Audio tour Bucharest: From slums to Little Paris

Hello and welcome to my audio guide titled Bucharest, from Mahala to Little Paris – The Lost Elegance of the Belle Époque and the Interwar Era.

My name is Ștefan, and this guide is the culmination of my final thesis project, created as part of the pilot Extension Program at the Faculty of Management and Rural Development.

In this journey, I’ll be guiding you through Bucharest — once the second royal seat of Wallachia, now the bustling capital of Romania.

Our tour begins in the northern part of the city — an area that, just 150 years ago, stood at the very edge of Bucharest. We’ll start from the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine and continue to the Village Museum and the Arch of Triumph — essential landmarks for understanding the capital’s development. From there, we’ll journey toward the city center, down Calea Victoriei, one of Bucharest’s oldest and most elegant boulevards, where the youthful spirit and charm of days past still echo through historic buildings and the stories they hold. This emblematic avenue is home to some of the city’s most important tourist sites, and our tour concludes at a place rich in history and oriental flair — Hanul lui Manuc.
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