Sutu Palace - Museum of Bucharest
Two centuries ago, Piata Universitatii was a wonderful garden, full of flowers, trees and fountains with the Sutu Palace breaking the monotony of dull and small, oriental-like dwellings.The Palace faces the University, Coltea Hospital and the Intercontinental Hotel. In1959 the building, shyly hidden today behind old trees, became the Museum of Bucharest. It was built in 1833 on command of a Greek court official, Costache, and used to be a fancy place - the Sutu family really enjoyed throwing parties and having lots of guests.
Though it is not properly a palace, but rather a nobleman's mansion, the interior is quite impressive. There is a large hall on the groundfloor where art collections are usually exhibited and classical music concerts happen almost every Wednesday. On the wall in front of the entrance there is a huge magnificent Venice mirror which reflects a clock - which was deliberately made to be looked at only in the mirror.
On the groundfloor you'll also find a massive collection of documents from the monarchy period - nobody ever opens them, becuse people are not very interested in official papers and so on.
On the first floor a few rooms are rented for temporary exhibitions and the rest of the place is entirely dedicated to the city of Bucharest throughout its history - from the prehistorical ages (tools, coins, objects from the period before the Roman conquest) to the more "recent" years (starting with the first reference on the city in Vlad Tepes's time-1459).
In the next rooms you can see armours and weapons from the 16th and 17th centuries, the first Bible in Romanian language or the sword that belonged to Constantin Brancoveanu, who was executed in Constantinople together with his four sons, for having refused to pass to muslim belief. Oh, don't be afraid you might miss something, there is always someone to guide you inside the museum and tell you stories about everything you see.
There is a lot in there about the history of our country and of the city in particular: maps, books, documents, seals, expensive cutlery, street samples from 1700 and a mayor's office replica from the beginning of the 20th century. It is a small pleasant history lesson that will surely help you learn more about us.
The museum is open from Wednesady to Sunday between 10h00 a.m. and 6h00 p.m. whereas the admission is only 2.5 RON (less than one EU)
See more images in the photo gallery.
