Bucharest Art Museum - The most imposing of the buildings surrounding the Piala Revolulici is the former Royal Palace, on its northwestern corner. When the original single-story dwelling burnt down in 1927, the then king, Carol II, decided to replace it with something far more impressive. The surrounding dwellings were razed in order to build a new palace, with discreet side entrances to facilitate visits by Carol's mistress, Magda Lupescu. However, the resultant, sprawling brownstone edifice has no real claim to elegance and Romania’s postwar rulers spurned the palace as a residence. Since 1950 the palace has housed the National Art Museum in the Kretzulescu (south) wing. During the fighting in December 1989, this building was amongst the most seriously damaged of the city's cultural institutions, and over a thousand pieces of work were said to have been destroyed or damaged by gunfire. After a massive reconstruction project, taking some ten years, the museum finally reopened its doors in 2000. Divided by schools, this gallery has particularly fine paintings from Italian and Spanish artists, including an exceptional Crucifixion by Da Messina, and Cano's beautifully mournful Christ At The Column.
[ gallery ]
Bucharest Peasant Museum - The Museum of the Romanian Peasant now occupies the former Museum of Communist Party History (until 1990). It houses a wonderful display of traditional textiles, carvings and ceramics, as well as a superb collection of icons. A wooden church, typical of those found in Maramures, stands at the rear of the museum.
[ gallery ]
Lepsa - in the foothills region of the Vrancei Mountains on the Focsani side of
the sub-Carpathian Mountains, this is a resort village for weekenders from Bucharest. Tremendous hiking country; village is tiny and picturesque.
[ gallery ]
Sovata - Sovata Bai is a bathing resort, surrounded by beautiful forests, on the shore of Lacul Ursu (Bear Lake), where a surface layer of fresh water, a meter deep, acts as an insulator keeping the lower, saltwater at a constant temperature of 30-40 degrees Celsius (86-104 Fahrenheit) all year round. Its mineral waters are supposedly effective for infertility.
[ gallery ]
Cluj-Napoca - With its cupolas, Baroque outcroppings and weathered fin-de-siecle backstreets, downtown CLUJ (Klausenburg to the Germans and Kolozswir to the Hungarians) looks every inch the Hungarian provincial capital it once was. Germans founded the town in the twelfth century for the Hungarian King Geza, and the modern-day Magyars - a third of the city's population - still regrets its decline, fondly recalling the Magyar belle epoque, when Cluj's cafe society and literary reputation surpassed all other cities in the Balkans.
[ gallery ]
Hunedoara (Corvin Castle) - (Vajdahunyad/Eisemnarkt) would be dismissed as an ugly, smoggy, industrial town were it not also the site of Corvin Castle, the greatest fortress in Romania. It's moated to a depth of 30m and approached by a narrow bridge upheld by tall stone piers, terminating beneath a mighty barbican, its roof bristling with spikes, overlooked by multitudes of towers. It was founded during the fourteenth century and rebuilt in 1453.
[ gallery ]
Alba Iulia (Citadel) - is dominated by its huge citadel, in effect the upper town, laid out in the shape of a star. It was here that the declaration of Romanian Unification was made in 1918 and the leaders of the 1784 peasant uprising executed; the citadel also holds the tomb of the Transylvanian warlord, Hunyadi, in the Catholic Cathedral of St. Michael.
[ gallery ]
Sibiu - known in German as Hermannstadt, grew to be the chief city of the Transylvanian Saxons.
Clannish, hard working and thrifty, its merchants dominated trade between Transylvania and Wallachia
by the Olt gorge route, and formed exclusive guilds under royal charter. The Saxons, industrious
and prosperous in medieval times, were envied by others and knew it.
[ gallery ]
Sibiu Peasant Museum - The excellent Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization is one of the best open-air museums in Romania. The emphasis is on folk technology, with windmills and waterwheels from allover the country rebuilt here in working order.
[ gallery ]
Sighisoara - Schassburg in German, Segesvar in Hungarian, this city is a perfectly preserved medieval town in a beautiful hilly countryside. Nine towers remain along Sighisoara’s intact city walls, encircling sloping cobbled streets lined with 16th cent. burgher houses. At the height of it’s power, Sighisoara had three curtain walls and 14 towers.
[ gallery ]
Rasnov Peasant Fortress - (Rosenau to the Saxons), this ruined castle crowns the fir-covered hill that overlooking the town. Rasnov was founded in the early thirteenth century by the Teutonic Knights (Deutscheritterorden), who were soon expelled from Transylvania. What remains are the remains of a fourteenth-century structure.
[ gallery ]
Bran Castle - The small town of BRAN (Torzburg) is probably the most popular tourist site in Romania. The town commands the entrance to the pass of the same name, formerly the main route into Wallachia. The Saxons of Kronstadt (Brasov) built a castle here in 1377-82 to safeguard this vital trade artery. Perched on a rocky bluff, it rises in tiers of towers and ramparts from the woods, against a glorious mountain backdrop.
[ gallery ]
Peles Castle - One of the most popular destinations in Romania. Set in a large park, which is landscaped in the English fashion, the castle outwardly resembles a Bavarian Schloss. It was built between 1875 and 1883 for Romania's imported Hohenzollern monarch, Carol I, and largely decorated by his eccentric wile Elisabeta. Peles contains 106 rooms, richly decorated in ebony, mother of pearl, walnut and leather- all totally alien to the traditional styles of Rumanian art.
[ gallery ]
Transylvania lies right in the center of Romania on a plateau surrounded to the north, east and south by the Carpathians and the Apuseni mountains to the west. It has great natural beauty: majestic forests cloak the mountain slopes, and in spring the open meadows are full of wildflowers. Lower down there are vineyards, and some of the hills are scored with lines of ancient terracing said to date from Dacian times. Highlights include Sighisoara, Sibiu (left) and many Saxon villages.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)