Transylvania's Art Nouveau jewel — Secession palaces on the Mureș River
Târgu Mureș (Hungarian: Marosvásárhely) sits in the heart of Transylvania where Romanian and Hungarian cultures have overlapped for centuries. Its main square is one of the finest Art Nouveau ensembles in Eastern Europe — the Palace of Culture with its Zsolnay tile roof and the Prefecture Palace with its 52-metre clock tower dominate a pedestrian zone of Secession-style facades. The city is half Romanian, half ethnic Hungarian, and the resulting cultural mix — folk traditions, baroque churches, and a world-class opera company — makes it unlike anywhere else in Europe.
Târgu Mureș received its town charter in 1332 and grew as a significant market town along the Mureș River trade routes. It became an important Szekely (Transylvanian Hungarian) administrative and cultural centre; the Teleki-Bolyai Library, established in the 18th century, houses one of the most important historical book collections in Central Europe, including manuscripts dating to the 11th century. The 20th century brought waves of Romanian and Hungarian political control — the city changed nationality five times between 1918 and 1947. Ethnic tensions in 1990 briefly turned violent but the c…