Palace of Parliament

Another day discovering Bucharest, this time by bike. We were walking toward the Old Town and came across the outdoor office of a bike hire company and discovered that a half day bike tour had just departed. He offered us a discounted price and we could catch up with them at their first stop, so we paid our money, chose our bikes and headed off with another guide to join the tour.

We toured the Old Town, followed by the Jewish Quarter, a gypsy neighbourhood and Antims Chuch, which was relocated in one piece about 200m to make way for Communist style housing blocks.

The highlight of the tour was the Palace of Parliament, the second largest administration building in the world (after The Pentagon), and the heaviest building in the world. For its construction, 7 square kilometres of the old city centre was demolished, with 40,000 people being relocated. It has 8 levels underground and 20km of tunnels linking it to other government offices. Of the 3000 rooms, 70% are still empty.

We rode back to the centre of town to Revolutionary Square, site of Ceausescu's last speech before he escaped the city by helicopter from the rooftop (he was captured later that day and executed live on TV 2 days later).

We had late lunch in the old town, grabbed some caches and dinner, then returned to our apartment to watch the UEFA Champions League final in Romanian!Read more