Activity book
Pix the cat is visiting Bucharest for the very first time, and she’d love you to come along. You discover the city on foot, and the games in the book happen on the way: on a park bench, on the tram, or back home at the end of the day.
The City Guide for Curious Kids
In Bucharest, so people say, the dogs walk around with pretzels on their tails. Pix won’t believe it until she sees it, so she grabs her map and sets off across the city. Children walk alongside her, and at every stop there’s something to do: look, listen, touch, hunt for clues. Just like detectives.
Mazes, questions, sticker puzzles and plenty more, all from the places Pix visits. Do them on the way, on the tram, or in the evening, when they get everyone talking about the day’s adventures.
Games you play right there, eyes on what’s around you, shaped by the way children explore a place. Every stop brings a new game and a new bond with the city, in a language that makes sense to them.
Stickers turn up wherever there’s something worth remembering. With them, children make the city greener with their own hands, build a picture of a happy river or mark a challenge done.
On the back flap: your Bucharest passport, to fill in with your name and favourite place and tick off everywhere you’ve been, plus a postcard of Pix and the city to write and send to someone you love.
11.94 lei · for children aged 4 to 8
Research often says what parents already feel. Children who play outside and know the stories of their city find their way around more easily, and grow up feeling that the city belongs to them too. In a big city, where we don’t let them out on their own, the games in the book become a first go at independence. The city stops being just a backdrop: it’s something to explore, to understand and to look after.
From research: Rissotto and Tonucci, 2002 · Wells and Lekies, 2006 · Policy Studies Institute, 2015
Children who know the stories of a place feel more at home in it: safer, and closer to its people and its streets. The book does this for Bucharest: at every stop, a short story told the way children talk. The conversation can carry on any time, and any place can turn into a little family habit.
From research: Grimshaw and Mates, 2022 · Jack, 2010
The Old Town
Cișmigiu ParkThe AthenaeumCalea VictorieiThe Antipa MuseumTrams and Obor MarketThe Fire TowerThe People’s HouseThe Dâmbovița RiverBlocks of flatsThe Village MuseumThe Arch of Triumph
Any reason is a good reason to travel
Pinch to zoom and drag. Double-tap to close.
Book launch
Librăria Humanitas Cișmigiu, Bd. Regina Elisabeta 38, Bucharest
Part of the UrbanEye Film Festival, 3-8 November 2026
Entry is free. The launch is in Romanian, but everyone is welcome. When you sign up, the launch goes straight into your calendar, and we know how many of us there will be. We won’t sign you up for anything else.
Save your seatSign-up opens soon.
The book costs 11.94 lei and will be in bookshops and a few museums in Bucharest after the launch. We’ll email you the list as soon as it’s ready.
Leave us your email and we’ll write when the book is out, with the bookshops and museums where you can get it. Just one email, nothing else.
Partnerships, bookshops or other questions: [email protected]
For children aged 4 to 8. Younger ones play the games with you, older ones can manage on their own. And if you’re older and still curious, Pix will happily take you along.
36 pages with 12 places in Bucharest and over 30 games. A sticker sheet in the middle. On the flaps, a fold-out city map, a Bucharest passport and a postcard. And at the end, a recipe for covrigi, Romanian pretzels. It’s 15 × 23 cm, small enough for a backpack.
First at the launch: Saturday, 7 November, at 1 pm, at Librăria Humanitas Cișmigiu. Then in bookshops: we’ll tell you which ones as it gets there. Until then, leave us your email and we’ll write when it’s out and where you can find it.
Yes, entry is free. There will be activities with Pix, a book raffle and a spotting sheet for Cișmigiu Park, just round the corner from the bookshop. The launch is in Romanian, but everyone is welcome. Save your seat, so we know how many of us there will be.
11.94 lei. The price is low because the project is supported by the Romanian Order of Architects, from the Architectural Stamp Duty. There are 500 copies in English and 500 in Romanian at this price.
Yes: Pisica Pix în vizită la București, Ghidul orașului pentru copii. The book was written in Romanian first; the English edition tells the same story, adapted rather than just translated, for families visiting Bucharest with children. The place names stay in Romanian, so children learn to read the real signs.
No. The games start from the places in the book, but many work at home or on the way. And what children learn with Pix (to look closely, to touch, to hunt for clues) works on any walk, in any city.
Go where children have something to discover: Cișmigiu Park, the Old Town, the Athenaeum, the Antipa Museum, the Fire Tower, Obor Market, the Village Museum, the Arch of Triumph. They’re some of the 12 places in Pix’s book, and at each one there’s a game to play right there. Many are free: the parks, streets and markets are open any time.
Morning in Cișmigiu Park, then along Calea Victoriei to the Athenaeum, all on foot. In the afternoon, take the metro to Piața Victoriei for the Antipa Museum, with animals from all over the world. Another day: the Village Museum, with old houses brought from all over the country, and the Arch of Triumph nearby.
Three free sheets to print at home: Pix out for a walk, Pix on a scooter with Marcel, and Pix baking pretzels. Leave us your email and download them straight away.
Pix began with two questions Ina German asks of every project: who is it for, and why? For children, so they get to know their city, and for parents, so they discover it together. Ina trained as an architect, and recent years have taught her to explain complicated things simply. As a parent, she had the most honest tester of all: her daughter, who walked the route before anyone else.
Raluca Mitarcă draws with the eye of someone who knows a picture has to work both on screen and in print. For Pix Paws through Bucharest she did the illustrations and the graphic design: on every page, the drawing and the game sit so that a child can work out alone what to do. Her drawings also inspired the funniest lines. Pix, orange with glasses, started out in her sketches and grew into a character in her own right.
