Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Cluj is just as much Hungarian as it is Romanian. It is located in the middle of the country and is a major educational and industrial center. The history of the city goes back to Dacian times. In AD 124, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, Cluj attained municipal status. German merchants arrived in the 12th-century and after the Tartar invasion of 1241, the medieval earthen walls were rebuilt in stone. From 1791 to 1848 and after the union with Hungary in 1867, Cluj served as the capital of Transylvania.

The vast 14th-century St. Michael's Church dominates Piaţa Unirii. The neo-Gothic tower from 1859 is one of its great landmarks. The church is considered to be one of the finest examples Gothic architecture in Romania and was built in four stages. The three naves and vestry were the last to be completed at the end of the 16th-century. The choir vaults, built in the 14th-century, were rebuilt in the 18th-century following a fire. They hold daily services in both Romanian and Hungarian.

At the south of the church is a huge equestrian statue of Matthias Corvinus, the famous Hungarian king, son of Iancu de Hunedoara and ruler of Hungary between 1458 and 1490. The statue was erected in 1902 and is obviously being redone.

Since the early 1990s, the statue has been at the center of controversy, largely due to the efforts of the notoriously anti-Hungarian mayor of Cluj, Gheorghe Funar. Having erased the Hungariae in front of Matthias from the inscription on the statue, Funar later gave the go-ahead for an archaeological dig to take place in front of the statue. In 1997 the National History Museum director called a halt to the excavation works, making it clear that the statue would not be removed or destroyed. The ugly pit continues to to scar the church.

This is the cute bed and breakfast where Cristian and I stayed.To the Little Bear. This sign has been here for about 30 years. It used to be a children's store.

American Hot Dog with Spuds MacKenzie look alike. I didn't eat there.

Inside the Catholic Church

The Angry Doughnut!!

Piaţa Muzeului holds the beautifully decorated Franciscan Church and National Museum. The Museum is from 1859.

The Mayor also caused a lot of trouble by painting all the flag poles and fences the Romanian Flag colors. This is normal in all of Romania to see parks and playgrounds painted Red, Blue and Yellow. I really don't see the problem since it is Romania and not Hungary now.

City Hall

It started to pour so we sat at a terrace and then a beautiful rainbow appeared

Memorandumist Monument, an obelisk topped with a bronze bell, in honor of Transylvania's Memorandumists of 1892. The monument was erected in 1994 following an archaeological dig unearthing remains of what is believed to have been the largest brooch factory in the Roman empire. A treasure trove of 40 different brooches and 8,000 molds was found.

Under Ceausescu, all Hungarian-language newspapers and magazines in Romania were closed down, and official plans to systemise some 8,000 villages, many of them in Transylvania, threatened Romania's Hungarians with cultural assimilation. Since 1989, the rights of the 1.7 million Hungarians have been recognized. There are a lot of problems in Transylvania today between Romanians and Romanian-born Hungarians. Most accounts of ethnic conflicts in Romania published in the West showed justifies concern for the Hungarian Minority, yet tended to ignore the fact that the Romanian majority in Transylvania was subjected to forced "Magyarisation" under Hungarian rule prior to WWI.