5 Things To Do in Bucharest the Capital of Romania

Post by R.M. team, updated on 18 July 2019

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

Weekend guide to Bucharest

Here are 5 superb ideas for things to do in the Romanian capital on your holiday weekend. In this post I talk about what I liked and what I did not and share my experiences. I hope this guide to Bucharest will be helpful. Enjoy!

Nightlife

Food

Shopping

Sightseeing

Pool party

Where to stay

Nightlife

The street party scene in the old town is unique. Several streets in the pedestrian part of the old town get crowded with people, and bars and clubs there are frantically competing for customer attention. You will find multiple clubs right next to each other blasting out loud music, hostesses working to attract people in, and dancers dancing on the windows. The atmosphere is unque, and if you hit the spots that are right for you, the party scene can certainly be fun!

Bucharest Red Light District

We have a number of famous red light districts in the world. The Bucharest red light district is a known yet an informal attraction in Romania that seems to be gaining traction with tourists.

The red light area gets activated by night in the city centre in the old town. In the night it becomes a very lively area, full of bars, restaurants and clubs. This is where you get adult entertainment that includes women dancing in bar windows, offers of massages, strippers, and a whole range of other entertainment options, some legal and some seemingly not.

Club Amsterdam’s window in Bucharest showcasing a dancer. The dancer is presented in a way that's somewhat reminiscent of the Red Light District windows in Amsterdam.

Although at some places the street vibe might feel a bit seedy, especially when you see red signs for massages, pole dances and lap dances, the street party does attract both, male and female customers.

Some streets are less seedy than other and there are regular pubs, bars and restaurants that outnumber the seedier establishments.

If you have a little walk around the old town you’ll find other little streets that are less orientated around adult entertainment for men, and are more focused on just clubbing.

A busy old town street in Bucharest with punters enjoying the nightlife scene.

In my opinion, it is well worth experiencing the nightlife here. I found the nightlife party scene in Bucharest to be quite unique and brilliantly chaotic. For example, it was here that I've heard a DJ mix tunes from any and almost every genre in a single set, and in that space and time what he was doing worked, and we had a ball of a time. It was a good laugh and a great party!

Among the charming streets filled with quirky nightlife chaos you can also discover more chilled out places tucked away in hidden alleys or even on rooftops.

Bucharest Rooftop Bars

in Bucharest the rooftop bars are often referred to as "sky bars". The two that we went to were quite nice. The Nomad Skybar was in the party area of the old town, it’s easy to spot it. At the entrance you step into a glass lift that takes you from the street level to the bar. Once you enter the bar you can find additional stairs that lead to the rooftop where there is another small bar and tables with seating.

For a more striking rooftop experience check out Linea Closer To The Moon. It’s a very large rooftop bar with good views of Bucharest – a good sunset spot, and great vibes. The bar is known to put up igloo pods in the winter so you can enjoy this experience from within an igloo during the chilly months of winter.

Linea Closer To The Moon rooftop bar towards the end of the evening, right before closing. (Sorry, completely forgot to take a pic earlier in the evening! It was much busier a few hours earlier!)

The view of Bucharest as seen from the top end of the Linea Closer To The Moon rooftop bar.

Upcycled piano and a rather crazy set up for a DJ station, spotted at Nomad Skybar.

Food

Very generally speaking, when it comes to food, I found Bucharest to be twice cheaper than London. Where the prices were similar to London the portions served were significantly larger. However, this may not apply to every place in Bucharest - my observation is based on a few days that I spent here, and ultimately a few places that we went to. Also, I presume the old town is more expensive than other areas of Bucharest. A small adventure into other areas might see the prices drop further.

For a late evening/night snack after a few drinks there is nothing more rewarding than a nice fat juicy kebab or a shawarma. The Habibi Kebab shop in the old town caters to this need, and in generous portions. We got a shawarma each, I think we paid 20 lei for one (hard to remember now!), but the size was very generous and it was a very good shawarma!

There I met some people from Jordan, I think they were running the kebab shop. They recommended that we go to Therme Bucuresti (we went there, it was great!). The people running this joint are friendly and you can get some good tips from them on places to visit and things to do. They also gifted me a Jordanian flag, which I thought was a very sweet touch.

Habibi Kebab shop in the old town of Bucharest where we bought generous size and super yummy shawarmas. We were actually so impressed with the Shawarmas we came back here on the second night.

