National Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) Tours

Eastern Europe’s foremost open-air museum was opened in 1936 and presents a collection of more than 60 historic rural buildings from across Romania and of different eras, all carefully reassembled in 15 hectares of parkland on the shores of Lake Herăstrău in Bucharest. Featuring farms, churches, windmills, wooden cottages, cow sheds, and farm machinery from remote districts such as Moldavia, Hunedoara and Transylvania, each building at the National Village Museum (Muzeul Satului) is painstakingly labeled with its exact geographical and cultural provenance and accompanied by a multi-lingual commentary on its original use, building up an accurate picture of rustic village life in a Romania before the advent of Communism. Highlights include earth houses from Straja and cheerily painted, shuttered houses from Tulcea, as well as the 35-meter (115-foot) belfry of the wooden church from Maramureş, embellished with faded icons on its interior. Making a wonderfully family-friendly day out, the museum has a souvenir store, a range of eating options from stalls selling candy to a restaurant in a 19th-century inn, and regular displays of traditional crafts such as weaving and winemaking.