Sunny Ploieşti in the centre of County Prahova sports a great
Oil and Gas Museum and a surprisingly engaging world-class clock museum, along with an above-average art gallery,
and the Troy of the Carpathians archaeological dig nearby. Ploieşti is a super place to base your exploration up to the
Bucegi Mountains, the Cuicaş mountains, and anywhere in the charming central Prahova farming region. The city is actually
a pretty fun place to spend a few days and base yourself for your trips to Sinaia and the Carpathian mountains nearby!
You can get to Prahova by train from
Bucureşti en route to Sinaia and Buşteni up the Prahova River Valley, and if you're driving, you can go up through Cheia and the
Cuicaş mountains.
The new
Rest
Romania Gallery
has photos from our contributors showing the best of Romania!
Ploieşti is not the grimy oil town some guides would have you
believe! This pulsing capital city of Prahova County is situated in the historical Wallachian plains backed by the Bucegi and Cuicas mountains.
The city is located 56 km (35 miles) north of Bucharest and has a
population of 232,452 (according to the 2002 census), making it the
ninth-largest city in Romania.
Ploiesti is the capital city of Prahova County, Romania.
Ploieşti is home to the Oil & Gas University, Ploieşti
Philharmonic Orchestra —one of the top rated philharmonic orchestras
in Romania— and two formerly-First Division football (soccer) clubs
(Astra and Petrolul).
Don't
Be Suspicious!
When you hear that old chestnut of "A City of Contrasts", that
usually means there are some bad spots you need to avoid.
But with Ploieşti, the oil town has simply suffered from some pretty
bad press.
Most Romanians will give you a funny smile like you've been a little
silly to spend your tourist dollars in a place like Ploieşti, but this
is only because of a persistant ignorance about the town.
The Central Markets downtown is great fun, one of the best
put-together functioning market complex in Romania, sure to be home to
some great bargains for the suitcase home. The city has good
parklands downtown with an attractively landscaped main street.
It's not our job to rehabilitate Ploieşti for tourists, but we can't
help but notice the excellent museums, facilities and transport in
Romania's ninth-largest city!
If you have some information for us about Ploieşti or County Prahova,
please
Let us know about it now!
Much like Houston in Texas, Ploieşti is a town of hidden treasures
which lift the cultural, architectural and natural profile of the town
well beyond that of "just an oil town".
Similar to Houston, Ploieşti benefits from being on major trade
routes, and has developed as a strong cultural, scientific and
educational center.
With several rather unique museums (see below), artistic
isnstitutions and monuments, Ploieşti has a some good restaurants and
hotels, and makes a reasonable base if you are sampling the Prahovan
foothills and mountains. Benefitting from being a bit
closer than Bucureşti, you can spend a day in Sinaia, Buşteni, Cheia or
even Târgovişte and return to Ploieşti ready for the next day's
exploration.
Inscribed with "The Constution and the Electoral Law", and
"Defenders of Public Liberty", the Romanian Statue of Liberty was
inaugurated soon after the 1878 wars with the Ottoman Empire ended and
Romania gained Dobrogea.
Rendered first in sketches by architect Toma Socolescu the statue
was cast in galvanized bronze, with a height of 3.5m on a marble
pedestal. The statue actually represents the Greek Goddess of Wisdom,
Minerva, who holds a spear in her right hand, and the Romanian
constitution in her left hand.
The pedestal of the statue is 4m high and it has four front parts
with bronze placques with various incriptions from it's inauguration day
on June 21st, 1881. The "Romanul" newspaper described that day:
"On Sunday, June 21st, Ploiesti city displayed an unusual view:
there was joy and movement everywhere, and all kinds of people
dressed in fancy clothes going to Unirii Square. At 9 o'clock
in the morning, the square was full, the windows and the balconies
from the houses were full of women and even the roofs were covered
by men.
"All these people were eagerly waiting the inauguration of the
statue of Liberty, which was offered to the citizens of Ploiesti by
contributions made all over the country for the courage and
abnegation that knew to deposit once with the elections from 1869
for defending the public liberties. "
Today, Ploieşti's Statue of Liberty is worth a few photos --
certainly an ironic monument for visitors from New York at least!
The Ethnography Museum in Ploieşti has some fine displays of the
local peasantry's local wares, costumes, farming implements and mock-ups
of cottages and life on the land.
If you're a fan of some rather interesting textiles and traditional
clothing, this is the place for you to spend a morning, in what is
actually one of the better put-together museums of this time, which can
generally be found in most county seats like Ploieşti.
