Sarmizegetusa Regia


Went on a trip to visit the ancient monuments of old Dacia, or what is left of them anyway.
This was a round trip, leaving from Bucharest in a lovely Friday in September, and returning home Monday evening.

We arrived at Gradistea Muntelui, the small village that is practically the end of the road towards Sarmizegetusa somewhere in the evening, and just had time to quickly search for a place to stay over night. We were going to visit the place in the morning, as we heard that there are ~20 km through the mountains, and a couple more on foot.

The second day we had some breakfast and drove to the hidden place. We
found some nice people on our way, and we finally arrived at the point
where we needed to leave the cars and climb. We did not find any bears
on the way there, but I did find some veery yummy blackberry :)

When we finally arrived, we first saw the plate with the small description, and the Unesco Wold Heritage symbol. The ancient fortress, that is there for almost 2000 years, still has the walls and gates (4 of them) in the upper part of the place.

As the trees were making space for a plateau, the sacred sanctuaries unfolded below our eyes. Though our ancestors lived a very long time ago, their paved road is still there, and also their draining system. Though unproved, some say that there is still a part of it undiscovered, as the water never remains on the plateau - it is always somehow drained quickly by the earth.

The big round sanctuary resembles a lot with others (Stonehenge maybe?), the rocks surrounding it being still intact (6 + 1 lowered = 7, the sacred number). The Solar disk, or the night sky mirror are a couple more of the Dacia advanced tools that were used before the Romans even got here.

Unfortunately, though Sarmizegetusa Regia is recognized as a very important place and it is visited by Romanians each year, there seems that for an unknown reason the archeologic research has stopped investigating these parts of Romania long ago, and little interest is manifested to understand more. There seems to be only 17 pages written on the subject since 1989. And that says a lot.

Do we need to learn more abot Sarmizegetusa? Yes. Are we going to found out? Not that likely, knowing how much importance our politicians pay to culture and development.


The Dacian Fortress of Costesti (Orastioara)


After seeing Sarmizegetusa at Gradistea, we asked around and found out that there are a few other ancient Dacian fortresses in the same area. Among those, we went at Costesti.

What puzzled me was that even though it was Saturday, a weekend sunny day just perfect for sightseeing, the fortress seemed deserted not only by our ancestors, but even by the visitors.

The fortress at Costesti is up on the hill near the village, a strategic position as the Dacian tower could have a large view over the whole valley. Many of the stones are there, and you could easily see shapes of the rooms, towers, and stairs. Again, it was very difficult to learn more than we found out from the locals, and even now, searching the web, little towards nothing is there. Such a pity!


The Hunyad Castle (Castelul Huniazilor)


The Hunyad Castle is the best preserved medieval castle in Romania. After being sad with the state of Sarmizegetusa, the Hunyad Castle uplifted our spirit a little bit, as it partialy was in work and we could see the restoration results in some towers.

A few words about the castle: it was built in the XIV th Century and it was a gift from the Prince Sigismund of Luxembourg to Iancu de Hunodoara's father. After he passed away, his son, Iancu, modernized the castle and fortified it between 1440-1453. It was then owned by Matei Corvin, the son of Iancu, who futher did some modifications to it (he buils a new wing in the Renaissance style -
loggia with the picture illustrating aspects from the noble life,
especially the legend of the raven).

Unfortunately for it, nowadays it is rather far from Bucharest and it doesn't have a very commercial story attached (like Count Dracula's) and therefore it is visited less than Bran Castle, even though it is more impressive. But perhaps this is a good thing.


Orsova, the Danube & The Iron Gates (Portile de Fier)


After seeing many beautiful places in the mountains, we decided to
return home from the south of Romania, and see Orsova and the Danube.
Also, the Iron Gates, the biggest power station in Romania projected
and operated with our Bulgarian neighbors.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the water was clear and reflected the rays of light - in one word, lovely! We took some pics, and admired the Danube and the city from the other shore. And somehow, I remembered Budapest, and how they had the Danube running through the middle of the city, and wished Bucharest had that too. The restaurants on the water, the breeze during the summer, the bridges and long walks on the shores... of well...