Tulcea City Break
Tulcea, a city with a rich history, it’s worth your attention, even for a short visit.
Because the town is small, almost all points of interest are located near the city center. A visit can start from:
Heroes Monument – located on the highest point near the Danube, offers a wide view over Tulcea city and a part of Tulcea Branch.
It is located in the upper end of Gloriei street, which starts right at the roundabout near Hotel Delta (coming from any direction, go straight until you reach the Hotel Delta and from there everything will be much easier).
The monument was built in honor of Romanian soldiers who fought in the Independence War and to commemorate the union of Dobruja to Romania. King Carol I himself was the one who laid the foundation stone of the monument (1879).
In the same place you can also find:
Museum of History and Archeology and Aegyssus Fortress ruins
The museum is organized into two pavilions – first kept in shape since 1975, year of museum establishment, houses artifacts from the Greco-Roman, Roman-Byzantine, early medieval and medieval ages, second, radically reorganized in 1995, is reserved to prehistory and protohistory of North Dobruja (ground floor) and temporary exhibitions (first floor).
Museum offers to visitors successive images of the past history of the territory of the mouths of the Danube, from ancient times to the medieval age. The permanent exhibition and deposits are preserved a rich archaeological heritage – nearly 90,000 archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic and result mainly from archaeological research conducted in the second half of XX century in Northern Dobruja, some of the pieces from museum collections are of national and even European importance.
Downhill of the Monument you can stop to:
Ethnography and Folk Art
The Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art (former headquarters of the National Bank of Romania – Tulcea Agency) is one of the flagship public buildings Tulcea, representing, together with other buildings, valuable examples of architecture of national forms.
The construction is based on a project prepared in 1924 and was built in the interwar period (1924-1927), then at the end of the era of national current manifestation of Romanian architecture.
The building has a balanced composition generated by the positioning in an intersection and by the original functionality.
This public building can be considered a good example of modern architecture, built on the traditional values that marked the early part of the twentieth century.
Heritage Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art reflects the diversity of the collections, a unique cultural pattern generated by the cohabitation of Romanians and other ethnic populations. The approximately 8,000 pieces make up a fund invaluable ethnographic collections decoded in the popular and folk art, ethnography and photo-document.
Right across the street from it, diagonally, is:
Ecotourism Museum Center – Danube Delta, which includes Tulcea Aquarium
The center includes a permanent exhibition that presents the main elements of the natural heritage features existing in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, a public aquarium and temporary exhibits. In a setting that faithfully reproduce specific habitats of Danube Delta and Razim-Sinoe Lakes and other protected areas of national importance from Dobruja plateau, like Macin Mountains National Park. The permanent exhibition allows discovery of high biological diversity of the two units by Geographic presence of 46 species of plants, 3 species of reptiles, 44 species of birds and 12 species of mammals exposed to various aspects and ecological relationships. Here you can get to know the birds declared natural monuments, protected rare species at national and European, extinct species of Delta and Dobrogea area, new species in the fauna of the Danube Delta and aspects of their lives through moviesalong the route visited.
The aquarium is equipped with modern facilities and has a water storage capacity of 150 tons. Shows a collection of 24 native fish species meet in the Danube Delta and the Black Sea, 23 species of reef fish, 8 species of marine invertebrates and 12 species of coral brought from Indonesia. Aquarium fish and invertebrates found in coral reefs is a first for Tulcea, Romania and even arranged a public space. Through a system of two cylindrical tanks arranged concentrically have the opportunity to experience, being up for a few minutes in the middle of a reef, surrounded by sharks, fish and corals with different colors and shapes and impressive, which will delight the eye. Same sensations you can live and going through the tunnel for the largest aquarium tank in which are presented sturgeon, considered to be among the most primitive fish that are still alive today in the world, and eels, known because of their biological reproductive peculiarity.
Just behind the Museum Center is also:
Art Museum
Housed in a beautiful building architectural heritage monument built in neoclassical style, Tulcea Museum of Art has collections of paintings, sculptures, icons, graphics, and oriental decorative art, engraving plates.
Building History
Was built between 1863-1865, the Administrative Palace of the Sanjak of Tulcea, then called Manor and passes.
After reuniting with country Dobrogea, in 1878 became head Prefecture Tulcea County, with County Court downstairs, Concierge Group and Court Jury;
Between 1950-1970, it was the Tulcea District People”s Council;
Became Art Museum on 23 august 1982.
Museum’s Heritage
Tulcea Art Museum boasts the protection of important heritage has grown steadily, especially in the last ten years, from 4365 to late 1991, the 7015 works currently, so has seven collections, as follows:
1. collection of modern and contemporary painting (932 works)
2. modern and contemporary sculpture collection (420 works)
3. collection of icons from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth (797 works)
4. collection of modern and contemporary graphics (4016 works)
5. collection plate engraving, unique in the country (400 works)
6. Oriental art collection of the century. XVIII and XIX (311 pieces)
7. collection of decorative arts from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth (139 pieces)
As you can see, a short visit in Tulcea, could mean a full day.