The best museums Romania

Installed since 2004 in a wing of the Parliament Palace, the museum has a vast exhibition space. It presents the works of contemporary Romanian artists, often satirical, as a thumbnail to the place. There are also works by foreign artists. The MNAC has a unique collection, inherited from the communist regime, reflecting the propaganda of the time. Part of it is exposed on the first floor. On the fourth floor, a nice rooftop offers an incomparable view of the city.

At the foot of the citadel, this museum is housed in the Magna Curia palace, Deva's oldest historical building, built in the ^16th century and rebuilt in 1621 in Renaissance style by Prince Gabriel Bethlen. The building underwent its final refurbishment in the early ^18th century, giving it the Baroque appearance that can still be seen today. The museum houses collections of archaeology, history, paintings, coins and more. On the first floor, there's a permanent exhibition of natural sciences and a room with ^19th-century furniture and objects. Upstairs, in the Salle de la Cheminée, concerts, shows, parties and balls are organized. The rest of the rooms house various temporary exhibitions. There's also a modern lapidarium.

The museum has branches in Sarmizegetusa, where you can see the ruins of the former capital of the Dacian state, in Orăştie, where there is a museum of ethnography, as well as in Brad, Baia de Criş and Aurel Vlaicu. This village 35 km east of Deva is named after the Romanian aviation pioneer, whose birthplace can be visited. Well-preserved, it gives an idea of the life of a peasant family in a Transylvanian village at the beginning of the last century. Near the house, the Aurel Vlaicu Memorial Museum exhibits many objects that once belonged to this engineer: his bicycle, motorcycle, aviator's suit, diagrams, plans and model gliders.

Close to the Thalia Hall, it occupies a yellow building purpose-built in 1895 in the Italian Renaissance style. Here you can admire beautiful minerals, prehistoric animal skeletons (mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses...) and dioramas presenting Romanian, tropical, Arctic and Australian flora and fauna. The garden is home to a variety of plant species, some of them rare. A few dinosaurs can also be seen!

It occupies a beautiful green neo-Gothic building, called Casa Hermes (named after the Greek god of Commerce), erected in 1867 to house an association of craft guilds. Opened in 1990 as part of the Astra complex, this museum, currently undergoing restoration, is the only one in the country devoted to non-European ethnography. It brings together objects collected by local collectors during their travels in Africa, China, Japan, Oceania, Lapland and Brazil.

This pretty little museum presents pharmacy objects in use in Transylvania from the 17th to the 19th century, which bear witness to the evolution of pharmaceutical techniques: bottles of all kinds, wooden or ceramic pots, funnels, scales, plant presses... The house that houses it, a 16th century building combining Gothic and Renaissance styles, has housed one of the oldest pharmacies in the city, which appeared around 1600 and was called The Black Bear.

Paintings (including the last painting painted), furniture and personal effects gathered in what was his home and his death. Nicolae Grigorescu (1838-1907) worked for a long time in France, where his painting had the happiness to please Emperor Napoleon III in particular.

The other attraction of CÂmpina. Bogdan Petriceicu's castle (1838-1907) was built between 1893 and 1896 by the history teacher (and instigator of a nationalist current) of the same name in honour of his daughter Iulia. This one, considered a brilliant poet, died of tuberculosis at only 18 years, shortly before receiving a diploma from the Sorbonne, where she studied. And it is to communicate in the past with his daughter that B.P Hasdeu built this erected edifice as a temple of spiritualism. Its crude and frozen exterior hides an interior decoration rich in symbols with an abundance of stained glass windows.

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.

Located in the Clock Tower, its seven rooms house coins and documents relating to the city's history, as well as coins, weapons and a model of Sighişoara. You can also climb to the top of the tower to admire the superb view of the city and surrounding area. Please note, however, that as the tower is currently being refurbished, the balcony is closed (scheduled to reopen in 2025). The museum also includes a torture chamber, whose entrance is on the lower town side, and a collection of weapons housed in another building on the square.

Dedicated to the ethnology of southeastern Transylvania, this museum illustrates, through its precious heritage, the rural civilization of the Bran, Rupea, Ţara Oltului, Valea Hârtibaciului and Ţara Bârsei areas. A permanent exhibition, dedicated to the history of the region's fabrics, shows the changes in raw materials, techniques and dyes, in relation to the evolution of rural and urban society. The exhibition also presents the lifestyle and clothing trends of the early ^20th century in south-eastern Transylvania.

