Tag Archives: Transylvania

A beautiful and historic region of Romania

Places

First snow on the Transalpina Road

Transalpina is the highest road in Romania. It’s also quite possibly its most picturesque; it certainly offers the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in Romania so far. It connects Transilvania to Oltenia, and the official length of the entire road is 148 km from Novaci to Sebes, although only a stretch of 30-40 km travels atop the Parang Mountains (part of the Carpathians), reaching an altitude of 2145 meters at its highest point.

The road was built by the Romans, as they traveled north toward Sarmisegetusa and then used by them as they carted off thousands of tons of gold and silver from Dacia’s rich mines. (You might want to read through this post for the background info.)

According to this website, the road was paved with rocks by King Carol I in the 1930s, maintained by the Nazis during WWII, then forgotten. Work to repave its entire length began in 2009 and it still goes on, though large portions of the road, including its most beautiful sections, are now ready to be used.

We visited Transalpina twice this year, most recently during this past weekend, and we were awestruck by the beauty of the vistas you can see as you travel along its length. We had the good fortune to drive through right after first snow had fallen on the peaks, draping them in a light blanket of pure white snow. Moreover, we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset that colored everything in sight in a golden orange hue. It was heavenly.

We’d have loved to spend more time atop the mountains but night was falling quickly, the temperature was dropping, and we had hundreds of “miles to go” before we could sleep, to paraphrase Robert Frost.

We drove on, descending into the valley below and into thick fog, then wound our way through the mountains toward Sibiu, passing through such interesting places as Jina and Poiana Sibiului.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos from the trip.

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Romania Through Their Eyes

Romania Through Their Eyes – Paul Hemmerth

This (long-awaited) episode presents the story of Paul Hemmerth, a Saxon born and raised in Romania during Ceausescu’s regime, who emigrated to Germany with his family at the age of fourteen, and who came back, drawn inexplicably by the land of his birth, to spend as much time as he can, each year, in the Romanian countryside.

Paul has a website called SlowlyPlanet, where he promotes slow tourism — travel at a leisurely pace, where you can take in all that you see. We filmed the episode at Casa Noah, his B&B in Richis (Reichesdorf), a village near Medias in Southern Transilvania.

Various occurrences (some of which couldn’t be helped) delayed the release of this episode. The hard drive on my editing computer died, and the repairs took almost a week. We also had some scheduled travel abroad, and that delayed us by another week. Further shooting for the episode introduced an extra day or so to the workflow, and the extra editing time introduced by the show’s new format added another three full days to the schedule.

I really do hope you’ll enjoy the new format. It’s a lot more work for me during the filming and especially during the editing, because of the two-camera setup, but it makes the show more engaging. Just to give you a quick idea of the data behind the show, the raw footage comes to about 44 GB of 1080p video. The final version of the episode is 4.3 GB of 720p video, and it’s about 55 minutes long.

Enjoy!

Episode RTTE-005-DE-HD
Released 6/19/11

There’s an official Facebook page for the show, so head on over and give it a Like if you want to be kept up to date with day-to-day details about the filming of RTTE. There’s also an official website for the show. Also don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, where the show’s episodes are posted, along with other interesting videos I create.

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Places

The fortified church in Curciu

Having already visited about twenty-five fortified churches in Southern Transilvania, I can say that one of the most underrated fortified churches in this region is the one in Curci. It’s sad that it’s so, because it is quite beautiful, both on the outside and on the inside. Its outside is truly picturesque and its inside, though white-washed, as is the case with most reformed churches, still shows remnants of its more colorful gothic past, with green men on its walls and ceilings and murals hidden beneath multiple coats of lime paint.

When we visited in the spring of 2011, its caretaker told me no one had visited it for over 5 months. How can anyone miss a church like this one? It is a truly beautiful place.

Curciu, also known as CriČ™ in Romanian, Kiertš or Kirtsch in German and KĂĽkĂĽllĹ‘kĹ‘rös, SzászkĹ‘rös, and KĹ‘rös in Hungarian (that’s right, three separate names), is an old Dacian settlement that was once called “La Fântâni”, itself built over yet older settlements from the bronze and iron age (source). It is first mentioned in written documents in 1332, and we also find it in court documents in 1337 alongside the name of a Saxon, Petro de Keuruz, who was called to testify as a witness about a legal matter. Curciu is also the place where my grandfather on my mother’s side was born.

The construction of the Saxon church was completed in the first half of the 14th century and took about 50 years. A lot of river rocks were used in its walls, as you’ll see in the photographs. The structure underwent modifications in 1425-1430, when the choir loft was added and again sometime in the 1450s. The church’s organ was built in 1844 by Wilhelm Maetz and it is still intact and undamaged to this day.

It isn’t a big church, but there are so many interesting architectural details that clearly point out a master at work. When you look at it as a whole (its chosen location, its perspective from all points of view, the way the architect chose to express the various functions of the building and the spaces used), it is a thing of wonder. It made me want to explore every little nook and cranny, and come back to it in the future.

If you’d like to visit this church, the village of Curciu is about 12 km away from Medias. You’ll need to take a paved country road toward the village of Darlos, pass through it, and follow the sign toward Curci.u Once there, you’ll need to ask around for the way to the caretaker’s house, who will then give you a personal tour of the domain.

Enjoy the photographs!

At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania
At the fortified Saxon church in Curciu, Transilvania, Romania

 

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Events, Places

First snowfall of 2010 in Medias

We woke up this morning with a puffy white blanket of snow covering the town. It was the first snowfall of the 2010-11 winter, and while it didn’t cover the ground, it did manage to stay on trees and rooftops, providing a welcome change in the scenery. (It’s been ugly weather most of this week, with cold, rainy days and mud everywhere.)

Continue reading →

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Places

Inside the fortifications of St. Margaret’s Church in Medias

Built in 1488, St. Margaret’s Church in Medias, Romania, is the town’s most recognizable landmark, thanks to its leaning clock tower, which can be seen from miles away. Its tower dates from 1460, and left its originally vertical position due to some soil shifting. The photos shown below are from the church’s interior courtyard, inside its fortified walls.

A primary school is housed in its courtyard. I attended that school as a child, and have fond memories of playing in the courtyard, underneath a chestnut tree which is still there today.

Three other landmarks are inside the courtyard:

  • The birthplace of S. L. Roth, one of the town’s most famous citizens
  • Turnul Funarilor (the Rope-Makers’ Tower)
  • A chapel with beautiful frescoes (located outside the church, inside one of the defense towers) — I plan to photograph it in the future, but you can see it from the outside in one of the photos below.

This is the main passageway that leads into the interior courtyard.

This is Turnul Funarilor (Rope-Makers’ Tower) and S. L. Roth’s place of birth (next to the tower).  Continue reading →

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