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).

Bucharest In Your Pocket issue 75 is done and dusted and at the printer. Here is the cover:

Features this issue include a look back at the Bucharest earthquake of 1977, books about Romania in English (including some reviews first published here, as well as a cracking new sketch of Paul D. Quinlan’s Carol: The Playboy King by Chris Lawson) and Bucharest’s tallest buildings.

New venues to look out for include Mircea Dinescu‘s restaurant Lacrimi si Sfinti, on Strada Sepcari, and what is perhaps our new favourite bar, Laboratorul de Cocktailuri.

We would also like to point out that the guide includes a listing for Malagamba, which is very much open! It was closed for a few days in January following an overzealous visit from the financial guard, but has since reopened and is as good as ever. Alas it seems news of the reopening has not spread as quickly as the news of the closure did.

It was almost two years ago now that we asked the question: Where can you find the best mici in Bucharest?.

The response was almost unanimous: La Cocosatul.

Now, as those of you who follow mentions of Romania in the foreign press might well know, one of the owners of La Cocosatul (the name means Hunchback) hung himself in December, apparently in the attic of the restaurant. You can read the full story here.

Anyway, we went to La Cocosatul with the intention of eating a ton of these now world famous mici, only to leave the restaurant less than 30 seconds after we had gone inside: it was too cold to stay. Seriously, even with our coats on it was freezing.

As we had no desire to eat in the cold, we instead nipped around the corner to La Cocosatul’s big rival, La Gil.

We can report that not only was it much warmer at La Gil, but the mici were rather good too. Very good in fact.

We also rather enjoyed the highly graphic menu, which included photos of absolutely everything, from ciorba to steak to the most basic of supplements (sic), such as cucumbers. We have seen a few menus with pictures in our time but nothing rivals this:

Very helpful

Remember this post from last year about Bucharest’s tallest buildings?

Well, we decided to develop the idea and write a feature on the tallest buildings in Bucharest for the next edition of Bucharest In Your Pocket. We will post a link to the feature here when it is completed.

Anyway, having researched the city’s tallest buildings a little more thoroughly this time, the final top ten we have come up with is in fact slightly different to the original list.

Bucharest Tower Centre (120 metres)
Elevator Test Tower (114 metres)
Casa Scanteii (104 metres)
Asmita Gardens (90 metres)
BRD Tower (87 metres)
Casa Poporului (86 metres)
Bucharest Financial Plaza (83 metres)
Nusco Tower (80 metres)
InterContinental (77 metres)
Cathedral Plaza (75 metres)

Entries not present before include: Asmita Gardens (a residential development of seven blocks, the tallest of which is 90 metres high. Read about its fate here); the Nusco Tower in Pipera (home of Oracle and Volksbank); the controversial Cathedral Plaza, which, though completed in 2010, is currently empty while a long and complicated legal case (the project’s developer has had to go to the European Court of Human Rights) waits to be resolved.

The completed but empty Cathedral Plaza. You can guess where it gets its name from

Here’s a problem we have never faced before: What does a responsible city guide do about these protests (a couple of which have ended violently) currently taking place every evening in Bucharest?

We have a deadline approaching ahead of the publication of the February – March issue of Bucharest In Your Pocket, and are in something of a quandary as to whether we should say anything about the protests or not.

We this morning placed this short text on our website, which we hope avoids hyperbole and conveys the right mix of common sense and reality:

Are we going to ignore the elephant in the room? No, we are not, for there is no getting away from the fact that these are troubled times for Romania and for Bucharest in particular.

As we write, protests against the Romanian government are being held nightly in Piata Universitatii. Though small and generally good natured, the protests have – a couple of times – ended in violence between protestors and Romania’s notoriously brutal paramilitary jendarmes.

However: you must not let the protests put you off visiting the city or the Piata Universitatii area (indeed, judging by the number of people posting photos to Facebook and Twitter – including the now famous photo above – they have become sonethng of an attraction for visitors). Just keep your wits about you, apply common sense and make sure you have some ID on you: the police will almost certainly detain you if you cannot produce ID when asked.

Remember: Bucharest remains one of the safest cities in Europe; the protests have not changed that.

Fair and balanced?

Thoughts welcome.

As for the print guide we think we will play it by ear. If the protests come to an abrupt halt we will mention them in the past tense, in the Foreword. If they go on, however, the above text might well get another outing.