Showing 1-12 of 12 results
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Brukenthal Museum
The Brukenthal Museum is the oldest (and likely) finest art gallery in Romania. Founded in 1817, the museum is in the baroque palace (1785) of Baron Samuel Brukenthal (1721-1803), former Austrian governor. There are excellent collections of 16th and 17th-century Flemish, Italian, Dutch and Austrian paintings, including a giant painting of Sibiu from 1808. The floor filled with folk-art, Romanian art and silverware was under renovation at research time.
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City Hall
Perhaps Piaţa Mare's most impressive building, the new City Hall is well worth a look.
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City History Museum
Just west of Piaţa Mare is the lovely Primăriă Municipiului (1470), now the City History Museum, which was closed at research time but planned to re-open by mid-2007.
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Council Tower
The centre of the old walled city, the expansive Piaţa Mare is a good start for exploring Sibiu. Climb to the top of the former Council Tower, which links Piaţa Mare with its smaller sister square, Piaţa Mică. Clock clanks inside the white tower add to the views. It was originally built in 1370, but collapsed during a 1586 earthquake (killing a mural painter).
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Franz Binder Museum of World Ethnology
Named for a 19th-century collector from Sibiu, the great Franz Binder Museum of World Ethnology has an unexpectedly rich collection of North and Central African pieces (including a 2000-year-old mummy), picked up by Franz during his 10-year stay in Egypt and Sudan. Temporary exhibits include displays of Inuit art from Nunavut, Canada.
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Gothic Evangelical Church
On Piaţa Huet, you'll find the Gothic Evangelical Church, built between 1300 and 1520, its great five-pointed tower visible from afar. Don't miss the four magnificent baroque funerary monuments on the upper nave on the north wall, and the 1772 organ with 6002 pipes (it's Romania's largest).
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Memorandumists Plaque
The Memorandumists plaque honours the Transylvanian leaders of the Romanian National Party who addressed a memorandum to the emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna in 1892, calling for an end to discrimination against Romanians. In an apt response, 29 of their members were convicted of agitating against the state and imprisoned.
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Museum of Hunting Arms & Trophies
A 15-minute walk southwest of the city centre, the Museum of Hunting Arms & Trophies. was under renovation at research time, but should have its collection of stuffed heads ready to devour by 2007. At the southern end of this street is the 21-hectare Sub Arini Park filled with tree-lined avenues, beautifully laid-out flower beds, a tennis court and swimming pool (open from May through September).
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Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation
Sibiu's top highlight is some 5km from the centre. The large Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation is a sprawling open-air museum with 120 traditional dwellings, mills and churches brought from around the country. Many are signed in English, with maps showing where they came from; they're situated in a lovely forest around a lake. There's also a nice gift shop and restaurant with creek-side bench seats.
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Natural History Museum
South of Piaţa Mare, Str Cetăţii lines a section of the old city walls, constructed during the 16th century. As in Braşov, different guilds protected each of the 39 towers. Walk north up Str Cetăţii past a couple - the Potters Tower (Turnul Olarilor) and Carpenters Tower (Turnul Dulgherilor) - to reach the Natural History Museum , an average collection of stuffed animals that dates from 1849.
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Pharmaceutical Museum
Housed in nearby Piaţa Mică pharmacy (opened in 1600), the Pharmaceutical Museum is a three-room collection packed with pills and powders, old microscopes and scary medical instruments (such as a 17th-century bone saw). Some exhibits highlight Samuel Hahnemann, a founder of homeopathy in the 1770s (Romania was one of Europe's first countries to legitimise the use of giving small doses of a disease's symptoms in order to fight the disease itself).
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Railway Museum
The so-called Railway Museum is an open-air collection of a couple of dozen old trains right off the tracks. Don't pay any more than the posted around €1.45 ticket price. Alternatively, the friendly depot worker in the hut next door happily explains (in limited English) how trains are managed and maintained; sit with him and chat a while. Get there by walking south from the train station; it's across the tracks, 300m south.
Showing 1-12 of 12 results
