The Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest

The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is one of the largest and heaviest administrative buildings in the world, a colossal, monumental edifice raised at enormous cost in the 1980s. A behemoth of over a thousand rooms, marble, crystal chandeliers and gilded halls, built on a scale of overwhelming, oppressive grandeur, it is an extraordinary thing to stand inside, and today it houses Romania's parliament.

What you actually see

• The colossal scale - the sheer, overwhelming size of the building.
• The grand halls - the marble halls, chandeliers and gilded rooms.
• The guided tour - the fraction of the vast interior open to visitors.
• The history - the story of how the building was raised and what stood here before.

When to go

April to October for the best weather in the capital; the palace is visited only on guided tours, which must be booked in advance with your passport, so plan ahead. Only a fraction of the vast building is open to visitors.

Honest expectations

It can be visited only on a guided tour booked ahead with a passport, and even then only a small fraction of the enormous building is shown. A whole swathe of old Bucharest was demolished to make room for it, which makes it a sobering rather than celebratory sight. Its staggering scale, though, is genuinely astonishing.

Nearby

The old town, the Village Museum and the boulevards of Bucharest are in the city.