Explore Bucharest

Bucharest’s Old Town is the most vibrant part of Bucharest. This thriving pedestrian area at the very heart of the city, with its intricate narrow streets full of small shops, terraces, cafés, bars and restaurants, is also the place where several layers of 550 years of Bucharest’s documented history overlap, conveying the image of a city in constant transformation. The 16th-century ruins of the Old Princely Court (Curtea Veche), the capital city of Wallachian princes since Vlad the Impaler (Dracula), lay in the vicinity of underground mural remains of 17th-century buildings. The archeological site on the main street of Lipscani brings to light the red-brick ruins of one of the many inns built in this area, which got its name from the town of Lipsca (Leipzig). The German city was at that time the trading partner for the local merchants and artisans who had their busy shops on what was, from the mid 16th to late 19th century, the most important commercial area of Bucharest. The narrow streets around the Old Court were named after the artisan guilds that had their workshops here. Many churches and monasteries, built in the local Brancovenesc architectural style, dot the Old Town. Also known as the town of inns, the neoclassical facades of the Lipscani buildings erected after 1850 are part of the modernization of the capital city under the rule of King Carol I.All important historical buildings constructed during this time on the ruins of old inns, from the Central Bank to the National History Museum, were designed by French and German architects.

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