For a dinner experience it is worth trying BBQ style meat platters. We had a large juicy BBQ style mixed meat platter served with chips and dips, ideal for 4 people. Unfortunately my picture below came out a bit poorly and it doesn’t do the meal any justice, but believe me, it was tasty! The succulent meats with a slight BBQ char were amazing! I think the platter was around 250 lei plus whatever on top for the beers. (Sorry, I can't remember the name of the restaurant.)

It looks like a greasy fry up (apologies for the blurry photo!), but actually it was a scrumptious BBQ/grill style meal consisting of various meats. The photo doesn't do it justice, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It was good!

For something a bit more traditional, inexpensive and local to the old town look out for Bodega La Mahala. It’s a stock standard, average, Romanian restaurant that offers a good Romanian menu at low prices. If you're lucky you might even get to try their spit roast (see the contraption at the restaurant), or their traditional stew cooked over a real fire (there's another contraption for that too).

La Mahala menu in English. This gives you an idea about the food offered at the restaurant and the prices.

Stuffed cabbage leaves with polenta (15 lei) and some chips on the side (6 lei).

Romanian meat balls (12 lei) – a great snack with a pint.

The restaurant is in the old town yet slightly tucked away in a quiet and somewhat hidden spot. It’s a great place to escape the crowds and the noise of the lively pedestrian streets. The restaurant offers a choice between indoor and outdoor seating. The outdoors has a good amount of plants so you are shaded from the direct sun.

La Mahala was recommended to us by a bar tender at a pub on the opposite side of the street called Niște Domni și Fiii. We wanted to know where she goes to eat Romanian food and this is the restaurant she said she often gets her lunch at.

The Niște Domni și Fiii pub is great for a slightly more diverse range of Romanian lagers with my personal favourite being Silva dark, which I couldn’t find anywhere else during the time I spend in Bucharest.

You can also enjoy various cafes in the old town.

In fact, the same party street that you would have seen by night suddenly transform into innocent family-friendly cafes by day. The transition is rather unbelievable and it’s almost like the parties you saw the night before have never happened and it was all but a dream.

A café on a pedestrian street of the old town in Bucharest.

Tip: A place to avoid - the 'multivitamin bar' Juice Box. While the presentation is undoubtedly fancy and photogenic, and the bar looks attractive (that's what lured me in there in the first instance), I found the juice taste rather watery. I asked for a ginger carrot and orange, I tasted no ginger just a mild wash of orange with a slight possibility of carrot.

The menu at the juice bar looks good. In fact, that's one of the factors that attracted me to the juice bar. My juice got served in a jar, along with a straw. It was cute. However, I couldn't have been more disapointed the moment I sucked on the straw!

At first I didn’t doubt the shop but rather my own taste buds and even the quality of the Romanian produce. But when I experienced a freshly squeezed drink elsewhere I learnt that the oranges, the carrots and the ginger taste great in Romania! It’s not the fruit in Romania, it’s not me, it's the shop! In my humble opinion, the 15 lei can be better spent elsewhere.

In Romania you can also buy foodstuff from local guys selling homemade goodies on the street. This guy was selling cakes and pastries for 10 lei a (good-size) piece. I think he was explaining that his wife made them, but with our limited Romanian, who knows... As far as the pastry was concerned, it was one of the finer pastries I had eaten, and certainly well beyond and above the offerings of an average local restaurant. Homemade is homemade after all!

A local Romanian guy selling pastries and cakes by an entrance to a park.

And, if you happen to wonder into a supermarket and discover shelves stocked with tubs of crap, be brave, buy them, try them…they are actually carp!

Tubs of 'crap' sold at a Romanian supermarket in Bucharest.

Shopping

If you’re done with shopping for crap at the local supermarket you can check out the antiques and handmade market in the old town.

Although somewhat overpriced for some items, it certainly is a great place to buy souvenirs, jewellery, all sorts of quirky antiques and other stuff. You’ll find a good mix of local crafts, and if not to buy craft items or antiques, just come and visit it as a sightseeing spot.

The market is set in a beautiful old building, so it’s nice to see the interior and also cool down and escape from the scorching sun. The building is naturally cool inside.

The front entrance of a beautiful old building featuring intricate pattern designs that hosts the antique and handmade market.

Inside the antique section of the market. There’re all sorts of wacky and wonderful things you can spot in the antiques section, if you have an eye for those things.

The view of the interior of the building hosting antique and handmade market focusing on the ceiling and columns featuring intricate interior design details.

Sightseeing

Bucharest is a charming city with many wonderful things to do and see.

