Bucharest’s Arc de Triumf is to benefit from a €7 million makeover. The city’s Mayor Sorin Oprescu signed a contract today that will see work start in the Spring. He hopes the refurbishment will be finished in time for December 1st, Romania’s National Day, when lots of soldier boys pass underneath and Romania shows off its military hardware in a rather Cold War-esque parade.
Besides restoration work on the Arc itself, the project will also include the construction of a pedestrian underpass underneath the busy roundabout which surrounds it. Until now, getting to the Arc required nerves of steel.
What was not stated today was whether or not the renovation of the Arc will be followed by the permanent opening of its viewing deck. We would hope so. It seems daft spending all this money if people will not be able to climb up to the top. (At present, the viewing deck is opened only on a couple of days each year).
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Looks like Observatorul Astronomic is about to be refreshed, too.
We went Saturday evening, with daughter + 3 other colleagues from school. Ticket is 2 lei for children, 5 lei for adults. We went up on the roof and they could see Moon, Venus and Jupiter through telescope. The small museum at the first floor is dead, but the guide made up for that, talking to children, with great enthusiasm, answering to all their “why-s”.
To mention that there were a lot of visitors.
On their site you can see when there will be special events on the sky, to plan your visit:
http://www.astro-urseanu.ro
I thought what a pity the museum and the building (Historic Monument) are in such depressing state – but then I googled and found this
http://www.pmb.ro/pmb/comunicate/fisiere/1313145256.pdf
I hope that Observatorul Astronomic will make it on your list of museums, soon.
Reason we do not include it is that it is all in Romanian. It certainly used to be. Has that changed?
My Romanian girlfriend has a Hungarian Puli sheep herding dog that just went nuts today when it saw a wolf on a back street of Bucharest. Has anyone else seen wolves in Bucharest? Interesting article on them:
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/deep-freeze-brings-the-wolf-to-europes-door-literally-and-figuratively/
And I guess all the local stray mutts went equally nuts when they saw(well it say’s here) a Hungarian Pula sheep herding dog! Whatever that is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puli
Oh dear, how very beastly! I try to avoid all dog owners with their bias jargon on why their dog wont attack anyone. I will not tolerate them on my lands and I don’t like the smell of musk!
=))
Wolf where???
Davin, I think you’re talking about a German Shepherd, which in Romania are also called “caine-lup” (translated as wolf-dog), cause otherwise – the few wolves that still exists – live high in the mountains and nowhere near Bucharest and it would be impossible for a wolf to reach the outskirts of Bucharest, unless he escaped from the zoo.
Parmalat,
A police officer I spoke with confirmed for me that wolves have indeed been sighted in the center of Bucharest recently. I am pretty sure I saw one.
They haven’t. You didn’t.
He made fun of you. Who knows what you saw, it was probably an ordinary dog with some extra fur…
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=wolf+bucharest&um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=jns&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=628&tbm=isch&tbnid=CK-jCQ_J9cxQoM:&imgrefurl=http://www.bucharestdailyphoto.com/2009/10/bucharests-she-wolf.html&docid=rjixIlVnh8PMvM&imgurl=http://www.bucharestdailyphoto.com/photos/2009/10/IMG_0975.JPG&w=1200&h=800&ei=Ii01T4aJMMOw8QOmqbXIAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=522&vpy=100&dur=763&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=136&ty=96&sig=113141836499048662306&page=1&tbnh=128&tbnw=162&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Don’t be so silly
All I can say is: finally!
Nice that someone is thinking about underpasses. Piata Victoriei is a disaster in that respect (though I appreciate there are some issues because of tunnels already there). I doubt it’ll make any difference to pedestrians’ third class status though.
And where is this 7m Euro coming from eh? Because I thought Romania was skint.
Approx 80 per cent is non-repayable EU money.
indeed, there is a fuckton of EU funds available to Romania, but there have been huge problems absorbing it (i.e. filling out the paperwork and planning a project without having a “and I’ll take my cut for a new Bentley Cuntinantal” section
And I thought the EU was skint too!
hahhaaha good one. but we re not gonna investigate further.
Here’s another example of EU funds being put to good use
http://www.mesagerulhunedorean.ro/deva-va-avea-o-fantana-arteziana-muzicala