Ticău

Ticău is the hillside of old houses above the centre, an area tourists miss almost systematically — although it holds one of the most important memorial houses in Romania.

What you see

Ion Creangă's Bojdeuca is a two-room cottage where the writer lived while he was a schoolteacher in Iași and where he wrote most of his work. In 1918 it became the first memorial house in Romania.

The contrast with the Palace of Culture down in the valley is everything you need to know about this city: a building with 298 rooms and a cottage with two, and the second became a museum first. It is a fifteen-minute visit that says more than many large museums.

What it's like, practically

It is a quiet residential area, with houses and narrow streets and almost no traffic. The climb from the centre is real — Ticău is on a hill, like Copou — but shorter.

It has no tourist infrastructure: two restaurants listed, no hotels. You visit it; you do not stay in it.

Getting there

Ticău lies north-east of the centre, on the hill. The climb is shorter than the one to Copou, but it exists. Public transport gets you nearby, then it is a few minutes on foot uphill — check the lines on the transport page.

It is worth pairing with something else: on its own, Ticău is a half-hour visit. It works best on the way down from Copou, as the last stop before returning to the centre.

Who it suits

Anyone who has already seen the centre and wants the literary side of the city. The logical combination is with Copou: walk down from the Vasile Pogor Museum, where Junimea met, towards the Bojdeuca, and in one afternoon you have the entire sentimental map of nineteenth-century Romanian literature.

See also notable figures of Iași for the full memorial-house route, and culture and identity in Iași for context.