Occupying a neo-baroque building dating from 1902, it boasts fine collections of national art (Tattarescu, Aman, Grigorescu, Mattis-Teutsch...), illustrating the evolution of Romanian art (painting and sculpture) in the ^19th and ^20th centuries. The permanent exhibition also features Transylvanian art from the ^16th to the ^20th centuries, as well as a series of ^18th-century portraits of the city's notables. The decorative arts section features fine porcelain from Europe and Asia. Temporary exhibitions are organized on a regular basis.

Located in the courtyard of St. Nicholas' Church, this beautiful building, built in a baroque style in the 18th century, instead of an older wooden one, housed the first Romanian school, established in 1495. There are the printing works of Deacon Coresi, who had the first books published in Romanian in the 16th century. There will also be old textbooks, printing machines and school furniture from different periods, as well as a small ethnographic section dedicated to the Schei district.

Local crafts and folklore.

A must-see if you want to discover Romanian culture. The Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania, founded in 1922, is the oldest of its kind in Romania. Since 1959, it has been located in the heart of the city, in the Redoubt Palace. A key location in the country's history, it was here that the Transylvanian Diet met in 1790. It was also the site of the Memorandum trial in 1894. Last but not least, it has been the venue for numerous balls, and has seen such great names as Brahms, Liszt and Bartók pass through its doors. The premises house over 41,000 objects, ranging from the ^17th to the ^20th century, including a superb collection of traditional costumes and a documentary collection of over 80,000 references, including 50,000 photographs and 5,000 slides.

The museum also boasts an open-air section: the Romulus Vuia Ethnographic Park, named after the museum's founder. Located on Hoia hill, north-west of the city, this village museum, opened in 1929, was the first of its kind in the country. The park features over 160 exhibits (buildings, tools, etc.), the oldest dating back to 1678, all in a beautiful setting, with several farms and rural technical installations, workshop houses and three wooden churches. One of these (Biserica din Cizer) was built in 1773 by the craftsman Vasile Ursu Nicola, known as Horea, the future leader of the peasant revolution of 1784.

This is a very useful museum for understanding the turbulent local history. Occupying a 19th century neoclassical building, it traces the history of the region from prehistory to the contemporary period. In 1999, a new part was added to the museum, the treasury: two rooms with more than 4,600 gold and silver coins. Near the museum, two statues honour the Austrian Emperor Francis I, his wife Caroline-Augusta and the historian Constantin Daicoviciu.

Originally part of the Museum of Transylvanian History, the "Collection of the History of Pharmacy" was inaugurated in 1954. But the place in which it is housed is much older: it's the oldest pharmacy in Cluj, opened in 1573. On the menu, a basement with a medieval laboratory atmosphere and over 1,800 items illustrating Transylvanian pharmaceutical activity between the ^16th and ^19th centuries: maps, books, furniture, drawings, as well as many exotic products (crayfish eyes, precious stone powder...).

Among the city's monuments is one whose history is closely linked to the country's nobility: the Bánffy Palace. Built between 1774 and 1785 to designs by architect Johann Eberhard Blaumann, this Baroque-style building - the largest of its kind in Cluj - served as the private residence of Count György Bánffy, a Hungarian aristocrat and former governor of Transylvania. Many people have stayed here from time to time, including Franz ^I of Austria, composer Franz Liszt and Franz Joseph, head of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The palace belonged to the Bánffy family until it was expropriated by the Communist regime in the ^{mid-twentieth} century.

Since 1956, the palace has been home to the Cluj Fine Arts Museum, founded in 1951. Its 22 rooms house two distinct galleries. The National Art Gallery features a rich collection of Romanian works from the ^19th and ^20th centuries, including paintings by Romanian painters such as Tattarescu, Tonitza and Aman, as well as numerous sculptures. The universal art gallery houses works by art schools from all over Europe. With over 12,000 items, it is one of the most important art museums in Romania. Frequent temporary exhibitions, notably of photography, make this museum a lively cultural venue. After or before your visit, you can enjoy the coolness of its arcades in summer, as well as the café and terrace in the inner courtyard.

Housed in a historic ^18th-century building in the center of the small town, this recently renovated museum evokes the rural world around Rupea: traditional fishing on the Olt river, the pottery center at Drăuşeni, the specific customs of the region's Saxon population (Kronenfest), Romanian weddings, the interiors of Saxon and Romanian homes... You'll also see a reconstructed antique store.

