Romanian Athenaeum

Enjoy a full-day car, van, or bus tour from Bucharest to the historic region of Transylvania. Uncover the influence of different cultures, including Romanian, Saxon, Turkish and Hungarian. See Dracula’s castle and Peles Castle and venture to Brasov for a guided walking tour.  Be picked up from the comfort of your hotel and sit back and relax on the drive to Sinaia in the Transylvanian Alps. Sinaia is known for its beautiful late 17th-Century Byzantine monastery. Visit the neo-classical Peles Castle, built on a medieval route that linked Transylvania to Wallachia. Continue to the medieval Bran Castle which is better known as Dracula’s Castle due to its association with Vlad the Impaler. Admire the castle's romantic setting on a forested hill. Gaze up at its imposing towers. Explore one of the largest in medieval town's in Romania on a walking tour of Brasov. Tour the historic streets and take in sights such as the Council Square, Black Tower and Black Church to get an idea what a typical old Transylvanian city looked like. Take in gorgeous mountain scenery as you drive back to Bucharest and are dropped off at your hotel.

You will start in the Old City Center with a visit to the oldest witnesses of Bucharest's birth and development: the Old Court Citadel, Manuc's Inn and Stravopoleos Church. After, you guide will take you to visit the most famous boulevard in Bucharest, Calea Victoriei, with its impressive architecture and grandiose buildings like Military Cercle, Telephone Palace, Royal Palace, Romanian Atheneum and more. You will then shed the city crowds and have the opportunity to relax and cool down in the Cismigiu Gardens and near Bucharest City Hall. At the end of the tour, you will see the grandiose Ceausescu's Palace and Union Boulevard, which was designed to be even longer and wider than Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Explore the highlights of Bucharest in the phone exploration game, 7 Wonders of Little Paris. Use your phone to follow clues and solve puzzles, as you explore the city and learn more about it. See landmarks like the Palace of Parliament, Cișmigiu Park, Kretzulescu Church, and more. Start the game at Clock Constituției Square, and take on the role of a young cartographer who has received a strange letter. As you solve challenges, the story will unfold and exact directions on your phone will guide you to the next location.  It will take between 1-1.5 hours but you should explore at your own pace: simply pause the game and resume when you want from the location where you paused it.  You can play on your own, in a large group, or in several smaller groups that compete against each other before meeting at the final stop of the game, Cărturești Carousel.

Discover the highlights of Bucharest on an amazing half-day guided tour and marvel at the monuments of the historical city center. After meeting your guide at the local partner's centrally located office, travel to the open-air Village Museum and learn more about traditional village life in Romania as you explore the interesting reconstructions of various buildings through the ages and regions of the country. Get an amazing view of the monumental Palace of the Parliament on Constitution Square. Look at the imposing façade of the largest, heaviest and most expensive administrative building in the world. See where Communism was brought to an end in December 1989 on Revolution Square, stroll around the neighborhood to see the elegant university buildings and much more.

Get to know the spirit of Bucharest on this guided evening tour of its most interesting streets. Start your tour by meeting your guide at Piata Constitutei (Constitution Square), where you can admire in all its splendor the world’s second largest building, the Palace of Parliament. Built by Ceausescu in the 1980s, this building is now the home of the Romanian Parliament.   After a short walk down the Union Boulevard, you’ll have the chance to admire one of the most spectacular Orthodox cathedrals on the top of Patriarchal Hill.   Then, cross the Dambovita River and enter the surreal world of the Victory Road, where the beauty and history of the most famous street in Bucharest will unveil itself. On this avenue, you'll see the National History Museum, the CEC Palace, Revolution Square, Atheneum, the previous House of Parliament, and 5-star hotels that will blow your mind. Your tour will end in Bucharest’s old town with a quick tour around the ruins of the ancient headquarters of the Wallachian royal families.

