Romania – West (Timişoara, Arad, Hunedoara, Caraş-Severin) May 29 – 2019
Arsenal Park Transilvania, Orăştie. This theme park has a distinctly military flavor (archery, archery tag, military instruction, air gun shooting, military transport vehicles), adventure activities (climbing wall, skywalk, zip-line, powerfan jump, hang gliding, escape room, paintball) and simple activities that are more children oriented (bicycle riding, minigolf, skate park, go carts, electric scooters, treasure hunt, golf cars). Each activity has a different price from 10-80 Lei.
DACIAN FORTRESSES of the ORASTIE MOUNTAINS. This World Heritage Site is comprised of 6 fortresses in the NW of the Orastie mountains.
1. Samizegtusa. The capital of the Dazien kingdom. 2. Costesti – Cetatuie. 3. Costesti-Blidaru. Accessible by a 2km hiking trail that leaves from the intersection where turn off to Cetaluie (signed) 4. Banta 5. Căpâlna. This was a 21km drive each way starting on a road about 4kms from Sebes 6. Lurcane Piatra Rosie.
History of the Dacian Empire and Dacia. Dacians dominated the lands along the southern Carpathian Mountains in the 1st century BC. Burebista was the first Dacian ruler to unite the local tribes. He also conquered the Greek colonies in Dobruja and the neighboring peoples as far as the Middle Danube and the Balkan Mountains between around 55 and 44 BC. After Burebista was murdered in 44 BC, his empire collapsed. The Romans reached Dacia during Burebista’s reign and conquered Dobruja in 46 AD.
Dacia was again united under Decebalus around 85. He resisted the Romans for decades, but the Roman army annihilated his troops in 106. Emperor Trajan transformed Banat, Oltenia and the greater part of Transylvania into the new Roman province of Dacia, but Dacian, Germanic and Sarmatian tribes continued to dominate the lands along the Roman frontiers. The Romans pursued an organized colonization policy and the provincials enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity in the 2nd century. Scholars accepting the Daco-Roman continuity theory—one of the main theories about the origin of the Romanians—say that the cohabitation of the native Dacians and the Roman colonists in Roman Dacia was the first phase of the Romanians’ ethnogenesis.
The Carpians, Goths and other neighboring tribes made regular raids against Dacia from the 210s. The Romans could not resist and Emperor Aurelian ordered the evacuation of the province Dacia Trajana in 271. Scholars supporting the continuity theory are convinced that most Latin-speaking commoners stayed behind when the army and civil administration was withdrawn.
Costesti Cetaluie. This is the site I visited as it involved the least driving to get to. Leave the highway and drive for 1km on a potholed dirt road. Then turn left onto a steep, gravel, water eroded road and drive 2kms up the mountain. Park and walk up the steep, muddy path. First encounter some 1m-high foundation walls of the lower bastion. Then climb up some original stone stairs to the “fort” facing south: 12 X 12m, the rammed earth/yellow stone walls are 2m thick and enclose a small grassy area. Then climb up over the flat plateau at the top of the mountain and descend to the “fort” facing north: 20 X 12m with the same thick walls. All the walls are covered by a sheet metal roof.
There were two lovely lizards on the stairs – bright green with turquoise throats and lower faces. These were easily the highlight of the Dacian fortress. The real only value in coming here is to see the remote location obviously thought to be vital to the Dacians. There are no views as trees block it. Free
L’église de Densus (St Nicolae Church). A tentative WHS (01/03/1991), this was a long drive to see this ancient church. Mostly stone, it has many huge blocks in its foundations and 4 columns acting as buttresses. The tiny wood door dated 1967 was locked!!! Apparently it is only open for about an hour every day, usually in the mornings at 8-9. The priest lives below but I didn’t bother. Free
HUNEDOARA
Corvins’ Castle (Castelul Corvinilor), Hunedoara. This fairytale looking castle has four round towers with steep roofs. The original castle was built from 1440-44 by Ioan Hunedoara, the governor of Hungary. Rennaissance additions were made by Matia Corvin, the King of Hungary (1458-90) and by Gabliel Bethlen, the prince of Transylvania (17th century). After a fire in 1854, major restoration was needed.