In 1993, the county of Prahova was gifted the house of it's most
famous musical composers by the Constantinescu family, for the house to
become a museum commemorating his life, and his love, his music.
Opened on the 30th anniversary of the death of this prolific
Romanian composer, the museum works well as a historic and architectural
monument. It displays the an extensive collection of books,
furniture and documents relating to the composer Paul Constantinescu's
life and work.
Born in 1909 to a family of intellectuals, the composer grew up in
Ploieşti and wrote symphonies, vocal-symphony works, music for the
theatre and film, choral music, chamber music, and piano and vocal
music.
The citizens of Ploieşti are indeed proud of their poet son Nichita
Stănescu, dedicating a festival, library, high school, and memorial
house to their shining light of local literature.
The international poetry festival and award ceremony is held
annually in Ploieşti, the culmination of other festivals nationwide.
Portions of the festival are also held across other towns in
Romania, from Sighetu Marmeţei up in Maramureş, down to Drobeta
Turnu-Severin in Oltenia, and across to Bârlad in Moldova.
There's a highschool named after him, and in addition to the annual
festival, the library in 16 December Square archives and a great bust
opposite commemorates the work of this home-grown author and poet.
The Nicolae Iorga County Library in Ploieşti has a dedicated section to
the poet.
The Nichita Stănescu Memorial House, where the poet was born, was
first nationalised under the communists, then sold, and the Memorial
Society run by his surviving relatives managed to get it back again in
1998 and transferred to the local county administration's
History and Archaeology Museum
(see below)
Visitors to the house and surroundings will see what was so
eloquently described in Nichita's poetry, starting with the the
childhood and adolescance of the unqualled poet. Worth a look ar
the hosue library, various furniture of the period, some great old
photographs, tableaux, films and other materials preserved and presented
with care. Nichita's old high school friend and fellow poet,
Nelu Popa, mounted a commemorative placque in honour of his old mate.
Interestingly enough, the County Prahova Natural Sciences museum is
split between seven branch locations both in Ploieşti; up the Prahova
River valley at Sinaia; Bucov;
in central and northern Prahova at Slanic, Vălenii de Munte, Plopeni;
and up in the Cuicaş mountains at Cheia near the Transilvanian border.
Dutifully stored and catalogued under the museums auspices are
warehouses full of important articles used for regular displays
throughout the museum branches. It also hosts four laboratories, a
specialty library, in addition to the stalwarts of museology, research
and restoration, the archives, technical office, administration, art
room, and the various building services.
As part of the County Prahova Museum, the Ploieşti aquarium bats
above it's weight, offering far better exhibits than you might assume
for Romania's 9th-largest city.
The aquarium is housed in the Cultural Palace with 70 professionally
mounted displays maintained by the aquarium's passionate staff.
Over 65 species from all corners of the globe are represented with over
a thousand rare fish, tropical displays, with over 30 types of turtles,
tortoises, and 20 types of geckos and skinks. .
The aquarium is pretty well done, and if you've just come in from a
cool spring morning, it's actually a little bizarre to be thrust into
the warm and humid atmosphere in the Ploieşti aquarium. Weekends
can largely avoid the school groups which find the aquarium quite
popular during the school year (September - May).
At the Cultural Palace, 1 Hero Cătălin Calin St.,
9am - 5pm, Closed Mondays. +40 (244) 597 896
This stately addition to Ploieşti's museum scene comes out of
the old 1931 Picture Gallery by prominent townsfolk in
the "Nicolae Iorga" Cultural Establishment.
Ploieşti's art museum had it's incept in a very patriotic program
between the world wars to nationalise the newly stitched-together
Romania, from Transilvania to Dobrogea, Moldova to Oltenia, as national
pride swelled in the Greater Romania. This was a pretty good
time to start an art gallery, because this nationalistic fervour caused
alot of pretty good impressionist and other art to be done, and
subesquently hung in these new galleries littered across major towns and
cities.
Half of the good stuff was evacuated up to Sinaia during the Second
World War, and the other half disappeared into Nazi archives for a
while. It was patched back together in the early communist years,
and enriched in the late 1960s with additional works and in 1969, was
moved to it's present location. You'll note that the street
itself is full of interbellum delights of architecture, mixed with
facades from the late 19th century.
The building itself is adorned with balconies, a high roof, stucco
friezes around the windows, French-style chimneys, with decorative
motifs in wrought iron on the building and matching the gates.
Inside, the three levels are accessed by two white marble stairways
going from the courtyard to the main lobby and then up to the first floor. The interior decorations are in the
Neobaroque style, with columns and capitals signed by the Italian master
craftsmen who installed them. The stairs are bracketed by bronze sculptures
with lighting fixutres by great French sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. A
rather splending skylight above floods the upper lobby with it's glow.
