Bucharest has become a trendy city in Europe after the city’s Old Town was revamped and clubs and underground events started to appear, Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos said.

Ciolos recalled that some two years ago, when several low cost airlines started launching more flights between Bucharest and other European capitals. Some of his younger foreign friends asked him if he had a house in Bucharest because they wanted to come to the city.

"Don't you know that Bucharest is the new trendy destination in Europe," his friends told Ciolos when he asked them what they wanted to do in Bucharest. At that time, he was European Commissioner for Agriculture in Brussels.

“After all this dynamic developed around Berlin in 2000, I had the surprise to hear that Bucharest became a trendy city once the Old Town was opened and a series of clubs and underground events started to appear,” Ciolos said at a conference in Bucharest, according to local Mediafax.

Ciolos added that the authorities should also encourage and support this underground creativity and help bring this phenomenon to the surface.

However, the new public safety regulations that don't allow restaurants, bars, and clubs to operate in high seismic risk buildings and the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces have made the Old Town less attractive. Several restaurants and pubs closed in the past months.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com