Monopoly is the legendary real-estate board game for two to eight players, in which the player’s goal is to remain financially solvent while forcing opponents into bankruptcy by buying and developing pieces of property.

Now, while the very idea of free parking, water boards or paying income tax may be alien to many Romanians, the value of property is not. As such Monopoly had been played in Romania for years, often on moody versions of the game, made in a dark factory somewhere far from the eyes of intellectual property lawyers.

Though a (legal, licensed) Romanian version has been around since 1999, it was produced in few numbers and finding a copy could often be a real pain in the community chest: finding the US version was easier. Now, however, the Romanian version is ubiquitous, and can be picked up for around 100.00 lei in G-Market, Carrefour, Cora and Diverta Music & Film, amongst other places.

We have no idea who devised the Romanian board, though afficianados will be pleased to know that all of the quirks of the original remain: the choice of streets and stations is a little arbitrary, some streets are not, in fact, streets, prices are laughably low, the rules are incomprehensible and you can still win money by coming second in a beauty contest.

A Trip Around the Bucharest Board

Calea Rahova is famous for its multi-coloured blocks, an idea stolen from Tirana, where the mayor, Edi Rama, is an artist. The mayor of Bucharest’s Sector 5, however, Marean Vanghelie, is far from being an artist (he is famously barely literate), and Calea Rahova, while impressive from afar, is no Tirana. What’s more, behind the painted facades hides a squalor unfit for Africa, let alone the European Union. On the face of it, the $12 Monopoly ground rent seems a little steep.

Calea Giulesti is home to Stadion Giulesti, home to Rapid Bucharest, the ugly sister of Bucharest football (Steaua and Dinamo remain the capital’s best supported sides). Founded by railway workers (the main line into Gara de Nord passes within a few metres of the stadium) the team has won the Romanian championship just three times, in 1967, 1999 and in 2003. Fans of bizarre buildings might like to know that the prototype-looking skyscraper with few – if any – windows next to the stadium (and visible from every train coming and going from the station) is in fact a now derelict elevator test-shaft. It was built in the 1970s by Ascensor SA, the national lift company, which hoped to corner the European market in high-speed lifts for tall buildings. It didn’t.

The first station on the Bucharest board is Gara Progresu, a bleak outpost of the Romanian railways which these days sees little, if any traffic: the Romanian train timetable @ www.cfr.ro/mersultrenurilor in fact lists no trains as scheduled to stop here for the foreseeable future.

Balta Alba translates as White Pond, and is named for the lake in the middle of Titan park, one of the largest in the city (the water in the lake these days is more brown than anything else, however).

Unfairly regarded as the Bucharest hood, B-dul Pantelimon is home to what is, at 18 floors high, currently Bucharest’s tallest apartments block (find it on the corner of Pantelimon and Sos. Vergului). Named for the Orthodox St. Pantelimon the Healer, the wide boulevard is the gateway to the less-visited sights east of the city, including Cernica Monastery, a 19th-century monastery 9km from the capital. Its church features frescoes painted by the little-known maestro George Frujinescu.

Berceni is a less than salubrious district of the capital, and should be considered a no go area at night. It is not really worthy of its light blue status on the Bucharest Monopoly board, but it is home to the capital’s most chaotic department store, BIG. You’ll find it behind Piata Sudului.

The district of Titan was the largest housing project in the country when it was completed in the late 1960s. It is home to more than a tenth of the city’s population, and is today seeing something of a revival, with hundreds of new apartments being built in shiny new blocks.

Colentina is an area of high-rise blocks and shabby houses built often haphazardly along streets that remain unpaved, and in many cases without proper running water and sewerage. It is of absolutely no interest to visitors.

Tei was probably a lovely area once, the lake of the same name providing a fair retreat for citizens of pre-communist era Bucharest. Now alas it is another shabby area of block and unpaved streets. B-dul Lacul Tei is however home to Bucharest’s Circus.