Located in a village on the outskirts of Brașov, the museum occupies a 1543 building that was used to collect taxes for three centuries. It features an exhibition on the traditional civilization of the Southern Carpathians: trades, crafts, technical facilities, a living space and traditional costumes. It reflects the multicultural nature of the Săcele region, where Romanian shepherds cohabited with a population of Hungarian origin, known as Csangos.

Housed in a building dating back to 1566, this museum traces the evolution of urban society in Brașov, a trading city at the crossroads of East and West. We discover various aspects of daily life: the notable's living room, the children's room, the spice counter, the embroidery workshop and the photography studio. Wall paintings, with floral decor inspired by the Transylvanian Late Renaissance of the ^18th-19th centuries, have been preserved.

It is housed in a Franciscan monastery, built in the 15th century in Gothic style and rebuilt in Baroque style three centuries later. The section dedicated to ethnography presents valuable Hungarian, Saxon and Romanian agricultural and viticultural tools, ceramics and folk costumes. In the history section you will see prehistoric tools and pottery, objects from the Dacian period and medieval documents. The natural sciences section includes an extensive butterfly collection and a herbarium.

Museum Petöfi Sándor and his obelisk in the memory of the poet disappeared in the Battle of Albeşti (31 July 1849).

10 km northeast of Bistrița, in the village of Livezile, this beautiful, bright-blue, typically Saxon house(casa săsească) has been converted into a museum, dedicated to this once important minority in the region. Inside, with blue walls too, three rooms have been reconstructed: a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom. They are filled with superb antique furniture and objects, typical of Saxon interiors: painted wooden furniture, embroidered textiles, earthenware stoves... Outside, under the shed, a variety of vintage farming tools and machinery are on display.

It's housed in a handsome ^17th-century stone and brick building. Known as Hanul Domnesc ("The Prince's Inn"), it was originally the home of Miron Barnovschi, Prince of Moldavia at the time, who donated it to the town as a caravanserai. It has preserved many fine examples of medieval Moldavian architecture. The collections familiarize visitors with the folklore and popular art of the region. Costumes, furniture, carpets and various handicrafts are on display. The first floor is a reconstruction of an ^{18th-19th-century} inn.

It recreates the organization and activity of a traditional Bucovina village: firstly, there are the beautiful peasant houses of the region, mostly made of wood, whose interiors have been beautifully reconstructed. You'll see a wide variety of fireplaces, furniture, carpets, costumes... The museum also shows how rites of passage are lived (death, birth, marriage). You'll also see a church, a school, craftsmen's workshops and mills.

Founded in the 1920s by a couple of teachers, Samuil and Eugenia Ioneț, it is the oldest museum of its kind in the region. It exhibits a wide collection of traditional clothes, folk costumes, woollen blankets, carpets, icons and other typical handicrafts of the region. There will be beautiful black ceramics, decorated with colourful flowers or birds, a speciality of the village of Marginea, and a beautiful collection of painted eggs, as well as valuable old books and manuscripts.

Built at the beginning of the 20th century, this large building housed the Austrian prefecture at the time. The permanent exhibition, completely redesigned in 2016, has 27 rooms, which chronologically retrace local history, from the Paleolithic to the 1989 revolution, including of course the period when Suceava was the capital of Moldova, before the transfer to Iași marked its decline. Half of the rooms are dedicated to archaeological discoveries.

The main museums are located on the outskirts of Piața Libertății. The Museum of Ethnography, housed in a beautiful neo-Romanesque mansion dating from 1924, evokes village life in every season. The art museum mainly exhibits works by local artists. It is housed in a former school built in 1930. Further south, the History Museum (bulevardul Eminescu, 10) displays relics from prehistory and the Middle Ages, particularly from the era of the Princely Court. A small museum dedicated to the latter has been set up in its ruins, Piața Libertății.

In a beautiful neo-Brazilian style building, this unique museum, opened in 2005, presents an exceptional archaeological heritage, consisting of painted ceramics, statuettes and other objects from the Cucuteni culture. This refined Neolithic civilization, which extended over the present territories of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, flourished around 5000 BC. Cucuteni is the name of the Romanian village where the first remains were discovered.

