tourist destination.

25/04/2014

Bucharest (1961)

A very idyllic image of Bucharest at the beginning of the 60's. There is a small confusion in the movie:the curch of the Romanian Orthodox faith is actually the house of Nicolae Minovici, one of the masterpieces of the Neo-romanian architectural style. The villa houses the Museum of Popular Art which unfortunately can't be visited for many years. Very interesting is also the Lido Hotel which had the first pool with artificial waves in Bucharest. Now closed and in disrepair...

Bucharest, Rumania. Several shots of the market place in Bucharest; people buying flowers, vegetables and fruit. Various shots of women tending to public gar...

22/04/2014

So many birthday wishes! Joyful scene on the streets of Bucharest :)

21/04/2014

Filaret Power Plant - built at the end of the 19th century, enabled the inauguration of the first electric streetcar in Bucharest in 1894. A wonderful industrial building that now faces the indifference of the authorities.

20/04/2014

Beautiful Easter day in Bucharest! Picnic season has just started in Bucharest's gardens.

19/04/2014

Vacaresti Lake

"What happens when an ambitious and unfinished Communist construction project meets the uncontrollable growth of nature? A few kilometers from the historical center of the Romanian capital of Bucharest, there is a unique ‘ring’ of cement. When looked at from the outside, this wall of concrete looks like an impenetrable military fortress. Some intrepid visitors come to climb it, and some to simply ‘enjoy’ the somewhat unexpected view inside the vast concrete mass: a green oasis, made from plants, swamps, migratory birds, fish, dogs and some families of gypsies. All this is in the middle of the city, just a few meters from a residential area and shopping malls."

http://thisbigcity.net/the-strange-case-of-bucharests-lake-vacaresti/

17/04/2014

House with armor - The owner, Alexandru Dimitriu, tinman by profession, created the metal decorations for many public buildings like The Romanian Athenaeum, The Romanian Patriarchy, North Railway Station. As a sign of his profession, he placed on the roof of his house a 3.5m statue of an armored knight holding a hammer.

23/01/2014

Colors @ Street Delivery