Romania : Part 5 - Day 7 : Holy Trinity Cathedral and Brukenthal Museum

Day 7 of Romanian Drive

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 7. 

21/9 Day 7: Holy Trinity Cathedral and Brukenthal Museum (Brukenthal Palace, Romanian Art Gallery, Museum of History, Museum of Natural History) in Sibiu (2nd day in Sibiu)

We stayed 3 nights in Sibiu. 

Must-Incur Costs

(1) Entrance fee to Brukenthal Museum - LEI45 per person / EUR9.97 / RM46.63 (We chose the one day pass which covers selected museums, as we had plans to visit Brukenthal Palace (which has an European Art Gallery) LEI20, Romanian Art Gallery LEI12, Museum of History LEI20, Museum of Natural History LEI13. Individually, all the entrance tickets would have cost us LEI63.)

One day ticket
 
Standard: 45 lei
The ticket includes the visitation of the following locations: The Brukenthal Palace (Piaţa Mare nr. 5, Sibiu), The Museum of History: The Altemberger House (Mitropoliei Street, nr. 6, Sibiu), The Museum of Natural History (Cetăţii Street, nr. 1, Sibiu), The “August von Spiess” Museum of Hunting (Şcoala de Înot Street, nr. 4, Sibiu), The Museum of Pharmacy (Piaţa Mică nr. 26, Sibiu), The Contemporary Art Gallery (Str. Tribunei, nr. 6, Sibiu), The Fresco Hall (Piaţa Mică, Nr. 22)

Source from Brukenthal Museum.

Optional Costs 

(1) 21/9 Lunch in Sibiu Cultural Town - Turkey with grilled vegetables LEI25 / EUR5.54, Roasted pork with potatoes LEI26 / EUR5.76, Cola LEI5 / EUR1.11, Tea LEI8 / EUR1.77  

(2) 21/9 Dessert in Sibiu Cultural Town - 2 small cakes LEI14 / EUR3.10, Coffee LEI6 / EUR1.33
(3) 21/9 Dinner in Sibiu Cultural Town - Pizza LEI19 / EUR4.21, Cola LEI6 / EUR1.33

(4) 21/9 Tips for Lunch and dinner - LEI2 / EUR0.44 (Prof Sweet Tooth tipped at almost every eatery we went to)

The Story

210916 - Today, Prof Sweet Tooth decides not to drive. He would like to walk around the neighbourhood and hopefully, we reach Brukenthal Museum. We asked the owner of Pensiuner Milenium, and he said it is a far walk. I looked at Prof Sweet Tooth and he said it is nice to explore. I added that it better not take us hours to get there because there are closing hours. 

Look, a vending machine for eggs along the streets where we stayed.

I felt like we were walking around in circles, and I pestered Prof Sweet Tooth to take the public bus or maybe a taxi or ask someone for directions. I was starting to be annoyed when out from nowhere, we reached in front of the signboard that states the Cathedral which was close to Sibiu Cultural Town i.e. Brukenthal Museum. I looked at Prof Sweet Tooth in amazement. He said that he knew all the while that we were heading towards the right direction but he knows telling me that won't appease me. He commented that we were walking against the traffic direction and hence, we are closer than we thought. We reached after 40 minutes of walk. Truly, he has a superb sense of direction. 

The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu (Romanian: Catedrala Sfânta Treime din Sibiu), located at 35 Mitropoliei Street, Sibiu, Romania, is the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Sibiu and Metropolitan of Transylvania. It was built in the style of a Byzantine basilica, inspired by Hagia Sophia, with the main spires influenced by Transylvanian church architecture and Baroque elements. Source from Wikipedia.

Entrance is free. There was a crowd inside. I saw devotees kissing the glass that covers the paintings. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the persons in the paintings.

We decided to have our lunch first before going inside Brukenthal Museum. We walked to Sibiu Cultural Town which is the Old Town. Lamps were hanging in the middle of the road. I bet it would look pretty at night. You know you are in an Old Town when the roads are made of bricks. 

This is Brukenthal Palace which we will visit after lunch.

Appointed Governor of the Principality of Transylvania, a position that he occupied between 1777 and 1787, Samuel von Brukenthal built a Late Baroque palace in Sibiu, modelled on the palaces in the imperial capital. The Brukenthal Palace is one of the most significant Baroque buildings in Romania, its construction taking place between the years 1778 and 1788. The building was raised to serve as the Baron’s official residence and a worthy display case for his collections. The main façade of the building, juts out from the front line of other buildings in the square, and was built later, in a more restrained Baroque style. The central element of the façade is the stone framing of the gate, supported by columns and a projecting entablature. It is decorated with carved elements, such as the gilded coat of arms of Samuel von Brukenthal, as well as other Baroque features: urns, rosettes, festoons. Source from Brukenthal Museum.

