The Weight of History.

The world's second-largest administrative building.

Bucharest, Romania – Heat curls from my brow as I set out in search of the entrance to the Palace of Parliament.

Weighing more than nine billion pounds, it’s the heaviest building in the world. Unsurprisingly, it sinks six millimetres a year.

It's also a monument to former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu's vanity and to his power to destroy more than seven square kilometres of the old city centre while uprooting 40,000 people and redirecting much-needed financial resources. 

Today, it’s more than 70 per cent empty. Built with a million cubic metres of marble, it’s the showy white wedding cake nobody needs.

The sun beats down as I make my way up Spirea’s Hill, along the south side of the building. Gold domes shimmer against the sky. Within the same complex, construction continues on the People’s Salvation Cathedral, which is expected to open later this year.

Naturally, it’s the largest Orthodox church in the world.

After more than an hour, I make it to the entrance, which was mere feet from where I had started.

But in the opposite direction.

I don’t even go in.