Dracula's Guide to Romania

I’m a tour guide in Bucharest and someone that has travelled outside of Romania. Let’s see how well they represented Bucharest.

First of all they arrived on a hot day in Bucharest, so their idea of staying indoors and leaving the flat towards the evening is a really good idea. I suggest walking early in the morning possibly doing a tip based tour and when it get’s hotter do indoor activities or things that cool you down. Evening is still hot as concrete in the city stores the heat but late at night can be fun in a city that doesn’t sleep.

The elevator scene was quite funny, elevators are usually small and when they say P, it means “parter” = ground floor.

They went to Luca which does ok pretzels and pastries, I usually go for covridog (wraped hot dogs in dough) but covrig is definitely on of the go to foods for Romanians on the go, usually we don’t have it with chocolate and we prefer the simple ones. We also wrote an article about street foods in Romania and the covrig is talked about.

The Carturesti Carusel is emblematic in the city, it is a franchise bookstore where you can find souvenirs and plenty of books in foreign languages but most are in Romanian. Not sure if the cafe on the last floor was closed but on a hot day it’s nice going inside having a coffee and then look for books. We also wrote an article on the books you can find in Carturesti.

For the Macca Vilacrose Passage I suggest going at night as it is a bit more hustle and bustle and the atmospehere is more smokey, during the day though you can see the stained glass but at night it is more dream like as it is a dark ceiling.

The CEC bank is a really cool building and they recently redone the lighting, best time to see it is at night. The Stavropoleos church is beautiful but I really recommend going and seeing these buildings on a tour as you get more context and stories.

The parliament building has many many crazy stories, a walking tour or going for a tour inside is really cool and gives you a sense of how big this building actually is. The guy in the video said that this building is probably the most impressive building he has seen in Europe… It is not accurate, it is huge but from a beauty point of view I think others like the Parliament building in Hungary impress in style and positioning.

Caru’ cu bere is beautiful but currently it is quite expensive to eat there as it is more touristy. The tripe soup is a good choice but tripe is not beef… it is the stomach of the cow so it has a very specific texture that quite a few people don’t like. Romanians love it in the south, in the north we invented a substitute just to avoid it. Pork ribs are a bit of a hit or miss in Romania… unless you know where you are going I wouldn’t suggest ordering. My personal biggest annoyance is eating papanasi at Caru cu Bere, they have some very lackluster papanasi… Vatra restaurant does much better papanasi. The ones at Caru’ cu Bere don’t have enough sweet cheese inside and taste more like dough.

The scooters are dangerous but not gonna lie, they are quite fun.

My issue with this is the fact that it was a very short trip in Bucharest and there are plenty of stuff to do in the city… Unique Bars, beautiful views, places you can visit for free, cool neighbourhoods and really good coffee.

How accurate is it? It is decent but I feel Bucharest has much more to offer than this brief view of the city…