Next stop is a city where we never stopped before but where our relative stayed multiple times on work trips. Still now she is finding it difficult to recognize any landmarks as the city has changed a lot in the intervening years. We park in an underground garage downtown and start our walk over the garage where a large plaza lies.
The plaza has a fountain feature in the middle that is happily taken over by the local pigeons to take baths and enjoy themselves.
From here we are searching for the history museum and are happy for google maps as there are no signs along the way. We pass multiple stately buildings along the way like the Valcea Court Building and also an old Orthodox Church that cannot be visited unfortunately.
And then past the prefecture we find the History Museum, marked by two guns in front of the building. We are the only visitors and quite a surprise for the museum keepers who turn on the lights to the exhibits so we can see them.
The museum itself is surprisingly good and informative. It covers the main epochs of civilization starting with the stone age. There were lots of ancient objects found in the area and even some burials and all are shown here.
There are some reconstructed buildings to show how people used to live and lots and lots of pottery found in the area.
And by lots we mean lots of pottery and from multiple epochs including the Dacian and Roman period. Here we also see the most famous piece from Roman times an interesting sculpture of a human head.
The museum sits in a house with an interior courtyard covered by a glass ceiling and here is the modern military exhibit. It is a bit out of period with the surrounding exhibits but a fun diversion.
Upstairs is the more modern section including the medieval times with some reproduced frescoes from nearby churches, unfortunately not Cozia.
Then comes the 1848 revolution then the first world war and that is where the history mostly ends. It would make sense to add a more modern section but still the visit was quite interesting even with what was covered. On the return trip we buy something to eat from a street stall and then it is time to move on.
