Located on the Pavel Dimitrievici Kiseleff road, more precisely in Herastrau Park, the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum is considered one of the main tourist attractions in Bucharest, and indeed it’s a place to be seen, especially if you are a tourist landing in Bucharest.
The National Village Museum formally known as National Museum of the Village “Dimitrie Gusti” (Muzeul Național al Satului “Dimitrie Gusti” in Romanian) is an open-air ethnographic museum showcasing the traditional Romanian village life. So, it gives visitors a chance to discover the way of life in various geographic rural area in Romania as well as different historical periods.
Not only does it reveal the past, but from what I understood, it also shows the current way of life in different rural areas of Romania which is totally unknown to travellers. It’s precisely for this reason that it becomes an important stopover for all those visiting Bucharest.
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What is “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum?
Inaugurated on May 10, 1936, with the coordination of the folklorist, sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher Dimitrie Gusti, the museum extends to over 100,000 m2 and contains 272 authentic peasant churches, farms, workshops, and houses from all over the country.
The location plans were executed by the writer, playwright, director Victor Ion Popa and set designer Henri H. Stahl. The necessary financial funds were provided by the Royal Cultural Foundation and in the presence of King Carol II of Romania.
As you read above, the museum takes its name from Dimitrie Gusti. Conceiving the Romanian Village Museum as a sociological museum, D. Gusti and his collaborators considered that its mission was to show visitors the real life of the villages lived by the Romanian peasant. In fact, originally peasant families from the villages of origin of the monuments, sometimes the former owners, were periodically asked to live in the houses of the museum. These “inhabitants” came to Bucharest with everything they needed to live, including birds and animals.
The goal of the creator has succeeded well. Nowadays, even if peasant families from the villages of origin don’t come to brighten up the scene for the tourists, there are now several temporary exhibitions inside the museum that help the visitors to have a complete vision of the country.
Read More about its history here.
Booking.comHow to get to “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum.
Address: Șos. Kiseleff 28-30
011347 Bucharest
Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum is an outdoor museum in the heart of Bucharest Romania, near the famous Harastrau Park.
By walk? Now, if you are staying in a hotel close to this area then of course you can think of getting there by walking, but otherwise I advise you to take a taxi or the subway.
By taxi? The taxi is incredibly cheap in Romania, so we didn’t think twice about getting here and there by this mode of transport. Plus, Alessandro and I went to Bucharest with two other friends of mine, and we always moved together. This meant that we shared all the expenses including the taxis. For this reason, we spent very little each time. The only two main things that you have to remember when travelling by taxi in Romania is to ask the drivers to turn on the meter if they don’t do it automatically. Indeed quite often, they will try to take advantage of tourists. Also, before getting in just check on the door of the taxi its tariff. It is always written.
By subway? As I mentioned first, one more interesting option to get to “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum is by subway. We did that.
To get there, you will need to take the M2 line and get down at the Aviatorilor subway station, and from there you still you have to walk about 15 minutes (1.2KM) to the Museum. There is a diagonal pathway through the park, which is nicely shaded for sunny days, or you can simply follow the paths around the park, passing the Romanian Arc d’Triumphe along the way.
Subway runs are frequent in Bucharest.
By bus? Also some bus lines have routes that pass near “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum. You have to check that with your hotel to better understand the route and bus numbers because it depends on your location. I suggest that you write to them right after the booking is done.
Here is what I found online ↓↓↓
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“Dimitrie Gusti” Museum, Opening hours and Admission fee.
Summer (May-September) Wednesday-Sunday 11:00-19:00.
Winter (October – April)
28 Kiseleff Blvd. Entry / 30 Kiseleff Blvd. Entry: Monday – Sunday 9:00 – 17:00
“Mioriţa Gate” (Herăstrău Park – Quay) / “Transilvania Gate” (Herăstrău Park – Arch of Triumph): Wednesday – Sunday 9:00 – 17:00
*The last ticket is sold half an hour before the gate closes. Click here for more details about “Dimitrie Gusti” Museum, Opening hours.
Adults 30 Lei
Senior citizens & Euro 26 card owners 15 Lei
Schoolchildren & Students 8 Lei
Free / Reduced Admission:
Preschool children, veterans, disabled visitors, scholarship students awarded by Romanian State members of ICOM, ICOMOS, ASER, AMAR, AEOM, museum specialists, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage employees, National Institute for Research in Conservation and Restoration employees.
Love For Open Air Museums? Then check this out too ➜ Zaanse Schans, Amsterdam
Muzeul Național al Satului “Dimitrie Gusti” 5 things to know
- Not all of the buildings are open to public. You can enter some of them and see how they are set up as the original inhabitants lived. You can peek through the windows of those closed but these are very small windows, and the interior is really dark. However, outside the buildings there are information boards in both Romanian and English which are helpful in case you would you like to know more in depth.
- During the winter, the open buildings are even more limited. We were there in January so many were closed. We could visit only 3 inside.
- Since this is an outdoor museum, if you are sensitive to the cold, think twice before visiting this place during the winter because the cold temperatures are felt in Romania.
- There are not many food/drinks options at the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum. The only one there doesn’t have many choices and it could be closed for no reason, especially during the winter time. When we were there it was closed. So we went to the one in Harastrau Park to drink some coffee.
- The museum doesn’t organize any guided tours. If you are interested, I suggest that you check the “Get your guide Dimitrie Gusti tour.” “Get your guide” is a website that I use to buy tickets for many activities around the world and I always find it to be good. They offer outstanding guides, best prices and a money back guarantee.
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Is Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum worth it?
Since it recreates the rural traditional life of the Romanians, it allows you to have a vague idea of what surely is not on your Romania travel itinerary. I mean whoever travels mostly plans to see the famous places and leaves out what is rural, which is important in the culture of each country. Consequently, we don’t have a good knowledge of this other side of the places we visit. Exactly for this reason, Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum is worth a visit: to see how previous generations, as well as some current rural people, lived.
Therefore then it is in the top things to do in Bucharest, so I think it shouldn’t be missed. Don’t think twice about spending a couple of hours here, especially if you are a tourist landing in Bucharest.
