Bucharest blitz: immersing yourself in Romania's capital
A bit of context
Bucharest (București in Romanian) is the capital and biggest city of Romania, one of the largest countries in Europe and a centuries old nation, between the Black Sea and the Central European mountain ranges.
Even tough the place where the city stands has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Era, the modern town appears in historical records only back in 1459, as the seat of power of Vlad, the Impaler (popularly known as Dracula), prince of Valachia. Between its modern founding and the 19th century, Bucharest passed through countless crisis, being mostly destroyed by fires and army razings at least every decade by the Ottomans in order to suppress revolutions against foreign rule.
After a short rule by the Habsburg family of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bucharest became the capital of the newly created United Pricipalities of Valachia and Moldova in 1856 and of the Kingdom of Romania between 1881 and 1947.
The Socialist Republic of Romania (without the terrotories of Moldova) was created in 1947 in the post WW-II period, giving rise to the dictatorship of Ceaușescu - a cruel man who deeped Romania in poverty and economic ans social backwardness for decades. During the rule of Ceaușescu, Bucharest experienced severe urban redevelopments, such as the opening of grand wide avenues with the destruction of countless historical landmarks, the degradation of the old town and the construction of several blocks of social housing in the suburbs.
