Adjusting to a place should be a pleasant effort to establish stable coordinates that reassure your sense of existence and your safety, spiritual and physical.

The Swedish writer Per Olof Ekstrom described Bucuresti as a big village with a few modern thoroughfares. The moment you turn away from the main avenues, you discover small houses with gardens and patriarchal looks.

Here is your opportunity to befriend with the city of Bucuresti. This tour is usually reserved for TSD members and tourists on TSD itineraries.

Bucuresti started as a village on the bank of river Dambovita, in the midst of a vast forest, stretching from the Carpathians to the Danube, across the fields. We know about it from the Bronze Age. Because it was 60 km away from the Danube, and because the horse-caravans covered cca 60 km in a summer day between sunrise and sundown, the village of Bucuresti had to offer exchange horses, shelter, repair workshops – turning into a town of some importance. In 1650 it became the capital of Valahia, then of Romania.

Visit the Village Museum, to see the looks of Bucuresti 1,000 years ago.

Arrive at the Princely Court and the adjacent Manuc Inn. Refreshments. Princes of old used to overnight here, at the Court, and rich merchants at the inn.

The mediaeval shopping area known as “Lipscani” (goods brought from Lipska, in Germany): hundreds of small shops close to the Princely Palace.

Visit the “Glass-blowers’workshop”, still there after centuries, still working. Return in Time visiting the “Consignment” shops on Lipscani street: stroll to Stavropoleos Church (1724), refreshments at “Caru cu Bere” (1881).

Visit the “Treasury”, in the vaults of the National Museum of History: a brief story of Romania in gold and gems, the royal treasures included.

See the Romanian Athenaeum (1888) and Theodor Aman’s house – a glimpse at the “turn of the century architecture, interior decorations and art.

The bullet holes left in the buildings around the former Central Committee of the Communist Party – and the shrines commemorating the anti-communist revolution of December 1989 – are sacred grounds and a turning point in the history of the Romanians.

The last artifact left by the former regime is the Parliament House, the second largest building on earth, the climax of a new replanning of the city. Visit this impressive, controversial site.

End the tour in Cismigiu, discovering the hidden corners of the soccer fans, chess-players, stamp collectors, romantics and plain. simple Bucharesteans.

By now, the city of Bucuresti is a friend of yours: re-visit it any time, like friends do with one another.


Excerpt:
The Company of Mysterious Journeys will penalize the tourists who renounce their bookings as follows (subtracting bank-transfer charges):
1) for cancellation of 30 and more days before the tour start: full refunding (minus banking charges)
2) for 29-21 days cancellation: 30% penalty
3) for 20-14 days cancellation: 50% penalty
4) for 13-7 days or less cancellation: 100% penalty in favour of the CMJ.

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