There are several ways to get to the Old Town of Bucharest, for example, from the embankment of the Dambovita River, which divides the city in half. Today, almost the entire old center of Bucharest is pedestrian. It isn't as big as it could be: almost half of it was demolished during Ceausescu's rule to clear a space for the Palace of Soviets. In any capital, the old center is a kind of composite portrait of the country and its inhabitants, their mentality, traditions, and habits. The center of Bucharest portraits the nation as hospitable, noisy, cheerful, and diverse. No matter how hard Bucharest tried to resemble Paris (this was the goal of the downtown boosters at the end of the "golden" 19th century), the wide boulevards with the imperial buildings still have a Balkan flavor and are colorful like a gypsy shawl.

The Old Town of Bucharest includes the streets of Postei, Franceza, Lipscani, Smardan, several alleys, and the Macca-Villacrosse Passage (an arcade street with shops and cafes made in the Art Nouveau style and covered with a yellow glass roof).

The oldest place in the center is the Princely Court, built in the 15th century for Vlad III Tepes (better known as Count Dracula), who ruled the country at that time. The court stands near the market, the former name of which, Leipzig, formed the name of Lipscani. In its most luxurious part, it seems that the houses compete with each other in their beauty and splendor. For example, the headquarters of the National Bank of Romania (playful eclecticism of the late 19th century) with the Stock Exchange Palace (the same years of construction, imperial scale, and decor).

The Old Town also houses several small Orthodox churches: St. Nicholas, St. Anthony, St. Dmitry, Stavropoleos. Besides, it's pleasant just to walk around, admire the houses in the Art Nouveau style (Bucharest did not receive the title of "Eastern Paris" for nothing), drink coffee, thick and black like a southern night.

In the evening, another life begins in Lipscani. It seems like the whole city comes to dine here. The heat subsides. Tables are taken out of the cafe to the streets: they stand so tightly to each other that people passing by can easily take a snack from any of them.