ATTRACTIONS
Five curiosities about the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid
The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a Spanish football venue in Madrid. Owned by Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, it has hosted the home matches of its first team since 1947.
The Madrid stadium is one of the most famous, prestigious and important in the world. An ovation at the Bernabeu can be worth a career, and few players have received it (Ronaldinho and Del Piero two at random, just to make the point). Every player in the world dreams of setting foot in this stadium at least once.
With almost a century of history, there are many curiosities that the general public may not know about this wonderful facility.
Five things you may not know about the Santiago Bernabeu
The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is a Spanish football venue in Madrid. Owned by Real Madrid Club de Fútbol, it has hosted the home matches of its first team since 1947. The Madrid stadium is one of the most famous, prestigious and important in the world. An ovation at the Bernabeu can be worth a career, and few players have received it (Ronaldinho and Del Piero two at random, just to make the point). Every player in the world dreams of setting foot in this stadium at least once. With almost a century of history, there are many curiosities that the general public may not know about this wonderful facility.
The name
The stadium is named after Santiago Bernabéu de Yeste, one of the most influential and charismatic presidents in the history of Real Madrid. Bernabéu was president of the club from 1943 until his death in 1978.
Di uggboy - DSCF6019, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9482337
The highest stadium in Europe
Compared to all other top club stadiums, the Santiago Bernabéu is the highest in Europe: think of it touching 70 metres in height! In 2006, it also became the first centrally controlled stadium in the world. Being almost 700 metres above sea level, it is also the highest in this respect.
It has undergone as many as six renovations
Over the years, the Santiago Bernabéu has undergone several renovations to adapt it to modern standards. In 1982, the infrastructure was expanded and modernised for the FIFA World Cup. Further major renovations took place in 2001, 2006 and 2011. However, it had already been renovated in the 1950s (it was inaugurated in 1947) and also in the 1990s.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Estadio_Santiago_Bernabéu_38.jpg
It is an active stadium for 300 days a year
In such a facility, of course, not only Real Madrid's home matches are played. In fact, the ownership has decided to make it a reference point for the Madrid population. In addition to football, there are also shows, fairs and congresses throughout the year. This increase was desired after the Covid-19 pandemic, when the stadium was used much less.
Di Fernando Pascullo - Opera propria, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=
Largest attendance at the Santiago Bernabeu
The match with the largest number of spectators recorded at the Santiago Bernabéu was in 1957, when some 124,000 people attended the match between Real Madrid and AC Milan in the European Champions Cup.
Travel without booking
18/09/2023
The northern lights are an optical phenomenon of the Earth's atmosphere, characterized by bright bands of a wide range of shapes and colors, typically red-green-blue, called auroral arcs, caused by the interaction of charged particles of solar origin with the Earth's ionosphere.
Obviously, to observe the Northern Lights - the equivalent of the Southern Lights of the southern hemisphere of the Earth - it is necessary to head as far north as possible in the northern hemisphere, better beyond the Arctic Circle.
To observe the dawn the sky must be clear and, possibly, totally cloudless. It is also necessary that there is total darkness. The best time to observe the phenomenon, however, is between the beginning of autumn and the beginning of spring (approximately from the second half of September until the beginning of April).
Travel without booking
17/09/2023
Medieval castles, mausoleums, national parks, churches and more: often Disney animators have drawn inspiration from real places to make the locations in which animated films are set.
In some cases, real places have been reproduced in the films, such as Big Ben in Peter Pan or the Beijing's Forbidden City in Mulan.
Other times, however, animators were inspired by real locations to recreate new, albeit extremely similar locations to reality: and each of these locations can, of course, be visited. Here are some of the most famous examples.