City Rating: Chisinau
Population: 670,000
Date of visit: August 2019
Attractions & sights: 2/5
Nightlife: 2/5
Safety: 4/5
Infrastructure: 2/5
Low budget factor: 5/5
Total: 👍👍/5
The city in a nutshell:
Chišinau is certainly one of the most unspectacular capitals in Europe. The capital of Moldova is often called the ugliest on the continent. I agree and think that the city shares last place with Priština. Moreover, the city offers few sights and is quite sleepy. But it is one of the cheapest capitals in Europe and still worth 1-2 days.
Where to stay:
If money doesn’t matter, Radisson Blu is by far the best choice. The hotel is centrally located, has a spa, restaurants and three bars. The room prices are reasonable for a five star hotel.
Otherwise, I would choose a place (hotel or apartment) that is no more than five minutes walk from Cathedral Park. This is the most central place in Chisinau with the most restaurants and bars nearby.
The Good:
The prices. Together with Kiev and Pristina, Chisinau is the cheapest capital in Europe. Accommodation is quite inexpensive, for example I paid 30 Euro per night for a 100m2 apartment in a central location.
For taxis it is recommended to download the Yandex app, or even better iTaxi. With iTaxi, the 30-minute drive from the airport to the city costs about 5 euros. Nowhere else in Europe is the taxi ride from the airport to the city center so inexpensive.
Transport costs in Moldova are generally extremely low. If you want to make a day trip from Chisinau to Orheiul Vechi, the bus trip costs less than 2 Euro per way (the trip takes about 1 hour). To Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, it costs 1-2 Euro more.
The highlight in Chisinau is the food though. On the one hand there are some very good restaurants in the city and on the other hand you pay almost nothing for it. Thus, a main course costs between 4 and 6 euros. Together with a starter and a drink, you rarely pay more than 10 euros.
Another plus is the wines. Moldavian wines have the reputation of being world class. For true wine lovers, a trip to Mileștii Mici, the largest wine cellar in the world with over 2 million bottles of wine, should be a must do. Mileștii Mici is only 10km away from Chisinau.
The Bad & the Ugly:
To get straight to the point: Chisinau is an ugly city. It’s a grey city with terrible Soviet architecture, streets in awful condition and everything seems to be barely maintained. Most of the facades of the houses are in urgent need of renovation, and it is a dirty city by European standards. The many parks only marginally improve the cityscape.
Chisinau is also a very quiet city. Some call it boring, I prefer the word sleepy. There’s not much going on in the evening. There are some bars in the city, but even the pedestrian street next to the Cathedral Park doesn’t look very lively on Saturday evening. And that in midsummer.
The city also does not have much to offer in terms of sightseeing. There are four to five sights that look quite pretty. However, one has seen them in half a day at the latest.
Chisinau is definitely not a must see city. You can spend 1-2 pleasant days in Moldova’s capital. Bucharest and especially Kiev, the capitals of the two neighboring countries, certainly offer more action than Chisinau.
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