Village Museum, Bucharest

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The Village Museum borders Herastrau Park, but its entrance is on Soseaua Kiseleff. You cannot enter it from the park. Entrance is 6Ron. It is open on Mon 9-5, Tues to Sun 9-7. The museum contains buildings from all over Romania including different styles of houses, windmills, farms, water mills, fisheries, churches and even an old merry go round. You can buy craft items here. Children can try to make some of the craft items. There is a lot to see. We spent a happy 3 hours here. There is a gift shop and snack bar here, too.

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I have not read anything about Village Museum but my Romanian acquaintances recommended that I go visit the place.

We took a taxi from the hotel (near the parliament). It was about 11 Lei. The entrance costs 6 Lei.

Village Museum shows how native houses and barns looked like. You'll feel like you're in a real village as you pass a hut after the other. There is a lake nearby and as you sit on a bench, you'll feel like you're not in the middle of the city but somewhere in the county.

Really worth a visit!

The Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) is a truly astonishing open-air ethnographical park spreading across some 10 hectares of land. Opened in 1936, it is a collection of over 300 structures including houses, barns, sheds, windmills, gates, churches, chapels, etc. They were brought from all over Romania, reassembled bit by bit in the park, and clustered and arranged so as to show the real pattern of Romanian villages, with little winding paths between them. It really makes you feel like you're walking in a distant old village!

The best thing is that they are organised in Romania's ethnographical regions: Transylvania, Moldova, Dobrogea, etc. It really takes you on a tour of the country's rich tradition of folk architecture and art. Plus, it's a nice relaxing walk that makes you forget you are actually in a city, and the nice view of the lake in the neighbouring Herastrau Park adds to the "summer holidays" feeling!

Check some pics in my four travelogues on the Village Museum. For more info go to the Museum's website.

Entry fee is 40,000 leu (just over $1). If you want to take pictures, it will cost you another 50,000 leu (over $1.5) - don't know if these prices change often, I'm talking of April 2004.

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The Village Museum was established in 1936 and it contains over 300 wooden houses, windmills, churches etc. from all over the country. If you don't plan to visit Romania's rural areas - and even if you do - you shouldn't miss this museum which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. Many of the buildings are originals which were brought here in pieces and reassembled.

The oldest houses date as far back as the 17C. Behind the project from the start was ethnographer Dimitrie Gusti (1880 - 1955) who wanted the museum to mirror as closely as possible the aspects of the rural life. Because of this the museum is organized as a real village, with clusters of houses being linked by winding paths. This makes for a pleasant stroll especially if you find yourself in Bucharest during the summer, when the city is hot and dusty. Sometimes the museum hosts crafts fairs and folk music and dance festivals.

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If you have foreign visitors then visiting Village Museum is something you definately have to take them to in Bucharest. It is the biggest museum of this kind in Europe. What is nice about this museum, is that you can see in it a lot of different traditional houses, all authentic and "fully equipped" with traditional furniture, carpets. If you are lucky you can see also folklore programs from Romania (check the annual programs) or even take part of a festival.

Visiting Village Museum is something you have to do for sure in Bucharest. It is the biggest museum of this kind in Europe. You can see in it a lot of different traditional houses, all authentic and "fully equipped" with traditional furniture, carpets. If you are lucky you can see also folklore programs from Romania (check the annual programs) or even take part of a festival.
Not far away of Village Museum is the Peasant Museum, with a nice interesting building and very good collections. http://www.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/. The tickets for this is only 6 RON (approximately 1,5 EUR) and is definitely worth.

Mary got up this morning with a bee in her bonnet. She was determined that we visit the village museum today. Somewhere she read about it and this is what she insisted we see. I was very pleased that she did, cause I really enjoyed it.
The museum is one of the biggest and oldest museums from all Europe and the first of its kind that I visited. Here you can see original monuments (old houses, churches, wind mills, etc) from all the regions of the country. Each house is decorated according to the area it belongs to.

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Somewhat understandable for some, Bucharest has two museums dedicated to villages and the peasants' life. One is the Peasant's Museum, mainly dedicated to in-house activities, crafting, traditional costumes etc, and the other one has the goal of showing the architectural differences between several regions of Romania: Transilvania, Moldova, Muntenia, Dobrogea, Banat, Maramures and the Danube Delta.
The museum consists of 338 monuments. comprising 53828 mobile objects. A special presence within this site is a church dating from 1773 which was brought here from Gorj County.

Entrance fee: General entrance fee - 6 LEI (1,8EURO); 3 LEI for students (0,9 EURO)

The museum is closed on 1st and 2nd of January, 8th April, 1st, 24th and 25th December

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The Village Museum was a very nice idea of some Romanian sociologists, started in 1925 by professor Dimitrie Gusti. The idea was to create a museum demonstrating the sociological structure of the Romanian village. During the time, more and more objects has been moved from their original place to Bucharest. You will have to remember that the ample works for hydro-amelioration in the northern part of Bucharest began only in 1932, when Herastrau Park was being born. 4,5 hectares were alloted to the project. Gradually, the area was filled by houses and the Village Museum was inaugurated on May 10th 1936 together with the Herastrau Park.

The exhibition has a total of 322 constructions (47 dwellings, household dependencies, 3 wooden churches, 3 windmills, technical installations that use the force of the water etc.)

The museum is visited by circa 300,000 people every year both from Romania and from abroad. There are 16 functioning open-air museums in Romania at the moment. Most of them exhibit specific characteristics of the area where they are situated (Cluj, Timisoara, Sighetu Marmatiei, Baia-Mare, Bran, Suceava, Focsani, etc.). Other two museums are conceived to represent the national area: at Golesti, near Pitesti, The Fruit Growing and Wine Growing Museum - laying the stress on constructions from the areas that are characteristic to this type of activity. The museum from Sibiu exhibits monuments of the traditional technical civilisation mainly - The Traditional Civilisation Museum - Astra.

Visiting hours: 10AM - 6PM

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Muzeul Satului (The Village Museum) is an outdoor museum located within Herastrau Park, a few kilometres north of Bucharest city centre. We visited the museum in March 2008.

We reached the park by taxi, asking the driver to drop us off at Arcul de Triumf, which lies right besides the park's main entrance. Once inside the park, the museum was signposted and easy to find.

Entrance to the park is free, while entrance to the Village Museum costs 6 Lei (1.20 GBP) per adult and 3 Lei (0.60 GBP) per child/student.

The museum consists of dozens of replica homes and buildings (churches, farm buildings..) from various regions of Romania in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are close to 100 buildings, ranging from wooden churches to mud houses and small thatched roofed homes. Several regions of the country are represented, including Transylvania and Moldova (now an independent country).

Each building has an information plaque outside, showing the layout of the various rooms and the region and historical date of the building. It is possible to enter some of the homes, which are decorated with furniture from that period.

The whole layout of the museum gives it the feel of being in a small village, with small dirt tracks connecting the various buildings and lots of attention to detail. It’s a good place to spend half an hour or an hour, but only those with a specific interest in historical Romanian homes would need to stay any longer.

There is a small shop (modern in appearance and set away from the traditional village) which sells refreshments, souvenirs and postcards.

A popular outdoor museum showcasing the historical village life of Romania.