Museum sights in Cluj Napoca
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A
Pharmaceutical Museum
Here's why we travel - for superb, fully rewarding, ever-surprising quirks like this, the small three-room Pharmaceutical Museum, housed in Cluj's first - and Romania's fourth - apothecary (1573), as a bronze-plate map painstakingly attests. Led by a hilarious pharmacist in a white lab coat, who points like a game-show model towards (seemingly ho-hum) glass cases of ground mummy dust, medieval alchemist symbols and painted 18th-century aphrodisiac bottles.
He speaks some English. If you utter a 'wow' you may get a deadpanned 'For you… interesting… for me… it is normal.'
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B
Ethnographic Museum
An Ethnographic Museum was under renovation at last pass, but its collection of folk costumes and decorations should be reopened before your visit. There's a small shop here too.
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C
Museum of Zoology
From the centre, walk wast along Str Clinicilor, to where it branches left through a brick gate into the wooded Biology and Geology Faculty, where you'll find (100m up on the left, past the cocky statue of Emil Racoviţa) the surprisingly rewarding Museum of Zoology, an L-shaped lab that looks like it hasn't changed since biologist Racoviţa donned his final lab coat here.
Bird noise penetrates the huge windows, bringing some life to the silence (and death) of hundreds and hundreds of jarred and stuffed specimens. Invertebrates and fish sit vertically in filled tubes that make stuff like larvae look candy-bar sized. We particularly like the display of a vulture feasting o…
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D
National History Museum of Transylvania
The National History Museum of Transylvania, which dates from 1859, is only half open. The history stops when things start to get interesting (and controversial) - when Hungarians and Romanians started living in the same neck of the woods (that wing should be re-opened in 2007).
In these quiet halls you can see a mummy from Egypt, lots of Roman pieces, ghoulish remains of three humans from the area's first tombs (they were probably Indo-Europeans, as Dacians cremated corpses), and a map that tries to make sense of migration in the area.
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E
Emil Racoviţa Institute of Speleology Museum
At research time, the Emil Racoviţa Institute of Speleology Museum, a fascinating collection of works by internationally renowned Romanian biologist Racoviţa (1868-1947), was moving to a new location. After joining an 1897 expedition to Antarctica, Racoviţa explored some 1400 caves and created the world's first institute devoted to caves here in Cluj. It's hoping to have an entrance at Piaţa Unirii at some point. The museum was formerly in the Biology and Geology Facility.
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F
National Art Museum
On the eastern side of the square is the National Art Museum, housed inside the baroque Banffy Palace (1791). The couple of dozen rooms are filled with paintings and artefacts, including a 16th-century church altar and many 20th-century paintings. The inner courtyard (free entry) sometimes stages outdoor shows, as do the ground floor halls.
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Museum - Open-air Section
The popular Museum open-air section is northwest of the centre in the Hoia forest (take bus 27 from the train station). The display includes traditional sawmills, wells, wine and oil presses, roadside crosses, fruit dryers and potters' workshops.
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