Shopping. Bucharest style

Is there a place to shop in Bucharest?

A little bit of shopping in our good ol' town starts in… well, it starts wherever you please because, besides our 3 malls, there is no actual "place to shop." There is no Rodeo Drive, Picadilly Circus and not even a single street completely dedicated to this nice little hobby.

Have no fear, we have a lot and I do mean a whole lot of shops where you can spend uncontrolably. Still, the greatest disadvantage remains the fact that shops scattered troughout the city cause this funny, anti-depressive hobby to be highly time-consuming.

From the "as low as you can go" to "this seems rather expensive even for my taste in luxury" Bucharest has everything, including a rather unique sense of style, as regards clothing, that you may have already noticed in clubs and even in the street.

ENTIRELY ROMANIAN MERCHNADISE

First of all, you will notice and most probably love our genuine, say... traditional merchandise - that includes clothes, ornamental objects, jewelry and so on. You can start with a trip to Muzeul Taranului Roman - Romanian Peasant's Museum where traditional craftsmen display their work. You will find: paintings and wood/glass-made religious icons, mileuri (a traditional hand made crochet decoration), wood carvings, embroidered cloths and napkins, jewelry made from marbles and leather, wool blankets, clothing and bags and many other wonderful hand made merchandise.

Favorite among tourists are the religious icons depicting orthodox saints and also a type of embroidered shirt called "ie", which is the best-known clothing in Romanian popular culture. It is normally hand-made and you must know that the ladies there know their bargaining so be prepared to haggle down to the last cent.

You can also find similar stuff in the old city center, in shops called "Artizanat" (a term describing "hand-made" objects) one is close to Hanul lui Manuc and another on Victoriei Bv. Be aware though that not everything you find in this kind of shops is genuine merchandise, much of it being imported from China and displaying low quality.

ROMANIAN FOOD

Luckily, we still have areas in the country preserving a natural way of life. Indeed most of the products are being exported but there is  still plenty of natural food - vegetables, meat, milk, eggs, cheese that Romanian can enjoy at reasonable prices. This happens due to Romania's being mostly a rural, agricultural country. A fact that was wrongly perceived as a distadvatage for our image in the urban, civilized world, is on the other hand what actually helps us live a longer and healthier life.

You can find all you need at the markets in town, which unfortunately don't look quite thrilling. You will be amazed at the low prices performed by local vendors. They are mostly peasants that work the land and sell their harvest at the market or even in the street. The products are entirely E-free.

CLOTHES AND SHOES

VICTORY BOULEVARD - that stretches from United Nations Square to Victory Square is home to some of the most trendy and fancy stores in town. We are talking about furniture, expensive curtains and drapes, ornaments, clothes and accessories. You will encounter a wide variety of international brands, such as Hugo Boss, Furla, Fornarina, La Perla, Max Mara, Escada, Stefanel or United Colours of Benetton.

And for the cool, trendy, hip tourist that you are check out Escape, Miss Sixty, Esprit and our local Hippie Hippie Shake, Loona de Krystal, Zebra Society and Melkior.

MOSILOR AVENUE is where you can also find nice clothes and accessories.

If you're the active, sporty type, take a walk to Himalaya, Surmont, Boarders, Base, H2O and The Kitchen. Skate-, snow- and wave- boards and all the necessary accessories plus a hole clothing line to match. Basically it's all imported so you'll find the same merchandise and brands as those back home, we're talking about Animal, Billa Bong, Burton, Vans…but in The Kitchen and Paria you'll find locals brands such as "Boule" (bull). Most of these shops are located in the HISTORICAL CENTER of the city.

JEWELRY, ACCESORIES AND SOUVENIRS



The nice thing is that if you can find many little shops where you'll find unique jewelry and clothing made by local artists, in places like Tria Alfa (Sepcari street, near Saint George Passage) or Catwork (Sperantei Street near Rosetti Square) And even an eccentric type of shoes made by Mihai Albu.

The Linden Inn Art Galleries have plenty of colourful, delicate, vintage and wonderful things. You'd surely like to pay a short visit.

I'm not going to tackle the electronics area because, we Romanians try to do our gadget shopping abroad or at least on-line, the prices get to double or even triple in some cases, after passing the border. So don't even think about wasting your money.

Great places to go shopping, in the sense that you'll find many stores in one place, are our 3 malls, Romanian Plaza, Bucharest Mall and City Mall.

For luxury products you should check out the shops near the major hotels in town, like The Hilton Athene Palace (Revolution Square, in the center of the town), J.W Marriot (September 13 Avenue) and World Trade Plaza Sofitel.

If you've finished "read in my travels book" have a go to Humanitas, Eminescu and Carturesti, for books in Romanian, English, French and German.

So even if our city isn't the Mecca of shopping,  you could still find nice travel souvenirs to bring to your friends back home.