The Ethnographic Museum of Vatra Dornei

The clock tower on the main street is the most photographed thing in town, but few people go through the door underneath it. The same building where the town hall paperwork gets signed also holds the ethnographic museum of the Dornas.

The building is the Communal Palace, put up in 1897, a historic monument listed as SV-II-m-B-05662, at 17 Mihai Eminescu street. The museum was founded in the same year and opened to the public that September, together with the palace. The County Council lists it as the municipality's museum of ethnography.

The building

The palace belongs to the wave that changed the town between 1896 and 1898, when Vasile Deac was mayor. In two years, one after another, came the building of the Santinela spring, the Unirea spring, the Hotel Carol, the casino and this town hall. That is why the centre of Vatra Dornei looks so much of a piece: it did not grow slowly, it came out of a single decision.

The clock tower has faces on two sides and a steep red roof. Close up you see the stone arcading at its base; from the end of the street, at a distance, the tower stands against the fir forest climbing behind the town. Towards evening, when the sun comes down the street from the side, is the best moment for a photograph.

What you can see

The collection is about life here: dress, tools, household and farmyard things belonging to the people of the Dornas. It is the kind of museum that reads differently once you have walked through the villages — the objects on the walls are the same ones still sitting in barns today, only older.

It is worth combining with a walk along the main street, which is itself on the monuments list: the old commercial quarter of the town, with its nineteenth-century shopfronts, is listed as a whole rather than building by building. The library, raised in 1901 as the Romanian National Palace, is on the same street.

Getting there

It is in the centre, on the main street, impossible to miss: look for the clock tower. It is a few minutes on foot from anywhere in town, and from the park and the casino you simply walk up the street.

What to know before you go

The museum's opening times are not published anywhere officially, so we do not give them here rather than send you up the steps for nothing. Ask at the town hall, in the same building, or at the tourist information centre before you go. It is a short visit, one to fit between two other stops in the centre, not one to set half a day aside for.