One of the main attraction the Palace of Culture of Targu Mures has to offer is the Hall Of Mirrors. It's a marvelous hall, that attracts thousands of tourists from all around the world.
The hall is situated at the first floor of the building, right above the entrance.
I tried to mark the windows of the hall with yellow on the photo above, but there's a chance there are more windows to the left. I'm not sure.
The big problem with the Hall of Mirrors is that photographing is strictly forbidden. I knew that as was told at the ticket office, but what kind of photographer would I be if I wouldn't try it, right?
Hall Of Mirrors
So I deliberately had my phone in my hand when I entered the hall. Greeted the supervisor lady in the room and told her I think I have to put my camera away, right? She said yes, photographing is not allowed. To which I asked if I could take one photo? Only one? And that is how I took this shot. I didn't want to be cheeky with the nice lady, so I took two shots from the same position.
Knowing I won't be able to show you the most important part of the hall, I bought this brochure, of which I took some photos to be able to show you what you can see when visiting the Hall of Mirrors.
The twelve stained glass paintings of supreme value were created in 1913 and each of them is based on known Hungarian folk ballads.
The lady told me there's a 5 minute audio guide that I can listen to while looking at the windows. Bigger museums have individual audio guides, but this is a single room, so no need for that.
One thing I love about churches is the painted windows. Wherever I've been in the world, I always took photos of these windows and admired them. For me this is real art that is not only beautiful, but also requires a lot of dexterity.
When I got to this point with my blog, I remembered I visited the Hall of Mirrors in 2013 and after some digging, I was able to find the photos I took back then. Please excuse the quality as it was taken with a mobile phone, can't even remember which one it was. Make an exception in this case and look at the work of arts instead.
This is the Hall of Mirrors. What is interesting to note is the furniture. Today sitting on this chairs is strictly forbidden, but back in those days this hall most likely was used by the upper class. Must have been nice to have a coffee here, or a drink, dressed up nicely.
The backrest of the chairs are all shaped like tulips, which is an ancient symbol of Hungarian folk art.
The top of the tables are also covered with mirrors.
I've never though I would be posting these photos, especially not after so many years as the more we evolve in time, the more the old photos become of low quality, and normally I would not post these, but these are like treasure now as I won't be able to take new photos.
What is interesting to note about these windows is that are not just simply painted. These are made using small pieces of glass.
At the bottom of each window, there's a description of the scene in Hungarian.
The famous mirrors. There are three identical mirrors on each end of the hall, so basically if you look at this one, you can see the other one on the opposite side.
The Concert Hall And The Organ
At the time of my visit, there was a rehearsal going on and the access from the main hall was not possible. However, the door to the lodges on the first floor was open, so I could have a peek at the concert hall and the organ, which has 4,488 tubes and 78 registers. It's an impressive piece and I bet an organ concert would be a nice event to remember for life.
As I see, due to covid regulations, use of seats are restricted here as well.
The Restroom
I took a photo of the restroom as well, as I remembered @livinguktaiwan has a community for #toilets. I'm not really addicted to these places, I'm happy if these are clean and safely usable, but this one is special. The place was built in 1913, the floor is made of real marble and even though it went through several renovation works, the style is still citing the old days.
The sinks are interesting and the faucets or taps (never know which one is correct) are so stylish.
There's one specially set up for disabled people.
The other one has a changing table for babies, which is very rare around here, honestly.
