Day 1 — Arrival & Calea Victoriei
Settle in and start slow. Walk Calea Victoriei from Revolution Square south towards Piața Unirii — Bucharest's grandest boulevard, lined with Belle Époque buildings that earned the city its "Little Paris" nickname between the wars. Stop at the CEC Palace, an ornate 1900 bank headquarters, and the National Museum of Art of Romania in the former Royal Palace.
Dinner in the Old Royal Court area near Lipscani. The first evening is for orientation — walk, eat, get a feel for how the boulevards and the old town fit together.
Day 2 — The Palace of Parliament
A full morning at the Palace of Parliament, the world's heaviest building — 700,000 tonnes of concrete and marble, 1,100 rooms, built by 20,000 workers between 1984 and 1997 under Ceaușescu. Book the guided tour online in advance and bring ID; security checks take time. The scale of the ceremonial halls, some larger than football pitches, is genuinely hard to process.
Afternoon: walk the surrounding Centrul Civic, the boulevard Ceaușescu built to rival the Champs-Élysées, demolishing a fifth of the historic city to do it. The contrast between this and the older neighbourhoods you'll see later in the week is the single most useful lens for understanding Bucharest.
Evening: dinner near Piața Unirii.
Day 3 — Lipscani, the Athenaeum & Stavropoleos
A full day in the old town. The Romanian Athenaeum, an 1888 domed neoclassical concert hall with a frescoed circular foyer depicting Romanian history, is the country's most important cultural building — go inside for a tour or a Philharmonic performance if the schedule allows; tickets are inexpensive.
Walk into Lipscani proper. Hanul lui Manuc, an 1808 caravanserai built around a wooden-galleried courtyard, is the city's oldest working inn. Stavropoleos Church, tucked down a side street, is a small 1724 Orthodox church with an exceptional carved stone facade and a peaceful courtyard — easy to miss, worth seeking out.
Evening: Lipscani's bar crawl. The streets around Strada Smârdan and Strada Franceză pack in an enormous concentration of bars into a few square blocks — cheap, loud, and genuinely local as well as touristy.
Day 4 — Herăstrău Park & the Village Museum
A slower day. Herăstrău Park, built around a 1.1km lake, is Bucharest's main green space — walk or rent a bike along the shore. The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) on the park's western edge holds over 300 traditional wooden houses, churches, and watermills relocated from every region of Romania; budget at least ninety minutes.
Nearby, the Arcul de Triumf marks the start of Kiseleff Boulevard, a wide avenue of embassies and pre-war villas.
Evening: explore Floreasca and Dorobanți, Bucharest's upscale dining district — noticeably calmer and more polished than the old town, with some of the city's best restaurants.
Day 5 — Văcărești Delta & Cotroceni
The Văcărești Delta, on the southern edge of the city, is an accidental urban wetland grown over the ruins of a Ceaușescu-era demolition project — now home to over 1,000 plant species and 170 bird species, including birds of prey. It's a striking half-day trip and one of Europe's more unlikely rewilding stories, entirely within the city limits.
Afternoon: Cotroceni, one of Bucharest's oldest residential neighbourhoods, home to the Cotroceni Palace (the presidential residence, partly open as a museum) and quiet, leafy streets that feel far removed from the boulevards downtown.
Day 6 — Peleș Castle & Sinaia Day Trip
Peleș Castle in Sinaia is Romania's most spectacular building — a Neo-Renaissance royal residence built for King Carol I between 1873 and 1914 in the Carpathian foothills, with over 170 rooms of elaborate wood carving, stained glass, and armour. It's about 130km and 90 minutes north of Bucharest by direct train from Gara de Nord.
Book the guided interior tour in advance, especially in summer. Sinaia itself, a former royal mountain resort at over 800m altitude, has pleasant walking trails and the fortified Sinaia Monastery, founded in 1695, right by the train station.
Return to Bucharest by early evening train.
Day 7 — Brașov & Bran Castle Day Trip
Brașov, a beautifully preserved Saxon city in Transylvania, is about 170km and 2.5 hours from Bucharest by direct train. The medieval centre — Piața Sfatului (Council Square), the Black Church (the largest Gothic church in Romania), and the narrow lanes of the old town including the famously tight Strada Sforii — is compact and walkable in a morning.
From Brașov, it's a short bus or taxi ride (about 30km) to Bran Castle, popularly marketed as "Dracula's Castle" for its loose association with the Bram Stoker legend, though its real historical link is to Vlad the Impaler passing nearby rather than living there. The castle itself, perched on a rock above the village, is worth the visit regardless of the marketing — a genuine 14th-century fortress with narrow stairways and a good local history exhibition.
Because this covers two towns, an organised day tour from Bucharest is often more efficient than independent trains and buses if you want to fit in both Brașov and Bran comfortably. Return to Bucharest by evening.
Final option if you'd rather stay in the city: skip the second day trip and spend the day in Bucharest's Grădina Botanică (Botanical Garden) followed by a proper final dinner in Lipscani or Floreasca — sarmale, mici, and a bottle of Fetească Neagră from the Dealu Mare region to send you off.