After our stay in beautiful and interesting Bucharest we drive on day 9 to Razgrad in Bulgaria.
The distance between the two cities is only 137km if you take the highway, but we drive on beautiful winding provincial roads through the fairly flat area. However, there are many large and small (tributary) rivers, which makes it a beautiful ride with wide panoramas.

Along the route there are some breaks for drinks and food and a few places to stop briefly for a photo. There are no longer stops for sightseeing, with the exception of a visit to the Botanical Gardens and the opposite Cotroceni Palace and Museum in Bucharest.

You might consider a visit to this one before starting the route. Botanical Gardens open at 08:00 in the summer months and 09:00 in the winter months and are located in the Cotroceni district, a fifteen-minute drive from the center of Bucharest. You can easily get there by bus or metro.

The Bucharest Botanical Garden (Grădina Botanică) is a place to discover the thousands of native and exotic plants that grow here and the diverse flora and fauna. There are exhibits of botanical artifacts in the museum located here. The Bucharest Botanical Garden was established in 1860 on the grounds of the Cotroceni Castle and opened the doors of its current location in 1891.

There are imposing 19th-century greenhouses in the garden where you can discover interesting plants from Romania and around the world. The plants are grouped by geographic region and there are information boards in English. You can see cacti and carnivorous plants, such as the Venus flytrap. These conservatories are only open on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

There are walking trails through extensive flower gardens, micro forests and wooded grounds. You will find plants here from the Mediterranean to the mountains of the Carpathians in Central and Eastern Europe. With a bit of luck you can see playing squirrels, ducks and turtles.

The Botanical Museum (Muzeum Botanice) housed in a striking Brâncovenesc-style building is also worth a visit.

Opposite the Botanical Gardens is the Cotroceni Palace and its National Museum. A must visit for lovers of museums and beautiful palaces.

The Cotroceni National Museum is the old Royal Palace, built in 1895. In 1991, the palace became the headquarters of the Romanian Presidency and the old wing of the ensemble was opened to the public as Cotroceni National Museum, intended as an insight into centuries past. Many of the palace's halls were decorated to the taste of Marie, the English wife of Carol's heir, his cousin Crown Prince Ferdinand. Her extensive art collection is also on display.

The collection of the Cotroceni National Museum contains about 20,000 objects and is divided into the domains: fine arts (Romanian and international paintings, graphic arts, Romanian and foreign sculpture, religious art), decorative arts (ceramics, glass, metal, textiles, furniture ), numismatics, medals, history, archaeology.
The Romanian painting collection consists of paintings by famous Romanian painters from the end of the 19th century to the present day.
The graphic art collection includes numerous drawings, watercolors and engravings from the 19th and 20th centuries and Japanese prints. This special collection was expanded through purchases and donations of Romanian modern and contemporary graphics.
Decorative arts are featured in permanent exhibitions and include furniture, ceramics, glass, metal and textiles. The ceramics collection includes valuable pieces from renowned workshops in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia. The porcelain of Sèvres, Meissen and Kuznetzov is truly remarkable. The glass collection includes valuable artistic and historical pieces such as the Queen Mary table set (Neo-Byzantine style). The textile collection includes carpets from famous workshops of Bukhara, Sumak Shirvan. The museum's collection also includes a number of Art Nouveau objects created by the artistic movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

A possible short stop can be planned in Bujoreni, for this you have to deviate from the route and drive partly on unpaved roads. The village of Bujoreni is the residence of a commune of the same name in Teleorman County, this small village has a beautiful old wooden church, which is well worth a visit.

The end point of this day is in Razgrad Bulgaria, where you can spend the night in one of the hotels in the center.