In the pretty district of Ţicău, this museum occupies the former home of the famous storyteller (1837-1889). It was in this modest bjodeucă (hovel) that he lived his last years, from 1872 onwards. It was here that he wrote his famous Souvenirs d'enfance(Amintiri din copilărie), an autobiographical account. In fact, he modelled the house on the one he grew up in. In the house, converted into a museum in 1918, you'll see documents relating to his life and work, as well as his friendship with Mihai Eminescu, with whom he briefly shared the premises.

Not far from the Palace of Culture, a little lost on the edge of a wide boulevard lined with massive modern buildings, this brick and stone building, with its arcades, does not go unnoticed. Built in 1677, it housed the printing works of the nearby Orthodox metropolis. They were the city's second-largest printing works. Since 1970, Casa Dosoftei (named after the metropolitan under whom the printing works were founded) has housed the ancient literature section of the Romanian Literature Museum. Important manuscripts are on display.

This splendid house near the university houses a museum of literature. It belonged to Vasile Pogor (1833-1906), founder of the Junimea literary society in 1863. Some of Romania's greatest writers and poets met here, including Caragiale, Rosetti, Creangă and Eminescu. The creation of Junimea, the presence of these writers and the publication throughout the ^19th century of numerous literary journals show just how central Iași was to Romanian cultural life in the late ^19th and early ^20th centuries.

It has several sections (science, art...). Among the most interesting, the history museum (currently under renovation) traces the history of the region from prehistory to the present day. In particular, you'll see the remains of the Cucuteni culture, a rich Neolithic civilization. We also recommend the Ethnography Museum (bulevardul Eminescu, 50), to discover the folklore and crafts of this part of Moldavia: textiles with symbolic motifs, costumes, decorated eggs... The section dedicated to New Year customs is particularly captivating.

It occupies a superb 1806 palace in the Empire style. It was here, between 1859 and 1862, that Alexandru Ioan Cuza, then ruler of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, lived. Between 1916 and 1918, this palace was also home to King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, who came to seek refuge in Iași during the war. The museum displays objects that belonged to Cuza and others involved in the union. It also presents documents on Romania's ethnic, linguistic and territorial unity. The main attraction is the building, with its richly decorated interiors.

The birthplace of the great composer, pianist and violinist George Enescu (1881-1955) is located in the village that bears his name, some 50 km north of Botoșani. Renamed after the artist's death, the commune was formerly called Liveni. The small house with a painted wooden porch houses a museum in honour of the musician. You will see objects from his childhood: a piano, a toy violin, coloured pencils, drawings, but also photos, scores, etc.

The great Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) was born in the village of Ipotești, 10 km west of Botoșani, in magnificent countryside. His birthplace and the surrounding estate have been transformed into a vast center dedicated to his memory and research around his work. You can visit his parents' home, furnished with beautiful period furniture and objects. Some of it original, it recreates the atmosphere of the thirty years during which the poet's family lived there, from 1848 to 1878. Nearby, you'll see two churches: one dating from the early ^19th century, which served as a place of prayer for the Eminovici family (Eminescu's original name). Next to it are the graves of the artist's parents and two brothers. The other, dating from 1906, post-dates the family's presence. It was the village church. The estate also includes a Moldavian-style peasant house with a magnificent carved wooden porch and elegant interiors. There's also an amphitheater, a national poetry library and a museum dedicated to Eminescu's work, which regularly hosts temporary exhibitions.

Regular buses with a change in Suceava will take you as far as Ipotești. You can even sleep on site: villas have been built within the estate to accommodate tourists. A project to modernize the complex has been under consideration for some years, but no decision has yet been taken.

It was in the village of Flămânzi, 30 km south of Botoșani, that the first insurrections against landowner domination took place in 1907. The revolt then spread throughout the country, as monuments in many villages remind us. These were the last peasant uprisings in Europe. Recently renovated, the Peasant Revolt Museum(muzeul răscoalei țărănești) is dedicated to these events and to life in the countryside at the time.

It has several sections. The history and archaeology section, which occupies a beautiful late 19th century residence, exhibits archaeological finds and old maps.

The ethnographic section, located in the forest of Petrești, north of Focşani, consists of a small village museum. Much less prestigious than its counterparts in Bucharest and Sibiu, but interesting to know the local architecture, on the road lined with pretty houses leading to it, you may notice an old abandoned Jewish cemetery, overgrown with wild grasses.

