The best museums West

Just on the outskirts of the town, this open-air museum, created in 1971, exhibits typical 19th century farm buildings and houses, but also tools from all corners of Banat, as well as a farm and water and windmills. The complex, organised in accordance with the layout of the villages at the time, includes all the traditional institutions: town hall, school, church... To get there, take bus n° 46 from the Bastion station.

Inside the Roman Hotel are the remains of Roman baths from the 2nd century, the only ones that were not destroyed in the wars between the Turks and Austro-Hungarians. You can admire a copy of a bas-relief depicting Hercules, a cup of thermal water in his hand. Legend has it that it was in the Cerna valley that the hero defeated the Hydra, after bathing in the beneficial waters of the spring that still feeds the station today. You will also see votive paintings, offered to the gods after healing.

The Museum of the Crişana(muzeul Țării Crișurilor), the region of which Oradea is the main city, comprises several sections. The Natural Sciences section is renowned for its collection of eggs (over 14,000), from birds all over the world. The Museum of Archaeology and History features an interesting collection of ^19th-century photographs, as well as old maps and atlases. The ethnographic section displays ceramics, folk costumes, textiles, icons, painted eggs and wooden and metal objects.

Close to the basilica, this Baroque-style palace is set in a large wooded park. Built in the ^mid-18th century by Austrian architect Franz Anton Hillebrandt, it is a replica of Vienna's Belvedere Palace. It is said to have as many windows as there are days in the year. Its 100 rooms contain superb paintings depicting scenes from the life of Saint Ladislas, King of Hungary from 1077 to 1095. They date from the late ^19th century.

He lives in an Orthodox synagogue built in 1926. This municipal museum, inaugurated in 2018, will tell you that the first Jewish community was established in the city in 1722. In 1870, it splits in two, between Orthodox and Reformers. The floor is dedicated to the Second World War and the Holocaust: the city's annexation to Hungary, the adoption of anti-Semitic laws, ghettoization and deportation to death camps.

It occupies the Baroque Palace, one of the most striking buildings on Union Square. Built in 1754, its restored interiors are extremely elegant, with superb carved wooden doors and walls featuring a wealth of Rococo and neo-Renaissance ornamentation. The museum's five permanent exhibitions are dedicated to ancient Banat painting and icons, modern Romanian art, the famous painter Corneliu Baba and European art. The museum also hosts interesting temporary exhibitions and various cultural events.

Here's a place not to be missed in Timișoara: in 2009, the independent theater Aualeu took over an old house, a little way from the center, to house its small performance hall, a bar called Scârț and, since 2015, a museum of the Communist Consumer. It's a sort of Ali Baba's cave, populated by everyday objects emblematic of that era. Noting that they were often destined for the garbage can, the Aualeu team set about rescuing some of them, donated or salvaged right and left, with the aim of preserving the popular memory of this period. This is not political nostalgia, but rather an evocation of childhood and family life under Communism. Three rooms have been reconstructed in the basement: a living room, a kitchen and a child's bedroom. You'll see old radio and TV sets, bottles for making sparkling water, crockery, games, dolls, school supplies, Disney magazines (from the days when the regime had opened up a little), sets of tin labels, propaganda posters and a large collection of porcelain trinkets (a very common gift at the time, due to lack of choice). Don't hesitate to ask the staff for explanations, otherwise you may feel a little helpless in the midst of all this bric-a-brac. The bar, with its bookshelves full of old books, retro foosball table, period portraits and kitsch paintings, is already setting the mood.