Bucharest, RomaniaRomania's greatest art collection — in the Royal Palace on Calea Victoriei, with medieval icons, 19th-century Romanian masterworks, and a major European art gallery. The building itself is magnificent; the collection of Romanian impressionists (especially Nicolae Grigorescu) is world-class.
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Bucharest's medieval and 19th-century heart — a dense network of lanes between the Old Princely Court (Curtea Veche) and the Lipscani Market, lined with beautifully restored buildings now containing the city's best bars, restaurants, and galleries. The most atmospheric neighborhood in Romania.
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The world's second-largest administrative building — Ceaușescu's megalomaniac communist palace with 1,100 rooms, 12 stories, and 700,000 tonnes of marble. Guided tours reveal the extraordinary scale of the excess; the view from the roof terrace over Bucharest is unmissable. A monument to human vanity that somehow becomes awe-inspiring.