Tudor Arghezi Memorial House, Bucharest

1. Livada

At the indicated address, we go through the gate from the street and in front of us opens a real wide alley, inside the domain, which we have just entered.

On the left I admired livada of fruit trees dressed in a hibernal decor. At the end of the private access road is another gate and a notice: "Beat the drum! Then get in!"

On the left side of the wooden door was a metal U-profile to which was hung with a thick marzipan string a kind of large nail, with which to "beat the drum".

After this second gate we found ourselves in a generous courtyard, with a "mini-parc," which we would visit later.

2. House and hallway

On the left was an imposing two-storied house and next to it another building, I thought at first that it was an annex of some sort to the house.

A marble slab placed on main building informs us that "Tudor Arghezi lived and wrote in this house between 1926-1967".

On the ground floor we learn about the offer of the day and are invited to go up to the first floor where the visit begins. We don't miss the colored map with the rooms and a magnifying glass to identify the elements of the game I wrote about.

In entrance hall it was a piece of furniture like a desk, black with two chairs and an old stove.

From the hallway we enter through the first door on the left where three rooms open.

3. Office, medal room and bedroom

The leftmost and quite small was office, where next to the work table there was a library full of eyes, a bed where the poet rested, a painting, an icon.

In the middle of this space was room with medals. Here we find an even bigger library, some small framed paintings, but also a carved face and many medals.

In the far right hand a large room opens on the far right, bedroom. Several dolls were placed on the matrimonial bed. In the room the parquet floor was covered with small old rugs. In one corner an old white stove once warmed the bedroom. A few paintings, but not as many as in the other memorial houses visited recently, filled the empty white walls.

4. Veranda and dining room

We return to the hallway and continue forward following the arrows stuck on the floor. We go through veranda in which we admire two other libraries full of Arghezi's works.

Continue with interior staircase hallway. Access on this staircase is not allowed. But there is a new branch to 3 rooms.

Dining room was largely occupied by the middle table, as was customary in those days. Like the medal room and the bedroom, it overlooked the orchard in the front yard.

5. Lab and toy room

In bathroom there were exhibited many objects that today are no longer used in households, such as old kitchen sinks and all kinds of dishes.

I was surprised that the house housed what's called laboratory. In two showcases were exhibited documents and medals, and in the room were placed old lamps, an old travel trunk and other objects belonging to the Arghezi family.

The last room we visited was a nice, nostalgic one - room with toys. Here there was a wooden bed for the baby and toys like teddy bears, tutu, as I used to call them when I was a child, so different and modest compared to what the toy industry produces today.

At the end of the visit in the main house, the lady guide, who had the initiative of this game of looking for different objects, specific to those times and belonging to the Arghezi house, invited us to pull with the help of a handmade parrot two "parrot tickets". Our tickets contained verses by the poet. On my book it said:

We sat next to each other and his arm wrapped around me.

A luminis in me seemed to be extinguished.

I'm slowly walking towards me and I'm searching for my soul

Like the blind, to sing, the breaks on the flute.

"Tudor Arghezi - Autumn".

6. Court

I thought that was the whole visit, but I was wrong. Going down curte I discovered a cage, as there were many in Bucharest, but also his cage Zdreanta, the one with the tiled eyes, and the tomb of the poet's famous dog.

In the courtyard's park, as we called it somewhere earlier, there were the graves of the Arghezi's parents and the poet's sister.

Behind the house stretches another orchard and an area with beehives and a small vineyard. One on top of the other, a very large household, the one in which Tudor Arghezi lived and created for many years.

And that's not all! Although no one from the museum showed us the way, seeing some youngsters going into what I thought was a random outbuilding, I headed that way myself. In fact, this smaller house is also worth a visit because it houses "Potigrafu Martisor" printing house. In the printing house there are several equipments used for printing books in those times, Arghezi himself printing some of his publications, especially the famous "Parrot tickets". The walls of the huge brick-floored printing house are filled with framed scshite and caricatures, as well as several copies of newspaper publications.