The best museums Cluj-Napoca

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.

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.

What is steampunk? It's a literary and artistic movement that emerged at the end of the ^20th century, blending the aesthetics and technology of the Industrial Revolution, drawing inspiration from the works of Jules Verne and Georges Méliès. Passing through the doors of this fun, interactive museum means plunging into a fantastic "retro-futuristic" world, where you can operate amazing machines yourself, or take a seat in a time machine. This highly original museum should appeal to adults and children alike.