Gara de Est (or more commonly, Gara Obor) is another of Bucharest’s stations that sees almost no traffic. Just eight trains a day leave from here, all bar one of which are painfully slow personal trains serving Godforsaken places such as Oltenita on the Danube. For those interested in pointless train journeys, take the 07:40 to Oltenita, which stops first at Bucuresti Sud, then does a shuttle to Titan Sud, goes back to Bucuresti Sud, and only then carries on to its final destination. Fantastic. The one train of interest to those not  wanting to see Romania’s peasantry at first hand is the rapid that departs from here to Constanta every evening at 17:51.

B-dul Timişoara is the city’s western escape route. Piata Danny Huwe, at its eastern end, is named for a young Belgian journalist killed in Bucharest during the 1989 revolution. The huge Plaza Romania, currently the city’s largest shopping centre, is found at No. 26.

Drumul Taberei was something of a socialist showpiece when first constructed in the 1960s, a planned suburb of wide avenues, parks, hospitals, clinics and shopping centres. It remains one of the best-kept areas in the city, though poor transport connections and the distance from the city centre keeps real estate prices here down, whether they be on the Monopoly board or off. It was in this neighbourhood (then a field) that Tudor Vladimirescu camped with his forces during the failed peasants’ rebellion of 1821.

The first of the red set is B-dul Carol. The Secession houses, hotels and public buildings that line it could make it one of the finest streets in Europe. Alas almost every building is in poor repair, many are considered major earthquake risks. Named B-dul Republicii during the communist period, Marxists would be horrified to discover that the Bucharest Stock Exchange (Bursa de Valori Bucuresti, BVB) operates in the new skyscraper at Nos. 34-36. Opposite, on the corner of Str. Armeneasca, is the newly renovated Biserica Armeneasca, centre of the Armenian faith in Romania.

At Piata Universitatii, B-dul Carol becomes B-dul Mihai Kogalniceanu, another of Bucharest’s many streets that carried a different name before 1989, in this case B-dul Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. (Dej was Romania’s first communist leader). Home to the main building of Bucharest University, the Cercul Militar and Bucharest City Hall, it has many secrets. The derelict but once gorgeous Hotel Cismigiu is just one. Built in Secession style at the end of the 19th century the hotel was closed in 1990, and though already in an advanced state of dereliction was pressed into service as a student dormitory. It was only closed in 1993 after a young girl was tragically killed after falling 60 metres down an empty elevator shaft. The case became a cause celebre amongst Bucharest’s students and their campaign for decent accommodation, and in 1998 was even the inspiration for a song, Hotel Cismigiu, by popular local band Vama Veche. The hotel was recently bought by a private developer, who has pledged to restore it to former glories.

B-dul Eroilor is home to the enormous Academia Militara (Miltary Academy), designed by Duiliu Marcu (also responsible for the Palatul Victoriei) and completed in 1939. The Academy was one of the few places in Bucharest that saw live action during the relatively peaceful handover of power from Marshall Antonescu to King Mihai in August 1944. A small plaque in the courtyard commemorates the soldiers killed while successfully attacking the building, which played host to German military 'advisors' throughout World War II, and which served as a last bastion of Nazism in Romania.

Now almost completely swallowed by its big brother Gara de Nord, Gara Basarab is the third station on the Bucharest Monopoly board, and serves a number of personal trains that run to and from the villages which dot the countryside around the capital.

B-dul Nicolae Titulescu, which runs from Piata Victoriei to Gara de Nord, is home to almost nothing of note. Lined by tower blocks its main point of interest for visitors is the legendary Dubliner, the first (and still the best) Irish pub in Romania. The large Italianate building at the corner with Str. Banu Manta is the city hall of Bucharest’s Sector 1, built from 1927-36.

