Cluj-Napoca Part 2

Hello and welcome to part 2 of Cluj Napoca.

This post is all about the Transylvania Ethnographic museum. As you are all probably aware by now, I love a good outdoor ethnographic museum. I'm not entirely sure why, but I try to visit every single one that I can. Part of me loves to see how people lived years ago, and another part of me wonders if in a hundred years time, we will be adding houses and our current lifestyle into these museums, and we will be looking back and wondering on earth how we coped being so primitive with our reliance on electricity and WI-FI. But I guess that's got a little way to go just yet!

The museum is on the outskirts of Cluj, away from the city centre. It was a beautiful day, so I walked from the Train station (Gara) to it, grabbing something to eat from a bakery on the way. I'm not sure why, but eastern Europe, and to some degree parts of western Europe, have a bakery on every street. An its brilliant. You can try all these different types of bread, cakes, pastry, things you would never be able to try at home. Most things are delicious and you want again, and some are not so much, and you know to avoid them for next time. (Rye bread being one of them) It felt like I was pooping bits of coal out in Finland and Estonia, there was rye bread everywhere!

I guess in England, a lot of the little independent bakeries have either been replaced with Gregg's or more likely, replaced by a pub!

But anyway, I walked to the park. Transylvanian architecture is very notable for its tall, slender and dramatic church spires in particular. Possibly due to vampires building them? Think about it, you see the church spire and you look upwards to gave at the spire. The soft underside of your neck is not only visible but completely exposed. Then bam, in goes the vampire and you become breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack. Don't say I didn't warn you! Be safe, wear a scarf!

The whole park is beautifully laid out, nothing to jostling for space, there's plenty of benches to sit and enjoy the view, and some of the buildings were open for you to go inside and look at them!

                                                     See what I mean about the tall spires?

Now this, is where the visit took a dramatic turn! I had brought a sandwich and an latte (I don't normally drink coffee, because I'm not very good with the caffeine, but occasionally I do like a vanilla or toffee latte) and I'm sat on a bench just gazing around the park. I had eaten one of my egg mayo and salad sandwiches and was about to eat the other, when this goat came over. He bleated at me for a bit, and stood next to me. I said hello, as you do, and the next thing I knew, he had headbutted my knee as hard as he could. In surprise, I dropped the sandwich, and the next thing I know, the goat has eaten the sandwich and ran. You can imagine how upset I was, I had managed to avoid the vampires but got attacked by the goats instead! This was the third negative incident I'd had with a goat. (Id been headbutted in the knee by one in the Berlin Zoo, and a goat in Fethiye had pissed all over my leg)

It was a very lush and green area, and a joy to visit. But take my advice and avoid the goats! It took me a few days to be able to do massive amounts of walking again!

Cluj-Napoca was a very enjoyable place to visit, and I really recommend it. Its also a great place to base yourself if you are wanting to do a day trip to Salina Turda, which comes as a separate post soon! But it was time to move on, and the next place to visit was Timisoara!