Introduction
Timiș county occupies Romania's flat western plain against the Serbian and Hungarian borders, and its capital, Timișoara, is the least Romanian-feeling city in the country. This is the Banat: historically oriented towards central Europe rather than the Carpathians, and the architecture, the squares and the pace all say so.
Overview
Arrive here from the Saxon citadels of Transylvania and the change is immediate. Timișoara is a city of large formal squares and low, ornate, pastel apartment blocks — a dense concentration of Secession architecture, the central European relative of Art Nouveau, laid out on a scale that feels Viennese rather than Balkan. Three squares form the centre and each has a different character: the vast Union Square with a baroque cathedral at one end and an Orthodox one facing it, the Liberty Square between them, and the long Victory Square running down to a striking interwar Orthodox cathedral with a tiled roof. Around them the streets carry hundreds of listed buildings in varying states of restoration, and a long-running programme has been bringing the best of them back. The city has a habit of having been first at things: it was among the first cities in Europe to light its public streets with electricity, in the 1880s, and it carries a scattering of similar claims that locals will tell you about without much prompting. It was a European Capital of Culture, which funded a great deal of the restoration you now walk through. Beyond the architecture it is a green city — parks along the river Bega, which is canalised through the centre and can be travelled by water taxi — with a young population, a substantial technology sector, and the most distinctly central European food and café culture in Romania. The county around it is flat, agricultural and quiet, running to spa towns and the Serbian border.
Discover Timiș
The centre is organised around three linked public spaces and walking between them takes twenty minutes. Union Square is the grandest — a very large rectangle of pastel baroque and Secession facades with a monumental Roman Catholic cathedral at one end and a Serbian Orthodox cathedral facing it across the paving, a juxtaposition that tells you most of what you need to know about the Banat's mixed inheritance. Liberty Square sits between the three, smaller and more workaday. Victory Square is the long one, a broad pedestrian avenue running between the opera house and an interwar Orthodox cathedral whose glazed patterned roof is the city's most recognisable silhouette; the terraces along both sides of it are where Timișoara sits in the evening. What ties it together is the building stock. This is one of the densest concentrations of Secession architecture anywhere outside Vienna and Budapest — hundreds of protected buildings, floral ironwork, moulded facades, tiled details — and a sustained restoration programme has brought a great deal of it back from a genuinely poor state, with plenty still visibly waiting its turn. The contrast between a restored facade and its unrestored neighbour is the honest texture of the city.
Ways to Experience This Destination
Union Square with facing Catholic and Orthodox cathedrals, Liberty Square between, and Victory Square running to a tiled-roof cathedral.
One of the densest concentrations outside Vienna and Budapest — hundreds of protected buildings, with restoration visibly still in progress.
A canalised river with water taxis, tree-lined embankments and a chain of parks that make this the greenest large city in Romania.
More pastry, paprika and oven cooking, an inherited coffee-house habit, and the best independent café scene outside the capital.
Frequently asked questions
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