B-dul 1 Mai is one of those streets that just can’t make its mind up. Marked on some maps (including the one in Bucharest In Your Pocket) as B-dul Ion Mihalache, most locals continue to use the communist era name, B-dul 1 Mai. One of the oldest arteries in the city it leads to the Brancoveanu Palace at Mogosoaia, and the suburb of Bucurestii Noi (New Bucharest), a place worthy of a footnote: Constructed from 1953-7, this showpiece development of Neo Classical-style blocks common in the USSR (but rare in Romania) was the first major housing project to be built in Bucharest after the communist takeover.

The fact that Calea Dorobanti follows B-dul 1 Mai is one of the vagaries of the Monopoly board that makes the game such fun. Regarded by many as the best address in the capital (and more deserving of a place up in the dark blues than B-dul Magheru), Dorobanti was originally known as Ulita Fierastraului, and was the private domain of 18th-century humanist Alexandru Ipsilanti, who had his summer house at the northern end of the street. It was renamed Calea Dorobantilor in 1878, in honour of the Dorobanti (foot soldiers) who died in Romania’s wars of independence. Home to embassies and large villas of the super-wealthy, its most famous landmark is the headquarters of Romanian Television (Televiziunea Romana) at No. 191. Built in 1968 in a strange, modernist style it was the scene of heavy fighting during the 1989 revolution.

Avoiding the Go to Jail square (which in Bucharest means Jilava Prison, south of the city), we arrive at Piata Unirii, the centre of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Civic Centre (Centru Civic). Piata Unirii has in fact been around for as long as Bucharest has existed: there was a market here as early as the 16th century. Today’s square is unrecognizable from that which stood here before 1976. Back then it was surrounded by low-rise houses, shops, and the early-19th century Hanul lui Manuc. The Hanul is now all that remains: two sides of the square are faced by apartment blocks, while on the eastern side is Unirea: the country’s first department store when opened in 1977, and today a modern shopping centre. The once lively daily market that operated in the centre of the square is now hidden behind Unirea.

Cotroceni is a leafy, wealthy and sought-after district of Bucharest home to Cotroceni Palace: the official residence of Romania’s president. Other residents include a football club, FC National, which plays at Cotroceni Stadium, and the Arenele BNR: home of the Romanian Open tennis tournament that takes place every September.

Of all the city’s streets, none is more historic than Calea Victoriei. Dating back to 1692, it was created by Constantin Brancoveanu to link the old city center around Piata Unirii with his residence at Mogosoaia. Originally built with logs, it was paved with stone in 1825, when it became a fashionable place for the wealthy to build residences. Many of the best houses remain to this day, including the Casa Vernescu at No. 133 (today a casino) and the Casa Romanit at No. 111 (today the Art Collection Museum). It is also home to numerous churches, museums, the former royal palace and the extraordinary CEC building at No. 13.

Gara de Nord is Bucharest’s only railway station of any importance. All trains in and out of the capital stop here. It was opened in 1872, at once with the completion of Romania’s first railway line, from Bucharest to Ploiesti. While much of the building dates from that period, it was extensively rebuilt in the 1930s, when the façade took on its present, rather minimalist linearity, inspired by the Italian railway stations being built at the time.

B-dul Magheru is a noisy, dusty and shabby street that barely warrants its place amongst the dark blues at the sexy end of the Monopoly board. It is named for Gheorge Magheru (1802-80), an outlaw turned Wallachian general who took part in the peasant uprising of June 1848. Magheru was exiled after the uprising was put down by Turkish forces in Autumn 1848, and returned only after the unification of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1859.

The last and most expensive property on the Bucharest Monopoly board is B-dul Primaverii, a leafy residential street in the north of the city. Lined with large villas and classy apartment blocks it is home to some of the richest and most powerful people in the country. Apartments here cost anything from €500,000 upwards. During the 1980s the well-guarded building (it remains state property) on the corner with B-dul Mircea Eliade (in those days B-dul Kalinin) was the official residence of Nicolae Ceausescu.