Today on Mammaprada we’re delighted to welcome fellow blogger Micaela who is sharing with us one of her travel experiences.

Micaela combines her love for all things digital and all things creative with a career in digital marketing alongside running her uk lifestyle blog Stylish London Living. Micaela has been blogging since 2012 and loves sharing new experiences, travels, products and her passions with her readers.

Micaela over to you…

Bucharest might not strike you as a top travel destination, however there are many reasons you should visit Romania, as the cultural, industrial and financial centre, has a growing cultural scene including the visual arts, performing arts, nightlife and not forgetting its rich history, which means there are plenty of exciting things to do and see. 

I spent a long weekend in Bucharest and managed to squeeze in lots of activities, so today I am going to tell you about my favourite 5 places to visit. 

Palace of the Parliament

One of the most iconic buildings in Bucharest is the Palace of the Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului) which is the seat of the Romanian Parliament. The colossal Palace has a height of 84 metres (276 ft), a floor area of 365,000 square metres (3,930,000 sq ft) and a volume of 2,550,000 cubic metres (90,000,000 cu ft). 

The Palace of the Parliament is the heaviest building in the world, weighing about 4,098,500,000 kgs! The Palace actually sinks by 6 mm each year because of its weight! The building has a developed area of 365,000 m2, making it the world's third-largest administrative building, after The Pentagon and Long'ao Building!

The Palace of the Parliament was designed and supervised by chief architect Anca Petrescu and it took a team of 700 architects 13 years to construct. There are 23 sections in the Palace and the building houses the two houses of the Parliament of Romania: the Senate (Senat) and the Chamber of Deputies (Camera Deputatilor). As well as the political areas, the building also contains three museums and an international conference centre.

The building is known for its totalitarian kitsch style of architecture, in Totalitarian and modernist Neoclassical architectural forms and styles. The interior is highly decorated including velvet and brocade curtains adorned with embroideries and passementeries in silver and gold. Not forgetting  3,500 tonnes of crystal seen in 480 chandeliers, 1,409 ceiling lights and mirrors. You can really appreciate the size and decoration of the Palace when you take a guided tour which I heartily recommend.

Ceauşescu Mansion

If, like me, you don’t know much about the communist regime and the ridiculous double standards seen between the hardships of the people and the gratuitous luxury of the communist leaders, there’s no better place to visit in Romania than Ceauşescu Mansion. 

Nicolae Ceauşescu was the last Communist leader of Romania and arguably one of its most ruthless dictators. For 25 years he lived at the Spring Palace (Primaverii  Palace), also known as the Ceauşescu Mansion, along with his wife Elena Ceauşescu and their children, Nicu, Zoia, and Valentin.

Located on one of the most expensive streets in Bucharest, Primaverii, in a neighbourhood where only the most trusted party members had their houses the Spring Palace was designed in the mid-1960s to the exact specifications of the former dictator and his wife, who reportedly personally picked the chandeliers and mosaics for the 80-room residence which includes wildly decorated living quarters. 

From the outside the Palace may not look that special, however, it boasts more than 80 rooms decorated with silk wallpaper, wood panels, paintings by famous Romanian painters, mosaics, marble, chandeliers, and mirrors made of Murano glass. 

There is a plush basement cinema which was set up with the latest technology, a swimming pool featuring an enormous mosaic puzzle created in two years by artists Olga Porumbaru and Florin Parvulescu, extraordinary dressing rooms with wall to wall closet space and an eye-catching gold-plated bathroom. Thanks to the materials used the Spring Palace can be called one of the most luxurious museums in Bucharest.

When the Ceauşescu family inhabited the house ordinary Romanians were living on strict food and fuel rations, a raw counterpoint to the opulent life of the communist leader and his family. I recommend taking a tour as we learnt much about the house, people and times from our guide.

