Explore Oradea

The Baroque Palace is the Roman Catholic bishop's palace of Oradea, designed by the Viennese architect Franz Anton Hillebrandt and built between 1762 and 1777 for Bishop Adam Patachich. It housed the county museum from 1971; returned to the diocese, it now holds the Centrum Patachich visitor centre with exhibitions on King Saint Ladislaus and church art.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Mary is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oradea, begun in 1752 by Giovanni Battista Ricca and completed in 1780 by Franz Anton Hillebrandt in a classicising Baroque style. Inside are ceiling frescoes by Johann Nepomuk Schöpf and Ferenc Storno and a reliquary of King Saint Ladislaus.

Oradea City Hall is an eclectic palace on Union Square beside the Crișul Repede, built in 1902–1903 to designs by Kálmán Rimanóczy Jr. The offices are not open to visitors, but the 50-metre clock tower is: the climb passes the 1904 clock mechanism, which plays Iancu's March on the hour, and leads to viewing balconies with a telescope at the top.

Union Square is the main square of Oradea's New Town on the left bank of the Crișul Repede, laid out in the 18th century. It is framed by the Moon Church, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Ladislaus, the Black Eagle Palace, the Greek Catholic Bishop's Palace and the City Hall; the square was renovated in 2015.

The Black Eagle Palace is an Art Nouveau complex on Union Square, built in 1907–1908 to designs by Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab for a hotel, casino, shops and offices. A glass-roofed passage with a stained-glass black eagle (1909) links three streets and is lined with cafés and shops; the interiors are not open to visitors.

The Moon Church is a Romanian Orthodox church on Union Square, built between 1784 and 1790 to plans by Jakab Éder in a late Baroque style with classicist details. Its tower holds a mechanism made by Georg Rueppe in 1793, a half-gilded, half-black sphere that turns to show the phases of the moon. It served as the Orthodox cathedral from 1920 to 2012.

The Țării Crișurilor Museum is the museum of Bihor County, founded in 1896 and now housed in a former military cadet school built in 1898 to plans by Ignác Alpár. Its sections cover archaeology, history, the traditional culture of western Romania, Romanian art and natural history, including cave bear and dinosaur fossils, and it has a vivarium.

Oradea Zoo opened to the public in 1962 on the grounds of an early 19th-century park laid out by Count Lajos Rhédey, whose burial chapel still stands inside. Closed in 2007, it was enlarged to 7.5 hectares and reopened in 2013; it keeps more than 650 animals of over 140 species.

Oradea Fortress is a pentagonal bastion fortress on the site of the castle and cathedral founded by King Ladislaus I in the 11th century. Inside stands the Princely Palace, begun in 1619 for Prince Gabriel Bethlen; its wings house the Museum of the City of Oradea, with exhibitions on the city's churches, photography and the communist period.