Things to do
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Baciu Gorge
A limestone gorge five kilometres north west of the city, used by climbers, and the edge of the Hoia forest that has attracted a long literature of strange occurrences. The walking is easy and the folklore is free.
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Bánffy Palace
The finest Baroque building in Transylvania, finished in 1785 for the governor, now holding the National Art Museum. The courtyard is open even when the galleries are not.
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Cluj Botanical Garden
Fourteen hectares laid out in 1920 across a valley south of the centre, with a Japanese garden, a Roman garden built around salvaged stonework, and glasshouses holding a Victoria water lily. It is a working research garden and it shows.
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Cluj Central Park
The nineteenth century park along the Someș, with a casino building on the lake that now shows contemporary art. It is where the city walks on a Sunday.
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Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania
The oldest ethnographic collection in the country, founded in 1922, covering the region's Romanian, Hungarian, Saxon and Roma material culture in one place rather than three. Its open air section is in a park north of the centre.
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Grand Hotel Italia
A large modern hotel on the western approach with a spa floor and the city's most reliable service, used by the business traffic the tech industry brings. It is comfort rather than character.
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Hajongard Cemetery
A hillside cemetery in use since 1585, where the city's Hungarian, Saxon, Romanian and Jewish dead lie in separated but adjoining ground. It reads as a plan of who lived here and when.
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National Museum of Transylvanian History
The regional archaeology and history collection, strongest on Dacian and Roman material from the Apuseni, including gold and votive objects from sites that are hard to visit.
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Piața Unirii
The main square, laid out around the church rather than in front of it, so the building stands in the middle and the traffic goes around. The Bánffy palace closes the east side.
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Romulus Vuia Ethnographic Park
The open air half of the ethnographic museum, on the Hoia hill, holding farmsteads, wooden churches and technical installations moved from villages across the region. It is quieter than its equivalent in Sibiu and closes earlier.
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St Michael's Church
The gothic hall church on the main square, begun about 1350 and finished in the 1480s, with the tallest church tower in the country added in the 1830s. Matthias Corvinus was baptised in it and his statue stands outside.