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From the pavement

Short pieces about single things in the city — a row of plaques, a set of lamps, a fried breakfast. No round-ups, no listicles.

December 20 December The night the square filled Reading the plaques on Piața Victoriei one by one, in the order they happened, on the anniversary — while the Christmas market runs twenty metres away. Read it →

History First light, 1884 How 731 lamps put a provincial Habsburg city ahead of Vienna, and which streets still carry the original posts. 12 November Food Langoși at Piața 700 Breakfast for four lei, standing up, before nine — and why the queue is always at the third stall. 3 September River Forty minutes on the Bega The public waterbus, end to end, with a notebook. Six stops, nine bridges, one heron. 18 June Quarters The roses of Elisabetin A park planted in 1891, flattened twice, replanted by hand — and the volunteers who still do the pruning. 2 May History The night the square filled In December 1989, a small protest in Elisabetin grew into a citywide uprising that declared Timișoara the first free city in Romania.