Classic, but a pleasure to visit. This museum, divided into several sections in different buildings around the town, features archaeological remains, both prehistoric and ancient, unearthed in the region. Among them, Neolithic objects from the Criș culture or from the Roman colony of Tirighina-Bărboși. You'll also see Paleolithic objects, coins, stamps, old books, decorative arts or ethnographic items... Cultural events, including book launches, are organized here.

It prides itself on being the country's first museum of contemporary art, inaugurated in 1967 at the foot of a boulder. Its collections include Romanian works of art from the second half of the ^19th and ^20th centuries (Aman, Grigorescu, Baba, Brauner...). But most of the works on display were produced after 1967, by renowned Romanian painters and sculptors such as Horia Bernea. Cultural events are organized on a regular basis (concerts, exhibitions, screenings...). A new headquarters is currently under construction in Rizer Park. It is due for completion by the end of 2025.

Part of this salt mine, which is still in operation, is dedicated to tourism. At a depth of 240 meters, the leisure center features sports fields, billiards tables, children's playgrounds and even a go-kart track. There's also a salt museum, a church and an auditorium. There's also a saltwater lake and a waterfall. It's also a treatment base for respiratory illnesses, staffed by specialists. An above-ground saltwater swimming pool is open in fine weather.

The building housing the Museum of History and Archaeology (as well as the Museum of Natural Sciences) dates from 1730, and features a collection of artifacts from the Maramureș region, from the Paleolithic to the 20th century. Its Bronze Age section is one of the most important in the country. There are also collections of weapons, stamps, coins and photographs, providing precious evidence of the history of Maramureș in the 20th century.

While Bran Castle was returned to the descendants of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie in 2009, the Romanian state retained the furniture and objects (10,000 items!). A museum has been set up to display some of them, in a building not far from the castle. Take a look at the rich collection of furniture, carpets, icons, silverware, ceramics, etc. Different rooms have been reconstructed, according to function and style: the yellow salon, the neo-rococo salon, the boudoir, the king's bedroom and the queen's bedroom, and so on. Panels in English.

Housed in an ^18th-century mansion, it showcases the treasures of local folklore and craftsmanship: tools, carpets, sculptures, icons... The exhibition, though modestly presented, aptly reflects the diverse facets of Maramureş, a deeply rural region where traditions remain fully alive. One section is dedicated to the masks and costumes used for "Viflaim", a popular performance with a religious dimension, performed on the occasion of the end-of-year festivities in Maramureș. Definitely worth a look!

This small, recent museum is unique in Bucharest. As soon as you arrive, you'll be met by a guide who will explain the various stages of your visit. The first room displays documents (written, audio and video) tracing the history of the regime, from its advent through the darkest hours of Ceaușescu's dictatorship to its fall. Then, to make the experience more immersive, you'll have the opportunity to wander around and settle into the rooms of an apartment fully recreated with period furniture and objects.

This innovative museum traces the complex history of Cluj's Jewish community, which accounted for almost 15% of the city's population before 1940. For what is more a real experience than a simple visit, you choose at the entrance to follow the lives of Julia, David or Paul, all three members of a family that actually existed. Once you've got your headphones on, you'll literally be plunged into history, thanks to virtual reality goggles, models and reconstructed settings. Instructive, fascinating and moving.

This superb building, designed by renowned architect Károly Kós in 1911, houses the most remarkable historical and ethnographic collections of the Sicilian region. A must-see for anyone wishing to understand the specifics of this culture: history, customs, crafts, language, costumes... There are also rare items on display, such as Neolithic ceramics and remains of Dacian cities. In the garden, you can visit a traditional house dating back to 1767. The museum was refurbished and reopened to the public in 2023.

15 km west of Turnu Severin, in Gura Văii, the 55 m high and 441 m long Iron Gates Dam is a bridge to Serbia, a hydroelectric power plant and a set of locks. It was built in the 1960s in collaboration with the former Yugoslavia. You can visit a small museum retracing the history of this construction, which has totally changed the region: villages, roads, railways have been swallowed up.

It occupies the former summer theatre, an elegant white building on the Hill of Flowers, not far from the centre. The exhibition features carpets, traditional costumes (including beautiful wedding dresses) and other popular handicrafts. She focuses particularly on woodworking, a great specialty of the region. A section is dedicated to ceramics, another important local know-how. A good introduction to the richness of the folklore of Maramureș.

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.