The Church of the Stavropoleos Monastery

When you walk around Bucharest you can’t help but notice all of the beautiful Churches and religious buildings which are highly photogenic. My favourite of these is the Church of the Stavropoleos Monastery which was only a short walk away from where we stayed. Although it’s only small, it’s well worth a visit to see the beautiful rich stone-carved decorations and frescoes painted on the walls.

Built-in 1724, making it one of Bucharest's oldest Churches, by the Greek monk Ioanikie Stratonikeas, is a masterpiece of Brancovan architectural style and a little oasis of tranquillity in the heart of the old town. Over time the majority of the Stavropoleos Monastery has sadly been destroyed due to earthquakes and demolition, save for the small dainty and beautiful Church which today is an Eastern Orthodox Church cared for by nuns. The community living locally, besides routine worship, is engaged in renovating old books, icons and sacerdotal clothes.

The Church whose patrons are St. Archangels Michael and Gabriel, is built in Brâncovenesc style, developed in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, an extraordinary mix of Byzantine, Ottoman, late Renaissance, and Baroque architecture. The interior of the Church is covered with amazing iconographic murals which are well worth a look.

National Museum of Romanian History

Something I always try to do when I visit a new city or country is to learn something about the local history and culture whilst in  Bucharest I spent a couple of hours browsing in the National Museum of Romanian History which is one of the representative institutions of the Romanian culture and contains Romanian historical artefacts from prehistoric times up to modern times.

The museum is located inside the former Postal Services Palace, which also houses a philatelic (stamp) museum. The building itself is an architectural gem with a stone façade featuring a portico supported by 10 Doric columns and a platform consisting of 12 steps spanning the length of the building. It has a surface of over 8,000 square meters, the museum has approx. 60 exhibition rooms house more than 650,000 historical artefacts from prehistoric times up to modern times are housed in the impressive building. 

Exhibitions include pottery, numismatics, philately, medals-seals, jewels, manuscripts, printed works, plastic arts, decorative art, historical photographs, engravings, maps, metal, weapons and equipment, textiles and furniture.

The most impressive exhibit is in the Lapidarium which houses an impressive life-size replica of the base of Trajan’s Column - a Roman triumphal column in Rome, that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars - as well as the relief copies of this exceptional monument depicting events in history and civil monuments (inscriptions, decrees, and honorary monuments), religious ones (funerary and votive monuments), sculptures as well as decorative and architectural elements.

My personal favourite collection was the Historical Treasure exhibit which is made up of more than 3,000 beautiful pieces made from precious metals and stones from across Romania’s history including the Romanian Crown Jewels and the Pietroasele treasure: the 12 surviving pieces of the 22 gold objects discovered in Romania which are among the most famous examples of the polychrome style of Migration Period art.

The Kitsch Museum

If you are bored of history and have some spare time on your hands why not consider checking out something totally different with a trip to The Kitsch Museum; a celebration of all things in poor taste from the local culture! Yes, it’s just as tongue in cheek as you might imagine and is as terrifying as it is entertaining. 

You walk up several flights of stairs to the top of an unassuming building, confronted by a large image of Jesus on the wall reminiscent of the thumbs up the statue from the movie Dogma, before finding the entrance. The museum states that 'Kitsch' refers to an artwork that has been created in poor taste, something conspicuously vulgar or theatrically sentimental that evokes a slightly nauseous feeling on the part of the viewer. The museum looks to promote Romanian Kitsch in the most tasteful way.

The Romanian Kitsch Museum showcases a collection of around 200 of the country’s most garish, creative, ridiculous and somewhat distasteful objects housed on two levels, broken up into eight different categories including some exhibits that flirt with controversy, especially in the communist, gipsy, and religious categories.

Although we were truly baffled by the amount of garish and bizarre items on display and experienced an odd mix of disgust and hilarity, there were some eye-opening features which gave us an insight into the Romanian culture so if you’re open-minded why not drop in? See more information on their website.

Thank you to Micaela for her detailed list of must view places!

Have you been to Bucharest? What would you add to her list?

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