The main collection offers a nice sampling of the European genres, styles
and influences on Romanian painting over the previous two centuries. Almost none of the important
painters are missing from this collection, which generally spans the early 19th century to the latest
works of the 20th century.
You will not go away disappointed, with some good represnetations
from 19th Century artists, including Theordor Aman, and Nicolae
Grigorescu's Seascape and Peasant Girl's Head catching the lion's share
of attention. Ion Andreescu's the Geranium Flowerpot is charming
and memorable, as is his Fair in Buzău, all great introductions to
understanding the sophistication and depth of Romanian 19th century
artists.
Brebu landscapes and a Ştefan Luchian self-portrait from Paris close
the 19th Century and lead the avid visitor into the mid 20th Century
"meat and potatoes" of the collection, and you're presented with all the
Theodor Pallady, Nicolae Tonitza (his tracing paper art with
Dobrogean motifs are
fabulous) , and Iofis Iser you could want.
Contemporary artists from the early 1900s include Corneliu Baba, Alexandru Ciucurencu, Ion
Ţuculescu, Ion Pacea, and leading into the late 20th Century, Georgeta Năpăruş, Constantin Piliuţă, Ion Sălişteanu, Vasile
Celmare, Vasile Grigore, Marius Cilievici, and Ion Biţan
amongst many more. The collection runs room after room, so DO plan
on taking a lively pace if you have any hope on seeing all of it before
lunch or dinner time comes!
Contemporary ceramics and glass are nicely represented, including
some lovely glass icons from the 1800s. Fans of modern Romanian tapestries
will not go away unrequited.
If you're heading up to Sinaia and enjoy this collection, do stop in
at the Nicolae Grigorescu Memorial House in
Câmpina on the way. The Ploieşti museum also runs this little gem
in the country town where Grigorescu did some of his work.
We're leaving this one for last on the list, because it's not going
to be a first-stop for many, as clocks may well not sound like the most
interesting thing for you to spend a morning with, but once you're in
the door, this absolute gem of a museum is sure to fascinate.
The Nicolae Simarche Clock Museum opened in 1963, and was rather
grandly placed in the Palace of Culture. is a unique museum
in Romania, it offers the visitors the opportunity to follow the
evolution of the time measuring devices from the first "clocks"-sun
dials, burning clocks, clocks with water or sand to the "ancient"
mechanical clocks and the modern ones.
Industrial and institutional accomplishments were many times the
high points of communist Romania, and Ploieşti’s Clock Museum is one of
the better examples of this.
Opening its doors in 1963, the Clock
Museum (Muzeul Ceasului) lucked out in being placed in one of the
Cultural Palace halls.
It’s now named after the founder and first manager, Professor Nicolae
Simache. The local conservative politician Luca Lefterescu built
today’s hall in the late 1800s, and it's a wonder of the neo-Gothic
influence popular in the day.
Time, of the Essence
The museum is quite serious about its title, and dutifully starts
out with some of the earliest time-keeping and reckoning methods, from
burning clocks, water clocks and of course, sundials and versions of
today’s egg-timers, using sand to measure time’s fleeting passage.
The elaborate engraved bronze pendulums remind the view how
difficult it was to get accurate timekeeping devices in the early days,
and the earliest proper clock in the museum, from 1562, even sports
astronomy dials.
The
“meat” of the collection, and worth the most photos (you may need to pay
a little extra for photography), extends from the early 1700s to the
late 1800s, with clocks of all sorts of cabinets, veneers, inlay work,
and ornamented in the rococo, gothic and into 20th century styles.
Clocks made rather fantastically of porcelain from Sevres, clocks
with marble columns and some great Empire period clocks make you wonder
how these little marvels were ever collected, let alone managed to stay
in Romania.
"The Clock Paintings" collection features the Biedermeier style
through „Târgoveti la Salzburg" and "Tablou cu scena de bivuac", and
some grand sculpted cases feature flora and fauna motifs. A fair few
of the clocks make a range of noises too, from the cuckoo clocks to
those with quail, flutes, and one with some truly charming little
shepherd’s pipes players.
Whilst you may think all these works are from some other lands, even
sleepy Ploieşti managed to forge a pendulum in 1934, most likely made at
Ploieşti’s Vocational Arts College (Scoala de Arte şi Meserii).
Names in the collection include Zenith, Schaffhausen, Omega, Patek
Philippe across Swiss, French, German, English and American firms in the
19th and the 20th centuries. Distinguished by their beauty, are
jewelled clocks that belonged to the Romanian kings Carol I and Carol
II, and of Czar Alexander II.
