# Tourist attractions in București [Romania](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/attractions) › [Muntenia](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/region/muntenia) Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania, set on the plain along the Dâmbovița river. The city mixes layers that do not match, and that is exactly what makes it interesting: churches and inns from the time of the princes, boulevards and villas from the years when it was called "Little Paris", the monumental blocks and palaces of the communist era, then the glass towers built after 1990. If you are wondering what to visit in Bucharest, you can choose between museums, large parks, the Old Town with its taverns and a handful of palaces, each telling a piece of the country's history. The [Palace of the Parliament](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-parlamentului), the huge building put up by Ceaușescu, is visited on guided tours and dominates the whole centre. The [Royal Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-regal) on Calea Victoriei houses the National Museum of Art, while [Cotroceni Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-cotroceni), the president's residence, has a museum of its own. [Primăverii Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-primaverii) preserves the Ceaușescu family home almost unchanged. For nature, [Văcărești Nature Park](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/delta-vacaresti) is a wetland gone wild among the apartment blocks, and the Romanian Athenaeum and the Village Museum round off the list. ## Tourist attractions 19 attractions - [Palace of the Parliament](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-parlamentului) — Castles and palaces · București · 85 lei · 1 – 1½ hours · Top 20 The heaviest building in the world, raised by Ceaușescu in the 1980s on Spirii Hill; the guided tour passes through marble-clad state rooms hung with crystal chandeliers weighing several tonnes. - [Văcărești Nature Park (the Văcărești Delta)](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/delta-vacaresti) — National parks and reserves · București · Free · 1½ – 2 hours · Top 100 Romania's first urban nature park: 183 ha of ponds, reed beds and willows inside an abandoned reservoir in southern Bucharest, home to over 180 bird species, otters and foxes, a few hundred metres from the tower blocks. - [Cotroceni Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-cotroceni) — Castles and palaces · București · 50 lei · 1 – 1½ hours · Top 100 The royal residence of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, today the seat of the Romanian Presidency and the National Cotroceni Museum: period salons, the king's library, the queen's apartments and Șerban Cantacuzino's rebuilt church. - [Primăverii Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-primaverii) — Castles and palaces · București · 85 lei · 45 min · Top 100 The Bucharest home of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu from 1965 to 1989, also known as the Ceaușescu Mansion or Spring Palace, with its lavish interiors, mosaic pool and private cinema, seen on guided tours only. - [Royal Palace](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/palatul-regal) — Castles and palaces · București · 32 lei · 2½ – 3 hours · Top 100 The former residence of Romania's kings on Revolution Square, now the National Museum of Art of Romania: the Throne Hall, the Voivodes' Staircase and the country's largest collection of Romanian and European art. - [People's Salvation Cathedral](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/catedrala-mantuirii-neamului) — Monasteries and churches · București · Free · ½ – 1 hours Romania's National Cathedral, on Arsenal Hill next to the Palace of the Parliament: a 127 m Neo-Byzantine church with its altar consecrated in 2018 and its painting consecrated in 2025, open to visitors only in announced periods. - [“Dimitrie Brândză” Botanical Garden, Bucharest](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/gradina-botanica-bucuresti) — Parks and gardens · București · 15 lei · 1½ – 2 hours The University of Bucharest's botanical garden, in Cotroceni: more than 18 hectares with a rose garden, an Italian garden, a lake with an island, greenhouses with palms and orchids, and a botanical museum. - [Alexandru Ioan Cuza Park (IOR Park)](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/parcul-alexandru-ioan-cuza) — Parks and gardens · București · Free · 1½ – 2 hours One of Bucharest's largest parks, about 85 hectares, laid out in the 1960s around Lake Titan, with five islands and a wooden church on the shore. - [Arch of Triumph](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/arcul-de-triumf) — Monuments and historic sites · București · 15 lei · 45 min The 27 m interwar monument at the end of Șoseaua Kiseleff, built in memory of the Great Union, with 292 steps up to a terrace overlooking northern Bucharest. - [Bucharest Zoo](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/gradina-zoologica-bucuresti) — Zoos and aquariums · București · 20 lei · 1½ – 2 hours The capital's zoological garden, open since 1959 in Băneasa Forest, with tigers, lions, bears, wolves, zebras, monkeys and more than 150 species on almost 6 hectares. - [Carol I Park](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/parcul-carol-i) — Parks and gardens · București · Free · 1 – 1½ hours A historic park laid out in 1900–1906 on Filaret Hill for the General Romanian Exhibition, with a lake, a monumental central avenue, the Zodiac Fountain and the Heroes of the Nation Memorial on the upper plateau. - [Cișmigiu Gardens](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/parcul-cismigiu) — Parks and gardens · București · Free · 1 – 1½ hours Bucharest's oldest public park, laid out from 1847 in the landscape style around a lake, with shady avenues, the Writers' Rotunda and romantic stone corners, right in the city centre. - [Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/muzeul-national-al-satului-dimitrie-gusti) — Museums and memorial houses · București · 40 lei · 2 – 2½ hours An open-air ethnographic museum on the shore of Lake Herăstrău, in the middle of Bucharest: farmsteads, wooden churches, mills and workshops brought from all over the country and rebuilt here since 1936. - [Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/muzeul-de-istorie-naturala-grigore-antipa) — Museums and memorial houses · București · 32 lei · 1½ – 2 hours The museum on Kiseleff Road holds the 1907 dioramas, the Deinotherium skeleton and over 2 million zoological, palaeontological and mineralogical pieces, in a building inaugurated in 1908. - [King Michael I Park (Herăstrău)](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/parcul-regele-mihai-i-herastrau) — Parks and gardens · București · Free · 2 – 2½ hours Bucharest's largest park, on the shore of Lake Herăstrău: nearly 190 hectares of strolling paths, the Japanese Garden, Caryatid Alley and Rose Island. - [Manuc's Inn](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/hanul-lui-manuc) — Monuments and historic sites · București · Free · 45 min An inn from 1808, built by the merchant and diplomat Manuc Bei beside the Old Court: a listed building with an inner courtyard and wooden balconies, where the 1812 Russo-Turkish peace talks took place. - [National Museum of the Romanian Peasant](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/muzeul-national-al-taranului-roman) — Museums and memorial houses · București · 20 lei · 1½ – 2 hours The museum in the Neo-Romanian building on Kiseleff Road, named European Museum of the Year in 1996, keeps over 100,000 objects of peasant art and civilisation. - [Romanian Athenaeum](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/ateneul-roman) — Monuments and historic sites · București · 15 lei · 45 min The concert hall in the heart of Bucharest, built in 1886–1888 and paid for largely by public subscription: Ionic columns outside, a fresco over 70 m long telling the story of the Romanians inside. - [Stavropoleos Monastery](https://peplaiuri.ro/en/manastirea-stavropoleos) — Monasteries and churches · București · Free · 30 min A small convent in the Old Town with a Brâncoveanu-style church from 1724, façades painted with saints in medallions, an arcaded courtyard and a lapidary of stones from vanished Bucharest churches. --- Full page: https://peplaiuri.ro/en/city/bucuresti Other languages: Română: https://peplaiuri.ro/oras/bucuresti.md · Deutsch: https://peplaiuri.ro/de/stadt/bucuresti.md · Italiano: https://peplaiuri.ro/it/citta/bucuresti.md Source: Pe Plaiuri (https://peplaiuri.ro/en) — Guide to tourist attractions in Romania