Bucharest Christmas

I moved to Bucharest in early December but I didn't have the chance to explore the city until much later. On Christmas Eve I spent the morning on a call with my family, then for the afternoon I figured I might as well go to the Christmas markets.

At the center of the Christmas markets there was a large tree with this Bucuresti sign. The Christmas markets were quite busy and even during the day I had to be patient to get a clear photo of the sign. At night this area would be filled with people taking pictures and enjoying the markets.

Since the Christmas markets were busy I decided to go and explore the city a bit. This old building was really cool, I think it is an old bank.

I later learnt, when taking a walking tour, that Bucharest is known as the city of contrast. I think this above panorama shows that quite well, with a modern glass skyscraper contrasted again the shorter old buildings surrounding it.

Something I did notice was that Bucharest has a bigger focus on car infrastructure compared to what I saw in Vienna. Frequently in the city, I would come across these giant signs designed to be read by speeding cars. As a pedestrian these signs were huge and didn't fit into a human scale and so felt unnatural

These pictures were taken in the old town of Bucharest. Unlike the rest of the city, no car traffic was allowed through here and the only access was by foot. Normally there is quite a bit of traffic here, but on Christmas, even the old town was quite. I was able to take the opportunity to get a few pictures of the old town streets and some of the churches therein.

The old town had many restaurants and almost all of them had these somewhat enclosed outdoor areas. I thought this was a great way to combat the cold of winter. I had seen this sort of thing before but what took me by surprise was just how ubiquitous it was here. Which I guess makes sense when in a country with cold winters.

I walked past this building at one point. I don't know what this building is for but it looked really cool. I love how the coloured bricks highlight different aspects of this building. I didn't notice it at first. From a distance it just looks like a round shaped building but up closer I could see the coloured bricks making the building just a little bit prettier.

As the sun was beginning to set, I found this statue from the legend of the founding of Rome. The story goes that Romulus and Remus were rescued and raised by a wolf, and Romulus would go on to found Rome. The Romanian language has ties to Latin and the country was once part of the empire, so it made sense that they would have a statue like this in the Romanian capital.

I returned to the Christmas Markets after the sun had set. While I had been there twice, it was only during the day so I wanted to see the markets at night when all the lights would be switched on. The experience was pretty cool, but by this point the the markets were busy so I didn't stay long. I had an early start tomorrow and I wanted to get a good night's rest.

Thanks for reading – Edward

Written 21st of January 2024

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