Easter In Cluj

 Cluj (the full name is Cluj-Napoca), Romania's 2nd most populous city is located in western  Transylvania. Yes the Transylvania of Count Dracula. We arrived by train and took some time looking for a hotel as Cluj will be our home for 3 days during the Easter holidays. And since Cluj and the rest of Romania pretty much closes from Easter Saturday through Easter Monday, our first order of business was some feet-on-the-ground research on bus schedules, supermarket and restaurant open-close times, church service times, and open-close times for museums and other attractions.

Saturday we slept in then stocked up on groceries at a Lidl supermarket (it's much like an Aldi), caught up on blogging, and strolled through an almost deserted city center on Saturday night except for folks attending the ~9PM mass at the Catholic Church and the midnight outdoor service at the Romanian Orthodox Church.

We were out early on Sunday morning and hiked up to the fortress and on to the  Open Air Ethnographic Museum (closed for the weekend) then back to town passing the Stadium and the busy Central Park.


More Easter happenings in the photos below.

On the train from Oradea to Cluj.


We saw these building with flamboyant rooftops near Huedin. Hmmm? They turn out to be Gypsy Palaces.


Since many folks in Cluj eat vegetarian for Lent, we managed to score one veggie restaurant meal at Connection Food before all the restaurants closed for the long weekend.


The Synagogue.


Building the stage for the midnight service at the Orthodox Cathedral.


The nearby National Theatre and Opera.


The Cinema Victoria (nice Bauhaus stylings).


The Cluj Botanic Garden is superb.














The Orthodox Cathedral; ready for the midnight outdoor service.


Easter morning we were pleasantly surprised to find these colorful Easter eggs in the breakfast room at our hotel.


View to Cluj on Easter Sunday. That's the Catholic Cathedral at right.


On our Sunday walk we happened on an outdoor Easter Sunday service at a small church in the suburbs. And normal for an Eastern Orthodox service, the congregation stands whether inside or outside.


Walking back to town along the river.


Central Park was much more busy than indicated by these photos.