Cross a giant wood bridge over the creek below. The Tower (1450-58) had several gruesome torture stories and a jail. The Knight’s Hall is the grandest room and has all the small turrets on its exterior. This is 20kms from the funicular. 30 Lie, 15 reduced
DEVA
Deva Funicular (Telecabina Deva Castle). Ascending 184m, this funicular unusually has two grades becoming very steep at the top. The castle has 3 sets of walls, the outer is obviously reconstructed. The old fort is mostly ruins, but the views are great. 20 Lei, 10 reduced
Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization. This museum is a real hodge-podge of material, more typical of a municipal museum. There was an interesting exhibit on camera imaging from planes and other techniques to find archaeological sites. The museums main exhibits are: natural history (stuffed animals, fossils, plastic dinosaurs, butterflies), WW I, formal womens’ clothing, some bad modern art, several hoards discovered in the 50s to 70s mostly of coins and then a confusing exhibit on the Dacians and Romans, from which I gleaned little information. 20 Lei, 4 reduced
Săvârșin Castle, Săvârșin. In the middle of the town, this large yellow manor house sits in the middle of a lovely park. It is private and never open to the public.
To see this, I drove from Deva on the highway to Arad instead of the 4-lane expressway with a speed limit of 130kms/hr to Timisoara. The busy 2-lane road passes through a hundred villages each with a 50km/hr speed limit – and I got a €60 speeding ticket. Then to get back to the good highway to Timisoara, it was 20kms of rough patched pavement before I reached the expressway. What a waste of time!
TIMISOARA
Timișoara Tram. The old fashioned, multi-coloured trams run on tracks that line many streets, part of the road with pull offs in the centers as stops. 200 Lie/ride
Planetariul Universității de Vest din Timișoara. Google Maps had the right building but that is when the adventure started. I spent almost an hour trying to find the planetarium and probably walked by it more than once, because it is not marked. I must have asked 10 people directions, only a few seemed certain and some of them put it in another completely different building across the river. I returned to reception who sent me to room 236, the Department of Mathematics. The nice lady wondered how I had heard of the planetarium as it wasn’t public. It was run by one professor in his spare time giving basic astronomy to university students and groups of school children, only by appointment. The planetarium is on the 2nd floor (in Canada the 3rd) in the Department of Physics. It is a small room and a simple projector is used to show pictures on the flat ceiling. She tried phoning him for 10 minutes and couldn’t reach him. Oh well. Free
If you really want to go, this is his email address: marc.frincu@e-uvt.ro. His available hours are Monday 2-4, Wed 10-12 and Thur 9-11, but I wouldn’t bother.
Communist Consumers Museum. This may be the most unusual museum anywhere. Enter via the bar at the back (the door announcing the museum was barred by a big stick). The bartender directed me downstairs to the tiny basement “touch anything you want, take photos”. The “museum” consists of a narrow corridor and a tiny side room crammed with momentos donated by the community from the communist era: ornaments, records, books, old radios and TVs, toys, knick-knacks, a vacuum cleaner, furniture, games, suitcases (anything you might have in your home and don’t want any more). The miniature kitchen, beside the expected dishes and a tiny stove has 12 kinds of food grinders fixed onto the tiny table. Nothing is labeled (nor needs to be) and frankly one could take anything they wanted and nobody would miss it. Parking was impossible on the tiny side street. Free
Szechenyi Palace. Kitty-corner from the church is this green 4-story baroque building. Stores are on the ground floor and apartments (some with lovely balconies) occupy the rest. Two domes are on each end. It looks a little run-down and can’t be entered. Free
Walk down the wide pedestrian street with, lawns flowers and a fountain in the middle and lined by some grand old buildings (with chipped bits and in need of paint) and turn right at the end to this “castle”.
