Buy a subway card and get the cheapest ticket for a trip back in time. How it is possible? Well, all you have to do is to buy this metro ticket and reach the station of Politehnica from Bucharest. Get off the train and literally step on the fossil-floor which dates back to Crateceous, just 65 million years ago.

The story of the subway from Bucharest starts in the 70s when the second Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceusescu ordered the authorities to built a metro network for the city, albeit the idea had existed long before. The first stage of works took 4 years, 1975 – 1979. The metro station of Politehnica was inaugurated later, in 1983. Few people of Bucharest realize that the floor of this station is in fact a petrified ocean 65 million years old. The stone, in fact red limestone brought from the Western Carpathians (Muntii Apuseni), contains rare fossils like seashells, mollusks, corals, algae, gastropods and stromatolites. Therefore this metro station is in fact a spectacular paleontographical site.

The company that administrates the subway of Bucharest wants to take advantage of this by transforming it into a tourist destination. They intend to bring big screens and billboards which will give the passangers more details about the treasure laying beneath their feet.

by Daniel Gheorghita
Licensed Tour Guide