Hello everyone!
A few years ago when I was in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, traveling for business, I finished my duties faster than I had planned and I decided to visit some of the most popular tourist attractions in Bucharest.
Having my personal car available, I took advantage and went to discover one of the largest administrative building in the world, named Palatul Parlamentului, (Palace of Parliament) but also known as Casa Republicii (The Republic's House) or Casa Poporului (The People's House) and the National Museum of the Village Dimitrie Gusti.
The distance between the two objectives is about 5-6km, with the car could be driven in about 8 minutes.
I decided to start visiting Palatul Parlamentului so I put the location on GPS and in a few minutes I was already in the parking lot.
It should be noted that the parking lot is very guarded, because it hosted the Chamber of Deputies and the Romanian Senate.
Access is made only in the basis of the personal identity card, through certain entrances that have increased security systems. Visiting this objective is done only in guided tours in several international languages.
The visit begins in a long living room, with marble walls, covered from place to place with paintings, a bright ceiling, a huge carpet, but the attention is drawn to the busts of historical figures such as Stephen the Great, Michael the Brave and Alexander the Great.
From here we reach the C.A. Rosetti Hall, which is actually the performance hall of the Palace of Parliament, where conferences are mainly hosted.
Gallery of honor.
Union Hall
Union Hall
Panorama over the Unirii Boulevard
Built by the former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, Casa Poporului ranks second in the top of the largest buildings in the world, after the Pentagon building in the United States.
It has about 3,000 rooms, but the majority of the building is unused or unfinished.
Built in the neoclassical style of one million cubic meters of marble, it could be considered the heaviest building in the world.
In total, visiting the people's house took us about 2:30h.
Conclusion: I recommend everyone to visit this objective.
Casa Poporului (People's House) - the dimensions of the building
• length - 270 meters
• width - 245 meters
• height - 86 meters (above elevation 0)
• depth 92 meters (below ground level)
• built-up area - 66,000 square meters
Ticket price:
Standard Tour
Adults: 40 lei / 8euro / person
Students: 20 lei / 4euro / person (19 - 26 years old, with a targeted student card)
Children: 10 lei / 2euro / person (7 - 18 years old)
Arriving back to the car, I went to see the next touristic objective, National Museum of Dimitrie Gusti village, one of the best museums that I've ever seen in Romania.
It's an outdoor museum and it's like walking in a big amazing park, with plenty of beautiful country style houses from all over Romania.
The Village Museum was established in 1936 and it contains wooden houses, windmills, churches from all over the country.
The museum covers around 15 hectares on the shores of Lake Herăstrău, Muzeul Satului being one of the greatest outdoor museums in the Balkans.
There are more than 60 original houses, farmsteads, windmills, watermills and churches from all of Romania's historical regions: Transylvania, Oltenia, Dobrogea and Moldavia.
Every exhibit has a guiding plaque with informations showing exactly where in Romania it was brought from.
Most of the houses date from the mid 19th-century.
The top beauty of the museum is probably the steep belfry of the wooden Maramureş church.
You should also not miss the earth houses of Straja, dug in to the ground and topped with thatched roofs, or the brightly painted dwellings of the Danube Delta.
The museum has a souvenir shop and a stall selling traditional Romanian sweets and cakes.
Lake Herastrau
TICKET PRICE
Adults 20 LEI/4euro
Retirees (with documents proving the classification in this category) 10 LEI/2euro
Pupils, students (with documents for the current year, proving their inclusion in this category) 5 LEI/1euro
An outing to the Village Museum is like a trip through memory.