Hunyade Castle (Museum of Banat). The original castle built by Hungarian King Charles Robert of Anjou (with archaeological traces in the courtyard) dates from 1307-1315 and served as a royal residence from 1315-23. Rebuilt several times in the 15th century by John Hunyadi, it was re-fortified in 1551 and badly damaged in sieges in 1551, 1552, 1716 and 1849. Its present romantic style dates from 1856.
Two-storied with a stone and brick façade and a crenellated roofline, it is now abandoned and an empty “wreck” inside (you can look in through some broken windows). Inside the front portal is a sign for the Museum of Banat with a list of exhibits: Prehistorie, Daco-Roman, Historie Moderna, Flora and Fauna, Geologice and Anthropologice, and Edificiul Neolitic – all the usual stuff in every regional museum in Europe. Free
Timișoara Orthodox Cathedral (Sight). This red/yellow brick cathedral’s steep roofs (6 small towers, the front tower and one large central tower over the dome) are decorated with fantastic coloured tiles and topped by brass globes and crosses. Inside the sidewalls, small aisles on each side, and arches have floral decorations and carved stucco. Frescoes cover the apse, dome, around the windows and narthex. The immense iconoclast is intricate gilt with 48 icons; two large icons in gilt frames flank the altar. The floor is nice geometrics. The relics of St Joseph (1469-1558) are here and a small sign relates the many miracles he performed including stopping a fire that was burning down the entire town. There were an unusual number of people praying on their knees and the usual kissing, crossing and bowing. It was quite dim inside. Free
Timișoara Zoological Garden. This was a small, depressing with tired pens, a lot of mud and some without signs (or Romanian only) – Shetland ponies, baboon, mara (an Argentinian rodent I hadn’t seen before), bears, deer, guanaco, peacocks, turkeys, tapir (they were using a roto router to drain the foul water in the pen), wallaby, meercat, wild cat – I think I named them all. 5 Lei
Banat Village Museum (Museum of Banat?). This open-air museum has many buildings relocated from around the Banat area: log or plastered and thatched, shake or tiled roofs, all full of quaint period furniture in bedrooms and kitchens: traditional costumes, artifacts (bedding, tablecloths, curtains, dishes, grinding wheels, spinning wheels, looms, cradles and embroidered wall hangings. One section has more modern ethnic houses: German, Hungarian, Serbian and Romanian (I would not have known this but a woman who worked there explained some things in her very broken English) Many have sheds with farm equipment and wagons. There are no labels of the dates or origin of any of the buildings. Follow the circular path through lovely mature trees. At the end were a large stage, small museum, 2 churches and a one-room school. 500 Lei
Apparently on June 2, there was to be a large festival here with dancing, ethnic dress and music.
Timișoara Tram. The old fashioned, multi-coloured trams run on tracks that line many streets, part of the road with pull offs in the centers as stops. 200 Lie/ride
ARAD
Arad is just east of the border with Hungary. There is one grand building in Arad, the Philarmonic Hall built in 1911-13 with 6 imposing columns and gables. Inside is a lot of marble decoration and a concert hall. Arad trams run on ugly railways in the middle of many streets.
Arad Museum Complex. Only in Romanian, this is museum is in the back and lower part of the concert hall. Start with natural history – a lot of stuffed animals on pegs and no dioramas. A cave with many spelioforms (that could be real?) is off to the side. A very long dugout is displayed with some information (in English) about dugout canoes but nothing about this one. Go up 2 floors to the history museum. All the storyboards are in Romanian but the labels are English. It starts at WW I and works back. Not very worthwhile. But the price was right. 4 Lei
The only way for me to continue was to the north east along the border with Hungary, as the only other way was to Savarsin (and I certainly did not want to return there). It was 120kms to Oradea over very flat terrain. The road was very good, straight, had few towns but the heavy traffic especially all the big trucks made it slow going
The trip continues in Romania North West