Bucharest travel guide

Plan your trip, step by step

• Where to stay
  Choose your distance from the Old Town bar grid, then hotel vs rental.
• Things to do
  Decide which tours, palace tickets and day trips to reserve.
• Bucharest in 3 days
  Follow a plan that groups the city into three walkable zones.
• Estimate your trip cost
  See what a Bucharest trip costs in lei and set your style.
• First-timer mistakes to avoid
  Sidestep the errors that spoil a first Bucharest trip.
• Bucharest on a budget
  See what a lean, comfortable or generous day really costs.

The neighborhoods at a glance

Centrul Vechi (Lipscani / Old Town)

Known for the surviving pre-war merchant grid — Stavropoleos Monastery, Hanul lui Manuc, the Old Princely Court ruins and the Cărturești Carusel bookshop, wrapped in the densest concentration of bars in the country.

Calea Victoriei & Piața Revoluției

Known for the grand nineteenth-century avenue — the Romanian Athenaeum, the former Royal Palace (now the National Museum of Art), the CEC Palace and the balcony Ceaușescu fled from in December 1989.

Universitate & Piața Romană (the Magheru spine)

Known for the working centre — university buildings, interwar modernist blocks, bookshops and cinemas, and the M2 metro line that stitches the north of the city to the south.

Dorobanți, Floreasca & Aviatorilor

Known for the leafy diplomatic north — embassy villas, the city’s best restaurant scene, Herăstrău (King Michael I) Park and quiet residential streets.

Cotroceni

Known for a low-rise western district of art-nouveau and neo-Romanian villas around the presidential Cotroceni Palace and the university Botanical Garden — the calmest historic quarter.

Unirii & Tineretului

Known for Ceaușescu’s Civic Centre — the Palace of the Parliament, the fountain-lined Unirii boulevard axis, and the big green lung of Tineretului and Carol parks just south.

Deciding where to base yourself? The where-to-stay guide turns these areas into a lodging decision.

When to go — month by month

Average daytime high (bars) and rainy days per month, from 5-year climate normals. Greener months are the most comfortable to visit.

Best months to visit: Apr–Jun

Destinations with a similar climate

Like Bucharest’s weather? These places have the closest year-round climate in our data — tap through for each one’s best time to visit.

• Verona →
• Venice →
• Bologna →
• Milan →
• Denver →
• Budapest →

Know before you go

Currency

The Romanian leu (RON, plural lei) — Romania is in the EU but not the eurozone, so euros are not everyday money here. Cards and contactless are accepted almost everywhere including on transit; keep a few small notes for markets, church donations and tips.

Language

Romanian, a Romance language, so menus are more guessable than the Slavic capitals around it. English is widely spoken by anyone under about fifty and in all tourism-facing jobs; French is common among older Bucharesters.

From the airport

Henri Coandă (OTP) sits ~18 km north. A train runs to Gara de Nord in roughly 20 minutes, at about 40-minute intervals around the clock, on a separate CFR ticket bought at the station. STB bus 100 runs to Piața Unirii for the standard 3-lei fare and also operates 24 hours, taking 35–50 minutes depending on traffic. For a car, use the touchscreen taxi kiosks in Arrivals or Bolt/Uber from the marked ride-share zone in the multi-storey car park — never accept a ride from someone approaching you inside the terminal.

Getting around

Five metro lines (M1–M5, roughly 05:00–23:00) plus STB trams, trolleybuses and buses. A 90-minute surface trip is 3 lei and a 24-hour surface-only pass is 8 lei. A 24-hour pass that also covers the metro sits in the mid-teens — but Metrorex raised metro fares during 2026 and STB and the metropolitan authority TPBI currently publish different figures for the integrated passes, so check stb.ro or tpbi.ro on the day rather than trusting a number in any guide. Pay with a contactless bank card, a rechargeable Card Activ, or the BiletTB app; infoTB does route planning.

Best time

May–June and September–early October are the sweet spot: warm, long evenings and terrace weather without the July–August heat, which averages highs around 31°C in a flat, concrete city with little shade. Winter is properly cold — January averages about 6°C by day and −2°C at night, with real snow — but the museums are empty and rooms are at their cheapest.

Tourist tax

Since 1 January 2026 Bucharest charges a flat tourism-promotion tax of 10 lei per person per night, replacing the old percentage-of-room-rate version. It applies to hotels, hostels, pensions and privately let apartments alike, and is collected either by the property or by the booking platform — so it may appear at checkout rather than in the headline rate.

Taxis & scams

Licensed taxis must display their per-kilometre rate on the door, and the honest ones are cheap. The scam is the unmarked or wildly-priced car waiting outside tourist spots and airport arrivals — ordering through Bolt, Uber, a taxi app or a hotel desk removes the problem entirely.

For the best months to visit and a day-by-day plan, see Bucharest in 3 days.