Day 14: Sighișoara to Cluj

We had a leisurely start to the day in Sighișoara, enjoying breakfast on the terrace and then walking to the train station, with a detour via Lidl to pick up some food for lunch. Our train to Cluj was leaving Sighișoara at 11.48, so we knew we wouldn't be able to get a proper meal until the evening. 

We'd opted for first class again with the train, so we had a comfortable, air-conditioned journey through the Romanian countryside, arriving in Cluj around 15.45. There hardly seemed to be any habitation between Sighișoara and Cluj at all; just occasional hamlets, where people still seem to get around by horse and cart.

We're staying in an apartment in Cluj.

For some reason this has turned out to be the most expensive accommodation of the holiday, at £42.50 per night.

It's a really nice apartment though and we've got air conditioning in the bedroom, which is always a bonus  

Once we'd unpacked a bit, we went out to explore the city. Our apartment is right by this pretty square.

As with everywhere we've been in Romania, we didn't have to go far to find colourful houses.

We headed towards the city's central square, Piața Unirii, which is dominated by this large church.

This is St Michael's church, a Catholic church built by the Hungarians in the 15th century. It's the second largest church in Transylvania, the largest being the Black Church in Brasov which we saw earlier in the week.

The owner of our apartment had warned us that the main square was going to be dominated by an event for children. Sure enough, we arrived and found it full of stalls and balloons!

There was also a stage with dancing gnomes.

In front of the church is a large statue of a man on a horse.

This is Matthias Corvinus, who was king of Hungary from 1458 to 1490, and who was born in Cluj.

From the main square we caught sight of another church which looked interesting, down a side street.

We wanted to go and explore that, but first we took a detour to Cluj's central park.

We'd seen on our map that there was a lake in the middle of the park. There were some rather colourful boats on it  

As we left the park we came across a monument to people who died resisting the Communist regime in Romania.

From there it wasn't far to the church we'd seen.

This is Cluj's Romanian Orthodox cathedral.

Work started on the building in 1923 and it was officially opened in 1933.

Outside the cathedral is a large statue of Avram Iancu, a Romanian national hero.

It was regarded as controversial when it was erected, because historically the population of the city was majority Hungarian.

Across the road from the cathedral is a bright yellow theatre and opera building.

It's a really pretty part of town overall  

We walked along one of the main streets, which was decorated with Romanian and EU flags.

There's a statue of Romulus and Remus here too!

There was still plenty going on in the main square, so we walked to a quieter side street to find somewhere to eat.

We found a nice restaurant where I had spaghetti carbonara and Tim had goulash.

For pudding we both ordered "lava cake", which was a warm chocolate cake with chocolate sauce in the middle, served with raspberry ripple icecream.

It was getting dark by the time we'd finished eating.

The main square looked pretty lit up at night...

...as did the square by where we're staying.

I think we've managed to see the highlights of Cluj this afternoon, so we went  back to the apartment to try and plan a day trip for tomorrow