1 destination · 10 things to do

Romania

Bucharest is the most underrated capital in Europe, a city where Belle Époque palaces, Orthodox churches and communist megastructures share the same boulevards. Its centre was once nicknamed Little Paris for its French-trained architects, and you still see it in the domed Romanian Athenaeum, the former Royal Palace that now holds the national art collection, and the grand hotels of Calea Victoriei. Then the scale changes: the Palace of the Parliament, built under Nicolae Ceaușescu, is one of the largest buildings on earth, and his private villa in Primăverii shows how the dictator actually lived. Between them sit the lanes of the Old Town, a jewel-box monastery, a white spiral of a bookshop and an open-air museum of whole village houses. Beyond the city, a day trip reaches Peleș Castle in the Carpathians and Bran, the castle of the Dracula legend. This guide picks the tickets worth booking, the free sights worth your time and the right hotel for your trip.