It's time to cross the Danube river on the New Europe Bridge to head to neighboring Romania and the next point on our route - the Marincu Palace – in Calafat.

Marincu Palace is an extremely beautiful building, an architectural monument of local interest, in the centre of Calafat, Romania, which houses the Art and Ethnography Museum. The building was built between 1904 and 1907 by Ștefan Marincu, who came from a wealthy family and was a good financier, who founded the Bank of Calafat in 1901, was engaged in trade and rent, became a member of the Trade Chamber in Craiova and Mayor of Calafat in the period 1911-1914. The palace was built in memory of his daughter, Marioara Marincu, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 13. As an architectural style, the palace belongs to French neoclassicism with baroque and rococo accents and with influences of Romanian architecture from the early twentieth century. It stands out with its impressive size, but also with the finesse of the details.

In 1914, before his death, Ștefan Marincu donated the palace to the Calafat municipality, making it mandatory for the building to have a girls' school in memory of his daughter. Over the years, the building has housed other administrative and educational institutions - kindergarten, high school, various services of the District People's Council of Calafat and others. The Museum of Arts and Ethnography has been operating in this building since 1967.

The museum includes permanent exhibitions of works of art in the sections of painting, graphics and sculpture, ethnographic exposition, section with the history of Calafat and archeology. Among the works of contemporary Romanian art on display at the museum are paintings by Nicolae Grigorescu, Henri Catargi, Theodor Pallady, Constantin Blendea and sculptures by Ion Irimescu, Nicu Enea, George Dimetrescu Mireia, Ilie Berindei, Minea Grigore and Crişan Nicolae. The Museum of Arts and Ethnography has over 1000 exhibits in its ethnographic section. The collection includes clothes, carpets, ceramics, tools, household items and more. In September 2012, a section on the history of Calafat was opened, with the important support of the Florenza family and Ilie Marincu, descendants of the family that founded this palace.

Among the most valuable exhibits we offer to your attention are:

• Sculpture "Captain Urzicanu" by Ilie Berindei;
• "Pioneer" - bronze sculpture by Crişan Nicolae;
• "Pasoptists" (1973) painting by Constantin Blendea
• "Katinka" and "Torso" sculptures by Minea Grigore
• "The Battery of Calafat" (1977) painting by Mihail Trifan.