There are plenty of museums and galleries but if you’re stuck for time you could simply have a stroll and explore the squares and the streets.

There are many stunning buildings in Bucharest, gorgeous squares and quaint and beautiful little orthodox churches.

There is a reoccurring theme of oversized statues and lots of fountains.

Bucharest is very green during the summer so check out and enjoy the green spaces too.

Palace of the Parliament – the largest administrative building in the world, except for the Pentagon.

Central University Library, Bucharest.

The Royal Palace, now National Art Gallery, Bucharest, Romania.

Romanian orthodox Kretzulescu Church in Calea Victoriei, Bucharest.

The ceiling of Kretzulescu Orthodox Church intricately decorated in Christian art.

Caragealiana Sculpture of a chariot with theatrical characters. The sculpture can be found in front of the National Theatre in Bucharest.

A brilliantly bold and imposing statue of Ion Luca Caragiale in front of the National Theatre in Bucharest. Notice Ion Luca Caragiale smoking a fat cigar!

University Square in Bucharest. The square is home to several statues. Visible to the left is the statue of Ion Heliade Radulescu who was a poet-writer-politician and made significant contributions to the Romanian culture.

Revolution Square in Bucharest, Romania.

Green Spaces in Bucharest

The impression that I got of Bucharest is that it is a very green city and you will find trees and nature in abundance. There are lots of trees on the streets and lots of green spaces.

For even more greenery you can spend an afternoon in the beautiful Cismigiu Park. There you can enjoy walkways with stunning views of a water body. You can have a stroll in the park, chill on a bench, stop for a coffee and a snack or even rent a boat that will cost you just a few lei.

A lake at Cismigiu Park. There is a fountain in the middle of the lake (Bucharest has lots of fountains!). Just about visible in the photo, you may also be able to work out the rowing boats in the distance around the fountain area.

One of several entrances/exits to Cismigiu Park in Bucharest.

Even the children’s playground has architectural style motifs unique to the Balkans.

Bucharest Pool Party

Think of large indoor and outdoor pools, Jacuzzis inside the pools, pool bars and plenty of sun loungers positioned outdoors as well as within the indoor jungle. Everything’s modern and high-tech and the space is large enough to accommodate lots of people.

The pools are set within the largest botanical garden in Romania. It has something like 1,500 palms and 800,000 plants. The indoor pool is the one where you can feel the botanical garden at its best as it’s surrounded by a lush indoor jungle of palms and other plants. The water that feeds the pools and the saunas comes from deep underground and is at a nice and comfortable temperature of 33C degrees throughout the year. Welcome to Therme Bucuresti.

An indoor pool surrounded by palm trees at Therme Bucuresti. Photo: courtesy of our good friend Navel.

The indoor pool bar. For drinks it is accessible from the pool side where you can sit on the bar stools inside the pool and enjoy a relaxing drink. Photo: courtesy of our good friend Navel.

Outdoor pools that you can enter via the steps on the poolside or the rotating door inside the pool that leads you in and out of the indoor pool. The outdoor pool has a small pool bar and lots of Jacuzzis inside the pool. The Jacuzzis work on a timer so the crowd gets to rotate and everyone can get an opportunity to enjoy it. Photo: courtesy of our good friend Navel.

As we came through the tills and paid the entry free for Therme we were given electronic wrist bands that act as keys to the lockers as well as a tab that records any additional expenditure, such as drinks at the bar – you just touch your wrist band and a drink is added to your tab. The bill is settled on the way out.

The changing rooms are unisex but the showers and toilets near the showers are separate for men and women. Each shower is designed to have a good amount of privacy so you can feel comfortable and don’t feel like you’re showering on someone else’s lap.

Pictured above is a small section of the rather enormous changing rooms. On the right of the picture are the lockers that you can lock and unlock using your wrist band and on the left are private changing rooms that you lock from inside by folding down a small shelf (it took us a little while to figure that one out!).

If you don’t have your own transport you can get to Therme by a bus that specially serves the spa and the bus is free of charge. It picks up people from multiple spots in Bucharest and the bus stops are easily identifiable by the pool posters. The bus for Therme Bucuresti leaves every couple of hours so it is advisable checking the timetable in advance.

Here are the bus timetables for Monday-Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On the bus you might even get to see some famous sites in Bucharest like the Triumphal Arch of Bucharest.

On the way to Therme my friend and I were the only two people on the whole bus, so it was as close to a private bus ride as it can get. On the way back, Therme served two buses and they were full that included standing passengers.

Pictured: bus stop for Therme Bucuresti identifiable by the photo of the pool.