The clock of the poet Vasile Alecsandri and the pendant clock of
Mihail Kogalniceanu's daughter, as well as the pieces that came from the
firms Genevieve Sandoz, Oudin and others.
Even more curiously, assembled at this museum are clocks from some
of Romania’s shining literary, artistic, royal and political life.
Clocks once owned by Constantin Brâncoveanu and Prince Alexandru
Ioan Cuza are on display, along with several other notable luminaries.
Music Like Clockwork!
Music boxes round out the almost-like-a-clock collection, along with
other similarly precise mechanical devices, such as a symphonion,
pianola, and mechanical pianos. On display is how the piano keyboards,
organ pipes, and range of other percussion instruments are worked by the
interior gears, levers and pulls.
Str. Nicolae Simache 1, Ploieşti (244) 142861,
Open Daily except Mondays
If you don't stop in, at least remember that Romania had the world's
first oil well, oil refinery and provided oil to light the streets of
Bucharest, the first European capital to have street lighting!
We should also remember that Ploieşti suffered greatly from razing
by the retreating Germans in both world wars, and low-level precision
bombing by the Americans, which although designed to minimise collateral
damage (meaning avoiding the deaths of civilians), it nonetheless
destroyed alot of the refinery areas.
The decision to build this museum happened during the Communist
years, coinciding with the 1957 centenary (centennial if you're
American) of the founding of the Romanian oil industry.
The building itself is listed as a historic monument, with the
collection growing from 800 artefacts in 1961 to over 8,000 by 1994.
The museum preserves documents, photography and items from the early
days of oil discovery and refinery in Romania, including geological
displays on ore deposits, the petrochemical refining process, and how
the oil came to light the streets of Bucharest, the first petrol-lit
city in 1859 on the planet.
The museum's well-written panels underscore the accomplishments of
Romanians such as the development of solvents by Lazăr Edeleanu, as well
as Romania's early contributions to the manufacture of parafin, oils,
and petrol. Geological maps and mineralogical samples round out the
collections, with a artworks, ceramics and a fair few busts of famous
petrochemical denizens of years past.
Catch streetcar 101 or busses 43 or 30 to get to the
Muzeul Naţional al Petrolului,
8 Bagdasar St, 9am-5pm, Closed Mondays +40 (244) 597 585
This museum is housed in a rather unmistakeable building, which
shouts "museum", and houses some important displays about wartime
Ploieşti, which due to it's refineries, was a focus of German attention
in 1916, 1918, and 1940 - 1944.
After a while, some tourists like you may well get curious about
just where the Romanian people came from, and how they developed.
The Ploieşti history museum covers this topic fairly well, starting with
the Gaeto-Dacian people which Romanians like to think of as their
direct ancestors (who inhabited the region of today's Romania before
wave after wave of Goths, Visigoths, Sarmatians, Alans, Vandals, Slavs,
Bulgars, Pechenegs, Cumans, and more swept through the Wallachian plains
time after time). See more below on
the site near Ploieşti.
Recent additions to the museum include a very well done section
(opened in 1997) on Romania's
legendary Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazul), including documents
associating the town with the famous leader.
Footy boofheads will appreciate the sporting
section focusing on both Romanian and local sports memorabilia and
personalities. The sports section includes Olympic achievements of
Romania, and, rather predictably for any red-blooded Romanian sports
museum, a section on Romania's footballing (soccer) history.
Others will be more interested in the extensive coins collection and
medals collection, with the room dedicated to the writer I.A.
Bassarabescu, and a reasonable collection of rocks in the colourful
Lapidarium.
Old Târgşor, today a famous archaeological site, was the home to
the Princes of Wallachia. The monuments found there in excavations
have revealed inscriptions by the legendary figure Vlad Ţepeş (whose
devellish acts earned him the name "Dracula").
The Romanian Academy and the museum in Ploieşti have worked together
since the mid 1950s in the excavation, mapping and catalogueing of the
finds, which range between the Upper Palaeolithic to the late Middle
Ages.
The site itself is just 11km south of Ploieşti, and you can get off
at the Ploieşti south train station to catch a maxi-taxi going down that
way towards Strejnic if you need to, although this is probably better
done with a car and driver. The 17ha site really has something
for everyone, with the site offering insights to life in mediaeval
Romania.
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More Oil in Ploieşti!
Don't
Be Suspicious!
Vanela Tour, Piata Mihai Viteazul, b-dul Republicii bl. 37 F-G parter in Ploieşti
