Audioguides Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca carries at least three names and three souls. To German settlers who built it in the 13th century it was Klausenburg; to Hungarians who made it a Transylvanian capital it was Kolozsvar; to Romanians it is Cluj. Nicolae Ceaușescu added 'Napoca' to the name in 1974 as an assertion of ancient Dacian-Roman roots, but the medieval core tells the older story: the 15th-century Saint Michael's Church on Unirii Square, one of the finest Gothic structures in Romania, stands where the city's competing histories converge.

The Babes-Bolyai University, formed in 1959 from the merger of Romanian and Hungarian universities, is now the largest in Romania.

Teaching still happens in both languages, alongside German, and the 80,000-student population gives Cluj-Napoca an energy that spills out onto the cafe terraces around Piata Unirii on warm evenings. The city has become one of the most important technology and startup hubs in Central Europe without losing the sense that it is first a place for living well.