The gilded bathroom
Gold taps and medical fittings for a germ-fearing president.
Idobi — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rakoon — CC0 · Rakoon — CC0 · Rakoon — CC0
The house the dictator lived in while his people queued for bread: Primăverii Palace in the quiet diplomatic quarter opened to visitors in 2016 after decades sealed — eighty rooms of mirrors, gilt and silk, a gold-plated bathroom, a private cinema, a mosaic indoor pool, Elena's dressing room with its hundreds of pairs of shoes, and a garden where the descendants of the family's peacocks still wander. Guided tours only, and the guides supply the small details that make the picture: the rooms servants were forbidden to enter, the apartments of the three children, the medical bathroom fittings of a president terrified of germs. The most gripping short visit in Bucharest, and the complement to the Palace of the Parliament: there his public face, here his private life.
Gold taps and medical fittings for a germ-fearing president.
Hundreds of shoes and furs in a country without meat.
Mosaic and a private screen in the basement.
Bulevardul Primăverii 50, Bucharest
MARe — the Museum of Recent ArtMARe is a private museum opened in 2018 in the quiet Primăverii district north o4 minutes walk4.6
The Zambaccian MuseumThe Zambaccian Museum is the house of an Armenian-Romanian merchant, Krikor Zamb12 minutes walk4.9
Arch of Triumph"Little Paris" with an arch of its own: the Arcul de Triumf stands mid-way along14 minutes walk4.6
The Monument to the Heroes of the AirThe Monument to the Heroes of the Air stands at the centre of a roundabout on Bu14 minutes walk4.6
National Village MuseumA whole Romanian village on the shore of Lake Herăstrău: the Dimitrie Gusti muse17 minutes walk4.7Metro to Aviatorilor then ten minutes on foot among embassy villas, or a fifteen-minute taxi from the centre.
Yes: Parliament in the morning and the house after lunch — a direct twenty-minute metro ride between them.