Romania has been a communist country for more than 40 years, between 1948 and December 1989. Nicolae Ceausescu became the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965 and the president of Socialist Republic of Romania in 1974. 15 years later, he was removed from power and executed after a violent revolution during the winter of 1989. While nowadays Romania is a democracy, the communist period remained interesting as well as controversial. Follow the guide on this trip through Bucharest to reveal the “great accomplishments of the golden era” and to hear the story of people who built it. You will see the first communist building in Bucharest, the Revolution Square with the balcony where the dictator gave his last speech, the majestic “House of People” and the former residence of the presidential couple. The tour will start in the morning at your hotel and following a 4 hour itinerary you will see the most interesting communist sights of Bucharest downtown with entrance at the Parliament Palace "House of People" and Primaverii Palace. The itinerary depends on your hotel’s location, but it will include: Free Press Square (Piata Presei Libere), The Arch of Triumph (Arcul de Triumf), Victoriei Square (Piata Victoriei), Calea Victoriei – Revolution Square (Romanian Atheneum, Revolution’s Memorial), The Palace of Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului), Union Square (Piata Unirii) – University Square (Piata Universitatii), Romana Square (Piata Romana), Victoriei Square and Charles de Gaulle Square (Piata Charles de Gaulle).

On this private walking tour, you will discover a city marked by strong contrasts, with two areas perfectly depicting the opposition of two eras: the massive Communist Civic Center, an empty shell admired mostly by foreign tourists, and the beautifully-restored Old City, with its Belle Époque atmosphere. All of the historical treasures of Bucharest had to be rebuilt or restored to hide the marks of bullets, to hide scars that have not yet healed in nearly 3 decades since the fall of the regime and the bloody revolution. This tour takes you through 45 years of Communism, allowing you to see beyond Bucharest’s colorful present: learn about Stalin and his monstrous enslavement, the genocide of the KGB’s Secret Police, the Siberian deportations of farmers, and more. Your guide will show you old photos to explain how the city used to look, how people dressed, worked and lived. Discover the world of Bucharest behind Stalin's Iron Curtain.

View the major attractions in Bucharest on this driving tour. Board a spacious car or minivan and travel to destinations like the Palace of the Parliament and Revolution Square.  Enjoy the convenience of being picked up from your accommodation in Bucharest. Drive to Union Boulevard which connects three of the city's mayor squares. Head to the National Village Museum folk village.  Go by the Arch of Triumph, which marks Romania's independence. Go by the The Palace of the Parliament which features Stalinist architecture. Admire the neoclassical-style of the Romanian Athenaeum concert hall. Make your way down Victoriei avenue. Hear about how the communist leader Ceausescu was ousted at Revolution square. Travel through the open-air museum of the Old Town. Venture into the wealthy and working-class neighborhoods in the city before returning to your hotel. 

Start with a short walking tour in the old town city center and enjoy the tranquility of the morning. Continue with a 2-hour visit to the Parliament Palace, the second largest building in the world and ex-residence of the Romanian dictator Ceausescu. After lunch, see by car the most important squares of Bucharest such as Unirii, Universitatii, Romana, and Victoriei Square and continue with a short visit to the Romanian Athenaeum, the famous concert hall. The last visit will be a 2-hour stop in the Village Museum, a serene oasis in the heart of a noisy city. On Victoria Avenue reach the George Enescu Museum, Royal Palace, CCA building and CEC building before being dropped off at your hotel or another chosen location.

Experience the history and culture of Bucharest as you stroll past landmarks in Calea Victoriei, the old town, and the former Civic Center. Experience Bucharest through the eyes of a local expert. Meet your friendly guide at one of the most beautiful buildings in town, the Romanian Athenaeum. Listen as your guide introduces you to the local history and culture as you venture to the historic avenue of Calea Victoriei, the pedestrian Old Town, and University Square. Next, walk to the former Civic Center in the Communist neighborhood built in the 1980s by the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Take in the immense size of the Palace of the Parliament and the view from Constitution Square of the former "Victory of Socialism Boulevard." Stop for an optional lunch break in a traditional and historic restaurant, or for a coffee break in a typical outdoor café.