Armed with the warmest scarves ever created, even warmer than a wink from George Clooney across a crowded room (blatant plagiarism and I don’t care. A line that great needs to be repeated) we were ready to face the brisk October morning. Our first stop was the second largest outdoor ethnographic museum in Europe which is just about 10 minutes outside of town. Its usually closed on Mondays and was open just for our tour group, so we couldn’t go inside any of the houses, but we were able to walk around and see all of the buildings from the outside. I am usually not a fan of ethnographic villages because usually they feel contrived and really hokey, but I quite enjoyed this one. Maybe it was the beautiful fall weather, maybe it was just the magic of Romania, maybe it was the 5,000 steps I got. Just think how many steps I would have gotten if we had time to see the whole park. There are over 300 buildings from all over Romania that have been disassembled and reconstructed in a wooded park with a large pond. Still no bear sightings though, but there were a lot of uncooperative ducks.

Our next stop was Alba Iluila, a city here in Transylvania that dates back over 1,000 years. Our guide told us all about the history and importance of this town, but of course I can’t remember it now, and the wikipedia information is not super interesting. It is a fortified city– built in the shape of a star, because they thought that a star shaped citadel would be easier to defend. The star shape only dates back to the 1700s when they were worried about Turkish invasion. They also have some Roman Ruins inside the citadel! Everyone should know by now that thetwinsontour love Roman Ruins! Alas, it was just a small portion of a cobblestone road, but it was a Roman road. This citadel is a complete juxtaposition of time periods. So, we can stand inside a centuries old fortification and look out onto Soviet era communist apartment buildings. So, this is the fascinating part– in 1987, an architect decided that one of these buildings needed to be separated and a road put between the 2 halves. I am not sure how tall these apartments were, maybe 10 stories or so, but they were big. So, as part of the propaganda, they decided the residents didn’t need to empty their apartments first. They just separated 2 fully furnished buildings and moved them across the street using rails. I find this completely fascinating! I am still trying to wrap my brain around it too. From the front it looks like 2 large apartment blocks of varying heights, but from the back you can tell that they are distinct buildings that have just been built (or pushed) next to each other.

After that we went to Calnic fortified church. What is a fortified church you ask? Well that’s a good question. It’s a church with ramparts built around it. This one had a wine cellar with giant wine barrels (its important to save the wine from marauding invaders I guess), a bell tower, and a bacon tower where the parishioners kept their bacon (it’s even more important to protect the bacon!). Also in the walls are areas where each parishioner could store some provisions. We were able to climb up to the bell tower, but the bacon tower was closed much to my disappointment. Despite the lack of bacon, this little place was amazing. It’s in a small town in the Transylvanian countryside and absolutely gorgeous.

I have not described our meals enough, and you know my mother worries that we don’t eat enough when we travel. Rather than describe the delicious candy bars that I have scarfed down, I shall tell you about our dinner. We went to the small town of Sibiel for dinner. Sibiel happens to be located next to the stork capital of Europe. Its October, so they have already flown the coop back to Africa. However we did see their giant nests (out the bus window) on the top of every light pole. For some reason, we got off the bus and into horse drawn wagons, or as our guide calls them, boogies (buggy), to go the last kilometer or so to Sibiel. I guess it was for the rustic charm, but I felt sorry for the horse because I have eaten a lot of chocolate bars. Our dinner was in a private residence, but it is set up like a restaurant with a large dining area. Apparently after the fall of communism, this town quickly marketed itself as an agro-tourism destination which means a lot of people opened their homes as bed and breakfasts and let people live the farm life and milk cows! If we had known about this sooner, this trip probably would have turned out a lot different.

Anyways, dinner started with a shot of plumb brandy which may be the most vile local moonshine I have ever drank. We had a plate of appetizers with the prize for most interesting (disgusting) going to the bits of pork lard. Its literally just slimy, slightly gelatinous, bacon flavored fat. We also had homemade wine, soup, polenta, and cabbage rolls which were all quite tasty.

And that sums up day 4 in a very large nutshell.

Love,

thetwinsontour