Attractions
Gawp at Bucharest's Palace of Parliament
Bucharest, in southern Romania, is the country's capital and commercial center. Its iconic landmark is the massive, communist-era Palatul Parlamentului government building, which has 1,100 rooms. Nearby, the historic Lipscani district is home to an energetic nightlife scene as well as tiny Eastern Orthodox Stavropoleos Church and 15th-century Curtea Veche Palace, where Prince Vlad III (“The Impaler”) once ruled.
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Gawp at Bucharest's Palace of Parliament
ROMANIA // This 1100-room colossus was designed to inspire fear and awe. From 1984, more than 100,000 workers toiled through the night to fashion its floors, using one million cubic metres (over 35 million cubic ft) of marble. Hung from the stuccoed ceilings are 2800 chandeliers. Imposing neoclassical details and Socialist Realist emblems are everywhere. Pleasingly, the overblown edifice now houses such engines of democracy as the Romanian Senate - a tonic to bitter memories of the legacy of Nicolae Ceausescu, overthrown and executed in 1989.