Cluj

Cluj is Romania's second largest city and home to a couple universities. It's about the same size as Madison, Wisconsin. I dropped the car off at the airport and took buses into town to an apartment near the edge of the Old Town. The outside of it looks like an ugly communist block building. But my 7th floor apartment is newly remodeled and it looks great on the inside. The elevator however, is a death trap. I'll post a video of it here.

I have 3 days with no agenda. There are several museums and several pedestrian plazas. I was in luck because there was a large festival set up in the Piata Unirii, the main square. It was only a half mile away from my apartment.

Saturday night there were probably over 5,000 people there to watch a concert and mill around the food stalls.. On Sunday night there was a Broadway-quality play being performed. Heavy stuff though. When I walked by, the scene was Nazis rounding up Jews and executing them. It was quite a contrast to last night's rock concert.

On a brighter note, the weather was perfect and the two museums I went to were fun. For some reason pharmacy museums are big in Europe. I've been to a few but I find them fascinating. The one here was a good collection of medical equipment in the basement in addition to explanations of pharmacy throughout the ages.

But the highlight of my stay was the Steam Punk Museum. https://photos.app.goo.gl/dgmZ7k2zwetFdny67

There's only two of them in the world they say. I couldn't pass it up. I'll let the photos and videos do the talking but it was super fun and the staff at the museum were wacky comedians. I told a few of them that it reminded me of Meow Wolf in the United States. When I left, the guy taking my tickets had looked up Meow Wolf and told me how he wanted to go there now. (Santa Fe, Denver, and other locations in the US).

I had a very interesting conversation with one of the museum guides. He visited Chicago for a comic-con convention and just loved the city. We talked about technology, art, and architecture. He mentioned that a lot of the antiques in the museum were from the late 1800s and early 1900s and from the United States. The owner is a really creative artist who blends his art with these steam and early electrical powered devices.

I had several amazing meals and stumbled on a nearby botanical garden which had four huge greenhouses and lots of plants from throughout the world.

The traffic here is atrocious and the two major pedestrian zones are godsends. While I had a decent time here, I probably spent one day too much. I would not recommend it as a Must See in Romania. But if I'd never been to Europe before and landed here I would say this is an amazing city. I think I was spoiled by visiting Oradea and Timișoara first.

I can't wait to see Deanne. We are both flying to Chisinau, Moldova tomorrow where we will hook up and explore that country and then come back to Romania.

More photos and videos are here.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QXWfryG34W8b7G1YA

Steampunk Museum
https://photos.app.goo.gl/PfFbsydZe2i9zEsq8Weiterlesen