We stopped at a random restaurant based on the most affordable price. Luck is on our side as the food tastes yummy. Prof Sweet Tooth had turkey meat with grilled vegetables and his usual Cola. I had pork with potatoes and cheese, which made me so full. It was warm in the restaurant which made me too lazy to walk outside. Why is Romania so cold?

After lunch, the first place we visited Museum of History. There were no photography allowed inside some parts of the Museum. Here, we bought our one-day museum pass ticket which covers selected museums. Unfortunately, there was insufficient write up on the museum display, and the place has little visitors. 

The building known today as the Altemberger House, after the name of its first proprietor, was purchased in 1545 by the Magistrate of the city, becoming the location of the Town Hall for 400 years (until 1948). It comprises 10 architectural units, to which a defensive tower was added, conjointly structuring one of the most impressive ensembles of civic Gothic architecture in Romania and even in the South Eastern Europe. The oldest part of the architectural set is the dwelling tower, its construction being initiated in the late 13th century. 

As the legendary founder of the city was called Hermann, the visitors are welcomed in the Museum’s courtyard by several decorative figures named Hermanns, illustrating the late 17th c. townsman typologies: the healer, the knight, the banker, the butcher, the brewer (tavern keeper), the infantryman, the student, the mayor and the minstrel. In the back courtyard, known as Martyrs’ Garden, there are several works of figurative sculpture as the four consoles of the loggia, representing male portraits, elegantly and minutely executed. Source from Brukenthal Museum.

Now, we go to Brukenthal Palace which has an European and a Romanian Art Gallery. After the walk-about, I realised I am not an artistic person. Have you ever read up personalities who has a favourite artist from 18th Centuries or 16th Centuries, and they comment how the artist has some sort of abstract touch or dimension and truly, I try very much to appreciate art and look at it in a creative way even squinting my eyes (haha!), but I guess I am not an artsy person. I cannot even string a sentence with artsy words to describe the paint. I met an elderly lady in the Art Gallery and she asked me how did I find the work? I said - Very nice. See how lame is that. She, on the other hand, has a smile on her face and was saying it was very good work and liked what she saw. 

Anyway, there was no photography allowed inside the Art Galleries. The funny thing was being in the Galleries made both of us very sleepy and tired. Our legs felt too heavy to climb the stairs. I am not sure if there is a certain chemical sprayed to maintain the quality of the artwork.  

The Brukenthal National Museum (Romanian: Muzeul Naţional Brukenthal; German: Brukenthalmuseum) is a museum, erected in the late of 18th century in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, housed in the palace of Samuel von Brukenthal — who was Habsburg governor of Transylvania and who established its first collections around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania.

It is a complex of six museums, which, without being separate administrative entities, are situated in different locations around the city and have their own distinct cultural programmes.

The Art Galleries are located inside the Brukenthal Palace and include a number of about 1,200 works belonging to the main European schools of painting, from the 15th to the 18th century: Flemish-Dutch, German and Austrian, Italian, Spanish and French Schools. The Galleries also include collections of engravings, books, numismatics, and minerals. Source from Wikipedia.

We did go inside an underground Museum which displays on gothic stuff.

The expositions in the basement of Brukenthal Palace have been organized in accordance with projects meant to take into a good account spaces with specific conservation issues. As a result, new exhibitions characterized by concept and atmosphere have resulted as the Plaster-Cast Copies Exhibition (2008) and the exhibition entitled Gothic: Gothic Revival Experience vs. Enlightenment Pattern (2010). Source from Brukenthal Museum.

We saw the Library but did not go in because no visitors are allowed, and Prof Sweet Tooth is a citizen of the law.

After the over-dose of galleries and museums, we had dessert - cakes and coffee.

Our last museum - Museum of Natural History. Photography is allowed here.

The Museum of Natural History began to take shape in 1849, through the foundation of the Transylvanian Society of Natural Sciences (German: Siebenbürgischer Verein für Naturwissenschaften), which had as members important local and foreign figures in science and culture. The collections of the museum comprise over 1 million exhibits (including mineralogy-petrography, palaeontology, botany, entomology, malacology, the zoology of the vertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, as well as ichthyology, ornithology, and the zoology of mammals). Source from Wikipedia.

This is our one-day pass that is a postcard and we get our stamps to show that we have been inside. 

Learning from my yesterday's mistake where I shivered so badly in Astra Museum because it was so cold from the rain, today I dressed in many layers (leg warmers over socks and tights), down jacket and wind breaker, 2 buffs and even gloves. I was warm. Yay.

Did you notice the "eyes" on the roofs? Those are actually windows on the attic. This can only be found in Sibiu. 

Time for dinner. Honestly, we were still stuffed from lunch. And all the prices were not encouraging. This time, we shared on a pizza. My hot water is free! I was afraid it was going to be pricey like how it cost me EUR4 in Germany. 

We walked back to our hostel and reached in 30 minutes. That was a fast walk.