A Few Tips for Therme Bucuresti

Tip 1:

3 hours for Therme Bucuresti is not enough if you really want to soak in the experience.

We bought the 3 hour session because we overlooked the need to carry IDs for currency exchange and we weren’t carrying cards. Therefore, we incidentally got stuck with a limited amount of lei (I know, it’s silly!) and couldn’t really enjoy a fuller experience.

If I was to do it again, I’d buy the most expensive experience for the whole day to enjoy all the spaces and explore every little area throughout the day, including the six themed saunas in the Elysium. For example, you can watch nature documentaries in the Hollywood sauna, enjoy the salt walls in the Himalaya sauna, or enjoy the Moorish décor style in the Alhambra sauna.

Tip 2:

Enjoy the daytime and go into the night time at Therme, as the vibe completely changes. At dusk small fires at the pool bar started to appear, and great lighting of the place transitions the venue into a different experience. There’ll be music, you might even get a DJ, and you can carry on enjoying yourself until roughly around midnight.

Tip 3:

Check out the Therme map in advance. When we went to Therme we didn’t really see a map of the facilities in advance. When we paid our entrance fee at Therme neither a map not detailed information was provided, so we assumed the facilities are pretty much as to what the eye can see.

That was very misleading, as the facilities are much more magnanimous and offers many hidden gems that we were not aware of.

Despite looking at the Therme website on my smartphone before getting to the pools I trying to Google up information I did not come across a map. Only now that I am back in London having had a proper search on my desktop was I able to locate the map and learn that we missed out on so much of the experience despite paying for it, simply because adequate information was not pointed out at the entrance. After all, what may seem obvious to one person, is not necessarily obvious to another. To make this easier for you, here's the link to the map!

One of such things we missed out on were the Mineral Pools in The Palm. The guys running the shawarma shop, who recommended Therme in the first instance, told us that there were mineral pools (A pool with salt from the Dead Sea, a pool with Calcium and Magnesium, etc). We couldn’t find the pools. We asked a few people about those pools but we couldn’t get any information either due to a language barrier or because they didn’t know either. Now that I look on the map I think the three pools are listed as "Aromatherapy Pools".

Tip 4:

There are many other experiences included in the ticket that we missed out on due to lack of visible or easily accessible information. In The Palm there were Aqua Gym and other activities like facial masks provided on a schedule. We practically missed out on any of the mud masks as we simply didn’t know. We only got to know about it when we saw a person covered in mud and we asked them about it. Unfortunately it was too late for us as it was past the schedule. We managed to catch the last few minutes of the Aqua Gym as we again, randomly noticed it taking place as we were coming back from a steam room.

There are timetables you can find, perfectly presented on a stand, in places tucked away in the jungle, but to find them you have to first know that you need to look out for them. My tip to you is to see those time tables first not to miss out on stuff you wouldn't want to miss!

Tip 5:

There is a sandy beach and a beach BBQ! Something we missed out on because the place is larger than what the eye tells you, and we didn’t have the map. Check out the artificial beach, the bars and the BBQ, should be fun!

Tip 6:

If you have longer hair, carry hairbands! I lost my hairband and was being told off by security to tie my hair. I have no problem tying up my hair using my own hair instead of a hairband (thanks god I’ve got that skill!), but the moment I stood under a high power artificial waterfall to get a neck and upper back massage, the hair would just come undone, and the pool security kept on pointing this out to me.

In fact, the pool security is pretty tight at Therme so don't randomly light up a cigarette on a lounger (there is a specific place where you can go and smoke), or do anything else that can get you kicked out. I heard the Therme security are very strict.

Where to Stay in Bucharest

If you are visiting Bucharest for a couple of days and you enjoy nightlife, you probably want to be as close to the old town as possible to be able to walk home after the night out. The old town is pretty much a pedestrian zone.

We booked an apartment at the edge of the old town and we did that with two considerations. One was to be walking distance to the old town’s nightlife scene. The second consideration was to be far enough from the bars and nightclubs to be able to get some sleep when we chose to.

The bars and nightclubs get pretty loud in the old town of Bucharest so if you expect to do some sleeping early at night book your accommodation away from the party crowd and the thumping of music.

We were very pleased with our choice of a booking. We booked a one-bed apartment within a mid-range price range. The apartment turned out to be in a soviet style tower block with a dangerous looking lift and that was not great for the first impressions. However, the pad itself was well kitted out and we had a very pleasant stay.

Book accommodation in Bucharest