Bucharest extolled in a travel review in the New York Times

Newsroom 09/11/2010 | 12:51

The NY Times travel section has included an article on Bucharest as a noteworthy destination “for a long weekend”, that has not yet been “subjected to the centrifuge of globalization” and seems to be the right location for an “urban adventure”.

Alexander Lobrano’s review depicts Bucharest as a city that has evolved in the last twenty years and has started to recover after the communism’s devastating effect on Little Paris of the East’s architecture. The author regards Ceausescu’s pride-and-joy and flagship building, Casa Poporului (The House of the People), as looking “like it was inspired by the rejected plans for a Las Vegas casino by a second-string architect”.

As Lobrano describes, “the liveliest part of the city is the Lipscani district, or Old Town, right in the heart of the city”. Restaurants of the area are much appreciated due to their variety, ranging from Caru cu Bere’s Belle Epoque setting to the more modern clubs, as Chat Noir, or Mojo. The Peasant and the Village Museum are also regarded as must-sees on the city’s cultural map.

All in all, as the article published in the NY Times on November 8 concludes, “Bucharest is one of the last major European cities that hasn’t been pasteurized by gentrification or lost its soul to mass tourism”, an “intriguing city”, with an “exhilarating strangeness”.

Read the full article here.

In picture, Arcul de Triumf, a building that, along with Odeon Theater, stands as proof to Bucharest’s inspiration from the Parisian architecture, as Lobrano observes.

Corina Dumitrescu