Day 14: Who's forecasting this weather anyway?

June 29, 2018

Cluj Napoca, Romania

The forecast for today was 80-100% rain all day.  So, since our plan A was to drive to the mountains where it was also raining), we slept in.  When we got up, we came up with a loose Plan B:  a museum, the botanical gardens, and climbing up the big hill to get a view of the city while keeping an eye on the weather.

We started out and the forecast predicted a few dry hours, so we headed to the botanical gardens (which is found up on a hill--uphill all the way).  Just after we paid our admission it began sprinkling so Joshua used his umbrella and I walked under it part of the way (it was too warm and humid to wear my rain jacket even though I had it with me).  It was interesting, many different areas:  Japanese Gardens, a cactus garden, greenhouses, etc.  So we walked through the sprinkles.

The entrance to the Botanical Gardens.  It was begun in 1872, then enlarged over the years.

Annuals

This is a map of Romania with a different type of coleus for each region.  We are currently in the middle area.

A cactus garden

More of the cactus garden

A statue--her sword is broken.  Maybe she's the lady of the lake who put the sword in the stone?

The Japanese Garden

Joshua on he bridge

Still on the bridge

The statue is poking out of the flowers

A turtle in the pond

The largest lily pads I've ever seen! (Found in the greenhouses)

Pretty flowers

Major roots

This plant is real, but the flower and stamen were super stiff--they felt like plastic

The Palm Room

More palms

The tallest palm is squished in the top

A gooey snail

Another snail

And yet another snail!  This guy is all stretched out.  

Back at the Japanese gardents--Joshua on the bridge

Pretty pansies.  I love pansies but never grow them because they don't live long in Minnesota--only in the spring, they die from the summer heat.

We decided to go to the museum, but just after leaving the botanic gardens, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  So we decided to climb the hill.  So across town, and over the river, then up the interminable steps.  After climbing up and then down, Joshua was thirsty and none of us had brought water, so we went into a small café on the hill for drinks.  Randy and I had more of the weird flavored lemonade and Joshua had iced-tea.  We're thinking that maybe the weird taste is whatever mineral water they're using here in Cluj; the lemonades in other cities have been fabulous.  In fact, in my mint-elderflower lemonade, the mint leaves were spotted black.  I fished all of them out and put them on a napkin on the table (I left the green ones in the glass)--gross!  I wouldn't put leaves that looked like that in my salad, I'm sure not going to drink lemonade steeped in them.

Then we headed to the museum.  We paid less than half of what we paid for the drinks to get into the museum (and we even paid extra to be able to take photos).  It was a very small, quiet museum.  It was the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania; it had very good reviews--4.4 stars out of 5.  We were surprised to see other people there.  We were given an English guide to each exhibit that labeled everything and gave a very dry description that was difficult to follow.  Most of the exhibits had English tags, so we read those.

 A Romanian sheep-wool lined vest

A Hungarian vest (also lined in wool)

This bag looks like early Steampunk

A loom

Waist distaffs used with a spindle to manually spin thread out of wool

Painted chair and table 

Painted dowry chest

Traditional Clothing

I love this man's outfit!

And this woman's outfit--I'd wear that!

Hand embroidery

Beautiful dress

Beautiful dress--the top is all hand embroidered

Hand embroidered vest

Early children's saucer?

This one won't go far!

I think it could have been very good.  It was well curated and they had a lot of great things, but they needed someone to "spice it up" a bit and put it into more context.   Oh well.  I suggested it because I was tired of walking through neighborhoods and taking pictures!  I wanted to do something.  I think we're all feeling like that.  Well, maybe in the next stop.  Tomorrow we will spend another day in the rain driving to Sighisoara for the day, then driving to Brasov for the night.

After the museum, we stopped at a cafe for a leisurely dinner, then got breakfast groceries, before returning to our apartment.  Early morning tomorrow.

Joshua in the public art

Detail from the Opera which is just a few blocks from our apartment

The door leads to the courtyard where our apartment opens from.