Brașov County History Museum

What makes it special

Look at the outside before you go in. The Council House was built in stages and largely rebuilt after a great fire in 1689, so its front shows several styles at once.

The tower is older than the hall around it, and began as a watchtower. It has seven floors and stands 58 metres high, and it is known as the Trumpeters' Tower after the Council's guards.

Inside, the rooms that once held council meetings, a court and a prison now hold the county's history collection. It runs from Middle Palaeolithic finds through Iron Age pottery and Roman objects to the work of the town's craftsmen, with weapons, furniture, coins and a run of old pharmacy pieces along the way.

Two rooms bring the story up to date. One shows objects from the 1987 rising, when Brașov's factory workers turned against the communist regime two years before the Revolution. Another is a sports room for the Romanian athletes who made their names at the Olympics.

Visiting

The permanent display, Brașov: History, Culture, Civilization, fills the Council House, so the building you see from the square is the museum itself. Take it at your own pace: the cases mix archaeology, guild work and the town's recent history, so linger in the rooms that interest you and move on from the rest.

The other half of the same museum is in the Weavers' Bastion on Strada George Coșbuc, a bastion of the old town walls. Its rooms show how the town and the fortifications of the Brașov basin grew, which is the part the Council House leaves out. Walk over afterwards if you want the walls explained, and do the two on the same day.

Tips

Finish with a coffee on one of the terraces facing the Council House on Piața Sfatului. From a table you can pick out the mix of styles on its front and the Trumpeters' Tower above, which read differently once you have been inside. If you are going on to the Weavers' Bastion, go while the first building is still fresh in your head.