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Bucharest (Romanian: Bucuresti) is Romania's capital and largest city, as well as the most important industrial and commercial center of the country. With 2 million inhabitants in the city proper and more than 2.4 million in the urban area, Bucharest is one of the largest cities in Southeastern Europe.

Understand

Bucharest is the primary entry point into Romania. It typically elicits a wide spectrum of opinions on the part of tourists. Known in the past as "The Little Paris" Bucharest has changed a lot lately and today it has become a very interesting mix of old and new that has little to do with its initial reputation. Finding a 300 year old church near a steel-and-glass building that both sit next to a communist style building is commonplace in Bucharest. Perhaps "The Big Mix" would be a more appropriate name for the current Bucharest. Some adore it and enjoy its unique charm, while others feel uncomfortable around the gray Communist-era buildings and lack of western style tourist attractions. However, Bucharest offers some excellent attractions, and has, in recent years, cultivated a sophisticated, trendy, and modern sensibility that many have come to expect from a European capital. Bucharest has been undergoing major modernization programs in recent years and is still going to continue with these projects in the years to come. Bucharest was experiencing an economic boom up until 2010 and has benefited from this along with the EU grants that have helped rebuild parts of the city.

Language

The official language is Romanian, a Romance language which claims to be the closest currently-spoken relative to Ancient Latin, but contains around 20% of loan words from Slavonic languages. Most younger educated people will speak English reasonably well and will likely be proficient in one or more second Romance languages; most educated people born before about 1970 will speak French, Spanish or Italian reasonably well. The Roma people (Gypsies) speak their native Romany, as well as Romanian, and sometimes English as well. Beyond that, as in any major city, there will be a smattering of other languages like Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Hungarian.

Climate

Bucharest, like most of Romania, has a temperate-continental climate with hot summers and cold winters. This region of Romania gets all four seasons, although spring is brief and falls mainly in April. The average high daily temperature in summer is about 29ºC and in winter about 2ºC. It can get really hot and dry during the summer (40ºC) and really cold during the winter (-20ºC),even though temperatures below -12ºC are extremely rare. Best time to visit is April through June, September through October and early December.