Essential Bucharest

Bucharest windows

After biking just a few kilometres outside Bucharest, one can find the ruins of Chiajna Monastery that is believed to be cursed and haunted. It was built at the end of 18th century, but soon abandoned during the plague that devastated the area. Actually there was no ceremony that ever took place in the monastery. The tower of the church fell in the earthquake of 1977 and the bell was thrown in Dambovita river. Locals say that they hear the bell tolling on full moon nights :)

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Rainy winter day on General Berthelot street. It seems that these beautiful houses are left in disrepair to match the gloomy weather.

Contrasts on Calea Victoriei

Essential Bucharest wishes you a Happy New Year! Let's discover Bucharest together in the year to come!

Abba - Happy New Year Music video by Abba performing Happy New Year. (C) 1980 Polar Music International AB

Although French Street is one of the oldest in Bucharest that kept the medieval route, most of the houses are from the end of the 19th century. This due to the great fire from 1847 that burst from this street and destroyed a big part of the city.
The street was named French Street at the end of the 18th century after the French Consul settled his residence here.

Flemish - Moorish house in Bucharest
Corbeni Street, No. 3

We are at the end of the 70'. Bucharest was hit by the devastating eartquake from 1977 and has to be rebuilt. After returning from an official visit in North Korea, Ceausescu decides that the reconstruction has to make Bucharest look like the "magnificent" city of Phenian, the Korean capital.
But in order for the new Phenian to grow, the old Bucharest has to be destroyed. Many buildings are razed to the ground without discrimination: monasteries aged more than 300 years together with residential buildings and private houses. Instead, construction of new huge buildings starts, together with large boulevards with blocks after blocks after blocks...
Still, some of them manage to escape this tragic fate due to the ingenious solution designed by Eugen Iordachescu, of moving buildings on rails, without affecting the structure. In Bucharest this is the case of 8 churches and two blocks of flats. The Churches were moved up to 300 metres and hidden behind the newly built blocks, making it very hard to find for one who doesn't know the city.

Xenofon Street, the only stair street in Bucharest, houses now some of Bucharest's landmarks: Romanian Opera House, Romanian Athenaeum, Arch of Trium, National Art Museum, Carol Park Monument, National Theater, Peasant Museum and House of the Parliament. The street leads to the small Suter Plaza with its Suter Palace (now the Carol Park Hotel), a splendid building from the beginning of the 20th century.

Dambovita was transformed in a big, open space gym. Yoga, fitness or pilates is what you can try to recharge your batteries after a stressful day :)

Catalin chose to celebrate his birthday with his friends and with Essential Bucharest in a tour behind the blocks. You can see here what they discovered.
Amazing places, great people, cool guide! :)