The biggest football event ever hold in Bucharest, the UEFA Europe League Final will take place on Wednesday 9th May at 21.45. Both sides that will be fighting  for the cup know each other very well, playing in the same Spanish league;  Atletico Madrid and Athetic Bilbao.

The venue for this event is National Arena or Arena Nationala, a modern 55.000 stadium and the city had been long waiting for a chance like this to show its newest architecture masterpiece. Less than one year old, it received lots of compliments from both officials and football players. But it also has a weak point; the pitch. The organizers are hoping that will be ok at the kick-off but, luckily for us, is not the most important thing in a football game

The actual stadium was built on the site of the former national stadium, called 23 August, the date of the former national day in Communist Romania. The largest stadium in the country, was not so great after all and used more for extravagant and costly communist parties rather than for sporting events. It was almost impossible to upgrade it so, despite some protests, the more natural solution was to demolish it and to build a newer one instead.

How to get at the stadium?

The stadium is relatively close to city center and there are many means of transport to it. The easiest way is by subway: M3 to “Piata Muncii”, then a 15 min walk.

There are also tram lines (1 and 34), buses (140) and trolleys (86 and 90) that can take you the stadium, but there are expected to be at least crowded.

Taxis are options, but you should be careful to exaggerated prices.

Getting back from the stadium will be a much greater challenge; just imagine 55.000 fans getting out at the same time. Luckily, the public transport (including subway) will work till late in the night.

On Wednesday, special buses will work to get fans from the International Airport to the Stadium and to the Fan Zones (“Piata Constitutiei” and “Piata George Enescu”)

So glad we are to host this event, that school will be closed on Wednesday (of course, trying to make traffic a little better) and 6 subway stops will be named after famous Romanian and foreign football players: Nicolae Dobrin, Ion Pârcălab, Gică Hagi, Llorente, Falcao and Rică Răducanu.

Getting in the stadium.

The entrance will be allowed starting with 18.45. There are 3 gates: Pierre de Coubertin Str. (for the Atleticho Madrid fans), Maior Coravu Str. and Basarabia Bd. (for the Athletico Bilbao fans). Of course, no guns, knifes , forks and spoons

The fan zones:

Two fan-zones will be organized in Bucharest from where both fans and locals will be able to watch the game on giant screens until 2.00. “Piata Constitutiei” will be reserved for Athletico Madrin fans, while supporters of Aheltico Bilbao will be watching the game from “Piata George Enescu”. From here, at 18.00, special buses will take the supporters to the stadium. Of course, there will be different buses for every team.

If you have questions, look for someone wearing a jacket which says “Pregunta me”, then you can ask him / her any question you have in Spanish.

Good luck for both. May the best team win !

United Europe Free Tours is an association of local entities that offer the best free walking tours in Europe in terms of quality and entertainment. The mission of United Europe Free Tours is to provide a local perspective over the city in a both informative and entertaining way to all tourists, regardless of whether they can afford a tour or not. Today the association is building up a brand – starting from the logo. If you want to be part of this competition and maybe become the lucky one, whose logo received the biggest applause from all United Europe Free Tours members, then take the challenge – read further to find out what are the requirements.

United Europe Free Tours has various objectives

The guides

• are proud and passionate of their cities
• offer excellent quality service
• spread knowledge about the local history, culture and traditions
• give general and practical information and advices
• are local friends of their guests

The free tours

• are fun
• are personal
• emphasize on intercultural dialogue
• encourage interaction among the different cultures

The association

• provides an exchange of good practices
• offers support for the local markets

The logo should meet the following requirements

• it expresses our objectives
• it represents cultural diversity
• it creates the effect of  uniqueness
• it is simple and highly visible
• it is modern, fun, social and youthful
• it reminds of an outdoor activity
• it incorporates our slogan “The Local Perspective”

The Logo will be primarily used in online media (e.g. on our future website, and on all websites of the partner free tourorganizations), but it should be also suitable for printing and prootional materials of various kinds and sizes. Each partner organization will integrate the logo in its print and online materials.

If you want to participate

You can submit as many proposals you like by 1 May at info@guided-bucharest.com. The winner will be decided through a vote by the members of United Europe on 3 May. The winner will be announced on 4 of May and will receive a price in the amount of 200 Euro. Thumbs up!

At least, spring came to Bucharest and together with it, the city’s cultural life started to blossom. We’ve tried to select the friendliest events for you, for which knowing Romanian language is not a must. Check out our recommendations ! Among the highlights are: One World Romania documentary film festival (13-18 March), Flamenco festival (3-25 March) and also the pantomime plays of Dan Puric’s theatre company. Enjoy

Download Event list – march

Bucharest is usually a calm city.  But for 8 days in a row, we have the largest protests since ’89 Revolution.

I am not going to insist on causes and reasons and what the results will be, even that there would be a lot of things to say. What is for sure is that this is the most creative protest ever . Take a look at next photos and what the protesters are demanding (of course, it sounds better in mother tongue).

For a better understanding, Traian Basescu is (still) our president and before that was a ship captain. And, of course, most of the slogans are against him and the Government. A friendly advice is that, even the protests are usually peaceful, violence can occur, so try to avoid Piata Universitatii, especially after 8-9 pm.

“The pirate. Wanted for all “great” privatisations in oil, banks, energy, industry, etc.”

“There’s no reason people laugh about you, Emil. You’re just the right size.” Emil Boc is our  Prime Minister.

Here are all the post-communist political parties, depicted as an octopus, in the center being the communist party itself.

“Please excuse us, We can’t produce as much as you can steal !”

“Does anybody still uses IE 6 ?”

No comment

And now, a big round of applause for Mr. Nicolae Parta, the only protestant from his little home town. For more days, he protested in front of the city hall of Baia de Aries gaining a lot of fame and admiration from all the country.

A proper community of cool travellers as we wish to build must have it’s agora (aka a web log nowadays). So, we did it!

Feel free to comment and share your experience with your traveller friends via Guided Bucharest blog.

Read you soon  :)