Bucharest is a cool capital city, where you can fill your time (if you have time) with interesting activities, ready to take you out of your routine. And although for many of them you have to take a few hundred lei out of your pocket, there are also some cool things you can do without having to dip into your wallet (maybe just for transportation). 
Here's how we suggest you spend your time in Bucharest on a budget: 

Roaba de Cultură (The Culture Wheelbarrow)

Roaba de Cultură  -The Culture Wheelbarrow -  has been popping up in the lives of Bucharest residents since 2011, on the Pajiștea Pescăruș in Herăstrău Park, and was conceived as a free space to spend some quality time in nature, from May through September. The wheelbarrow is filled with live music of all kinds, picnics, sports sessions, food trucks and food festivals, outdoor movies, conferences on various topics, workshops, workshops and more and more; it can fit a lot of events, because the wheelbarrow is not small at all!

The Culture Wheelbarrow is the first urban meadow in Romania, a place that has become a landmark for spending free time in the summers in Bucharest. So far, over 1000 events have been organized and over 1,000,000 people have visited the meadow.

Watch the skaters and cyclists in Herăstrău Park and let yourself be fascinated. 

You can enjoy the shows without picking your pocket. We'll sell you a tip (actually, we'll give it to you for free, because we're good guys): At the entrance of Herăstrău Park, there's a community of guys (and a few girls) who gather around the bike ramps and do all kinds of wizardry that will make you exclaim wow, every second, while covering your eyes and holding your breath. Although you might not give them much credit at first, prepare yourself for addiction - especially if you catch a day when the big gang are out. 

Enjoy a royal picnic at Mogoșoaia Palace

If you've got the gas money or the fitness to ride a bike, pack a picnic basket and take a trip to Mogoșoaia Palace. The palace, the monuments, the grass cut in stripes and the bushes trimmed as if by a designer - all will create a setting worthy of a royal picnic (even if you only put a sandwich with parizer in the basket 😊). 

You'll relax and enjoy the tranquility more than you'd expect, take our word for it! And that's... without taking too many pennies out of your pocket - as promised above.   

Curl up in an armchair in the Cărturești bookstore with a cool book in your hand 

We hope that, reading these lines, you didn't say: yeah, man, it would be an idea for me to go to Cărturești, because I heard it's cool! And that's because it's clearly the most beautiful bookstore in the country, and we hope you haven't made the sin of having missed it by now! Housed in the former Chissoveloni Palace in the Old Town, the Cărturești bookstore is spread over 6 levels and boasts the title of the biggest bookstore in the country (and the most beautiful, we tell you!). 

Dress casually, enter the bookstore, let yourself be mesmerized by its beauty (but not too loudly, please - it's a place that encourages culture, after all!), pick a book from the shelves and sink into one of the oh-so-comfy armchairs! It's free and enriches you beyond belief, really! Give it a try!

Feel like a logopomp at the table in Manuc's Inn 

We know, we promised you won't spend, that's why we won't tell you to go to Manuc's Inn and savor a Giugiuc Platter. You can settle for a bean or belly soup (you would have spent money to eat at home anyway), while admiring the over 200-year-old building, with its Brâncovenetian details, its large and elegant arches under which Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek merchants, as well as politicians and people of culture such as Take Ionescu, Octavian Goga, Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea or Nicolae Filipescu passed. Otherwise the delicious soup comes in when you think who else has been here, right? We tell you it's well worth a lunch here!