The 'Paris of the Balkans' is still a very charming place, full of old, dilapidated houses, quite many of them with bullet holes dating from 1989. Small churches provide quiet spaces in the middle of the otherwise loud and busy streets, smelling of car exhaust and pulsating with Balkan pop.

In Bucharest itself, the most famous landmark might be the second largest building of the world - Casa Poporului ('the House of the People' is what its cynical name means). 

The violence and turmoil of 1989 did not bring much change to Romania, politically. The governing party PSD, and virtually all opposition parties, are fractions of one and the same, originating from the former Party with a big 'P' of the 'Communist' times. It wouldn't make much difference at all which party would rule, and politicians are as corrupted as ever.
The only noticeable change that has occurred since the olden days is that 'Communism' has been traded for Capitalism. 'Privatisation' and 'EU integration' are the slogans of the day, and PSD are doing their best to pretend like the people is enthusiastic about things like the NATO membership, by organising NATO concerts, demonstrations and festivals celebrating it.

Besides Casa Poporului, the most famous tourist trap might be the former caravan serai Hanul Lui Manuc, dating from Bucharest's Ottoman times. It is still functioning today, although its clientele consists not of caravans, but mostly Bucharest's nouveaux riches, tourists and people who work in fancy environmental projects. It can be fun to go there and disappoint the waitresses by ordering only mineral water, and watching all the cool guys in 'Top Gun' leather jackets, who don't seem to realise how uncool the radio station the restaurant is playing actually is.

But why occupy oneself only with these overexposed places? Bucharest is much more than that. It is full of secret places, where hardly anyone ever goes. 
For instance, there are the ruins of an old castle in the middle of the city. Nowadays you can't go there for free, as some people are trying to maintain a kind of museum in it, with scary wax figure exhibitions from St. Petersburg and the usual Vlad Tepes bust to attract tourists, along with all kinds of interesting historical rubble they have found here and there.

But if you pay for the exhibition and promise to look at the scary Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings characters, you can talk the museum people into letting you climb around in the ruins afterwards. While balancing over the abysses where the old ceilings have caved in, you can spot quite interesting things, such as a slightly cubist painting of a red clenched fist. Where it came from and why it's there no one knows.
After you have confused the museum people further by crawling out under a fence behind the ruins, instead of going back to the front entrance to get out, you come to some old apartment houses that are slowly but steadily falling apart. Of course, people still live in them. The difficult housing situation seems to win easily over trifles like a couple of missing outer walls.

Those who are residing in the apartment blocks near the building 'Brotherhood among the Peoples' ('Infratirea intre Popoare', also known as 'Infratirea intre picioare', 'Brotherhood between the Legs'), are luckier. The 'Brotherhood among the Peoples' building and these blocks were built by the Soviets, as an act of solidarity and comradeship towards Romania. Residents of Bucharest say that the houses built by the comrades from the East are of infinitely better quality and comfort than any of the apartment blocks built at Ceausescu's orders.