The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, will be the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe organized by UEFA. It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are two-time defending champions. For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage including three rounds and the final. 19 teams (the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team) joined France who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four spots at the final tournament.
Stade Pierre-Mauroy is a multi-use stadium in Villeneuve d’Ascq, near Lille, that opened in August 2012. It is located in the Hôtel de Ville quarter of Villeneuve d’Ascq and is the new home stadium of LOSC Lille Métropole. It was initially named Grand Stade Lille Métropole, and was renamed to Stade Pierre Mauroy on June 21, 2013, just after the death of the former Mayor of Lille (1973-2011) and former French Prime Minister (1981-1984).
The Parc des Princes (literally “Park of the Princes” or “Princes’ Park” in English) is an all-seater football stadium located in the southwest of Paris. The venue, with a seating capacity of 48,712 spectators, has been the home of French football club Paris Saint-Germain since 1973. he current Parc des Princes was inaugurated on 4 June 1972, endowed with very avant-garde architecture for the period. Comfort and visibility were the key words of project architects Roger Taillibert and Siavash Teimouri. PSG became the resident club of the new stadium in June 1973 and its image and history has since been associated with Le Parc. Named after the Monarch’s hunting grounds that it sits on, it was initially opened as a multi-purpose venue on 18 July 1897.
The Parc Olympique Lyonnais, nicknamed the Grand Stade and the Stade des Lumières, is 59,186-seat stadium for French football club Olympique Lyonnais in Décines-Charpieu near Lyon. It replaced its past stadium, Stade de Gerland, in January 2016.
The Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux, currently also known as the Matmut Atlantique for sponsorship purposes, is a football stadium in Bordeaux. Construction began in 2013 and ended in April 2015. The stadium was opened on 18 May 2015, with capacitiy for 42,115 spectators.
Stade Bollaert-Delelis is the main football stadium in Lens, that was built in 1933. It is the home of RC Lens. The stadium’s capacity is 38,223 – about 5,000 more than the city’s population. The stadium was originally named after Félix Bollaert, a director of Compagnie des Mines de Lens, who was anxious to promote the development of sports clubs in the city. Construction began in 1931, though Bollaert died shortly before the stadium’s inauguration. It was renamed Stade Bollaert-Delelis in 2012 after the death of André Delelis, a politician who served as the Minister of Commerce under President François Mitterrand. The stadium has hosted matches in major international tournaments, like 1984 European Championship, 1998 FIFA World Cup, 1999 Rugby World Cup, and 2007 Rugby World Cup.
The Allianz Riviera is a multi-use stadium in Nice, used mostly for football matches of host OGC Nice and also for occasional home matches of rugby union club Toulon. The stadium has a capacity of 35,624 people and replaces the city’s former stadium Stade Municipal du Ray. Construction started in 2011 and was completed two years later. The stadium’s opening was on 22 September 2013, for a match between OGC Nice and Valenciennes. The stadium was originally planned to be completed by 2007. However, construction was halted the previous year because of concerns related to the future cost of the structure. Plans for the stadium, located in Saint-Isidore near the Var, were then shelved. The project was revived as part of France’s ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 2016. Due to sponsorship regulations, the stadium is known as the Stade de Nice in UEFA competition.
Stadium Municipal de Toulouse is the largest multi-purpose stadium in Toulouse. It is currently used mostly for football matches, mainly those of the Toulouse Football Club and the big games of rugby for Stade Toulousain in the Heineken Cup or Top 14. It also hosts the test matches of France’s national rugby union team. It is located on the island of Ramier near the centre of Toulouse. It is a pure football and rugby ground, and therefore has no athletics track surrounding the field. The stadium is able to hold 33,150 people.
Stade Geoffroy-Guichard is a multi-purpose stadium in Saint-Étienne. It is used primarily for football matches, and tournaments such as the 1984 European Football Championship, the Football World Cup 1998 and the Confederations Cup 2003. It is also used for rugby union, and was a venue at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It is nicknamed “le Chaudron” (the Cauldron), or “l’enfer vert” (the Green Hell), an allusion to the colours worn by the local football team, AS Saint-Étienne, given during the team’s heyday when it drew particularly large crowds (the record being set in 1985, with more than 47,000 spectators). More recently, its current capacity was 35,616 before the current renovations, which began in 2011 and have temporarily reduced this figure to 26,747. The stadium can hold 42,000 seated spectators now. The stadium opened on September 13, 1931, and AS Saint-Étienne‘s first match there took place on September 17 against FAC Nice. The stadium was named after Geoffroy Guichard, founder of the Casino retail group, who purchased the site on which it was built.
[caption id="attachment_1968" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Romantic Road map - Photo: mario"][/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Romantic Road (German: Romantische Straße) is the term for a theme route coined by travel agents in the 1950s to describe the 350 kilometres (220 mi) of highway in southern Germany (in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg), between Würzburg and Füssen. In medieval times it used to be a trade route, connecting the center of Germany with the South. Today this region is thought by many international t...
The 2016 UEFA European Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 or simply Euro 2016, will be the 15th edition of the UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Europe organized by UEFA. It is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016. Spain are two-time defending champions. For the first time, the European Championship final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format used since 1996. Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage including three rounds and the final. 19 teams (the top two from each of the nine qualifying groups and the best third-placed team) joined France who qualified automatically as hosts; a series of two-legged play-off ties between the remaining third-placed teams in November 2015 decided the last four spots at the final tournament. 
