Hategului Country Spring Trip

We took advantage of our Easter holiday and the extended weekend to take a great trip in Transilvania. Our main target Tara Hategului. The area is full of history and interesting places to visit. In our 3 day trip we didn't manage to see everything, but we saw I'd say the most relevant parts of it. Tara Hategului was a volcanic island in the Cretaceous Period, so it lasted in time as a bondage between the dinosaur period and human history.

We started from Bucharest to Sibiu as our "getting to" route. The plan was to go from Sibiu to Orastie where we could visit the old Dacian citadel of Sarmisegetuza Regia. A very long and tiering trip, but worth every second of it.

From Orastie to Sarmisegetuza Regie the road was a pain. It took us 2 hours to get there by car on a very bumpy countryside road. We were lucky that at least the area has all the visiting places marked,  otherwise we would have never gotten there...you feel as if you are going nowhere. This was the capital and the most important military, religious and political centre of the Dacians. Erected on top of a 1,200 meter high mountain, the fortress was the core of the strategic defensive system in the Orastie Mountins, comprising six citadels. Sarmizegetusa Regia was the capital of Dacia prior to the wars with the Roman Empire.

Sarmisegetuza Regia is from my point of view the best place we visited. The Dacian citadel stands tall. The area has very beautiful landscapes and if you have your eyes and mind open you realize that you are surrounded by history and beauty. Everything is build in circles, so it gives a feeling of union.

Around it there are two other important citadels, Blidaru and Costesti. We only visited Costesti as it was closer...to get to Blidaru you have to walk a bit though the forest and we were running a bit of of time and were a bit lazy and tired from the road.

Next stop - Hateg our sleeping hub, where we stayed a super beautiful motel - Art Motel (http://www.rohotels.ro/hoteluri-hateg/hotel-art-motel). 

We ended the day with a beautiful rainbow. 

Though we didn't have the best evening in the world, we woke up the next day ready for another trip.

The plan was simple - Hunedoara (Hunyad Castle) - Sanmaria Orlea (Dinosaur Park) - Sarmisegetuza (Ulpia Traiana Augusta) - Retezat National Park (Gura Apelor Dam).

Hunayd Castle - Castelul Corvinestilor - was finished in 1315 and in 1316 King was already established in the new castle, where he lived almost eight years. The castle is a beautiful piece of medieval architecture. It has been restored, but still you cannot visit all the rooms. Also, the castle just like many castles in Romania is empty - no furniture left. There are many legends related to this place as well as John the Hunyad and their house's symbol - a crow with a golden ring in its peak. A much better place to visit than Bran Castle - Dracula's Castle.

Unfortunately the Communist period destroyed the landscape completely. Ceusescu, who showed no respect to history what so ever, built a large industrial park just in front of the castle that even now stands tall like a sad monument of pain. Luckily the castle is so beautiful that once you turn around you forget about everything.

Curiosity pushed me to visit the dinosaur park. Since Hategului Country is such an old piece of land, in the area they discovered the remains of small dinosaurs. The area is promoted as being a park so I my passion for dinosaurs pushed me to go there. The park is on the way from Hateg to Sanmaria Orlea. What you should find here is the valley of the dinosaurs, the hill of the dinosaurs, the hills of granite and a traditional old village. Yes...ahm....there was nothing there, just a beautiful landscape. Still on our way we went through this really Irish area...green hills, road surrounded by trees...Also we saw a different type of castles - gypsy "houses"

And here is the Dinosaur Park, don't get me wrong I was not expecting Jurassic Park, especially since it is from the Cretaceous period...but I was kinnda the only dinosaur there. I'm really happy we went though, the landscape was spectacular.

Fairly disappointed we turned back with our minds to Ulpia Traiana Augusta. A lot of churches and holy places to visit on this way, but the only interesting ones I found where a medieval church and and evangelistic one.

Ulpia Traiana Augusta is a waste of time. I don't have anything against the Romans, but it's utterly boring. The place seams to be more popular though. It's really easy to get there, they also have a place to eat (bad food, bad bad bad music...) The citadel is bigger than Regia, but it has nothing to see except for a pile of stones in the form of buildings and temples.

Last stop - Gura Apelor Dam. This is the biggest mountain rock built (arocamente) dam in Europe. Retezat National Park is perfection....our road there was bumpy due to rocks fallen from the mountain in the middle of the road, but it was simply beautiful. I obviously found a stray dog even there...a beautiful wolf who ate all my biscuits.

The trip was a real success when it comes to the places we visited. I would do it 100 times again and wish we had better roads to get from one place to the other faster. Somehow I am grateful that tourism in Romania is poorly promoted. These places would have not been the same if we where not, almost, the only visitors there. The weather was on our side, it was always raining when we got into the car, but very warm and sunny when we got out.

My plan of visiting Romania more seams to be working out well. In the past years I've seen really beautiful places I did not know of and were so close to me.

We ended the trip with a return road through Jiului Valley. The strong river pierces through the mountains like a needle. It creates a spectacular view as it streams down. Too bad that from place to place you could see hundreds of plastic bottles floating around forming islands....too bad.

Our last stop was Targu Jiu, the town of the famous Brancusi. The park was very crowded so we barely managed to take a couple of photos.

Holy Land - North of Israel & Jerusalem

My weekend in Israel was full of history and culture. We had a great guide who didn't focus as much on the religious part of the stories, but also on the political issues. She had a joke for each story - religious or not. The land bears the signs of the passing of time. History has been very generous with this territory and there is really a lot to learn. The green lands that I saw now used to be nothing by desert. With a great water system built by the Americans, Israel has water all over the country from only one source - the Jordan. Where there wasn't desert, there were swamps and this is where you find many eucalyptus trees, especially brought from Australia. The country has a great infrastructure. Probably the best roads I've seen so far.

A strange observation I made is that they have mostly white cars. White or dark blue and grey. You rarely see a red car, but no yellow, green, baby blue...etc.

First day - North of Israel
I can't even remember everything we visited...there were so many churches and holy places...just too much for me. The only thing that struck me was the origin of the word Armageddon which comes from Maggidon - some hills in the North of Israel that have been a continuos battle field for many years since ancient time.

The country is also divided between Jewish towns and Arab towns. They each live in their own world and interact only little on common holidays. You can certainly see and feel the differences...Palestine is still there.

Second day - Jerusalem

This city was tiering. It's a mix of Orthodox Jews and Arabs. Busy, full of tourists and very noisy. You do have a feeling of warmth while visiting the Mountain of Olives or the Western Wall, but it doesn't last long because the next group of tourists is pushing you out :) 

These are the places we will all see when the Savior will come. This is the gate through which we will pass for our judgment :D Some already have front row seats, the hills around the gate and the golden dome are full of graves. It's like a large open cemetery in the middle of a city.

The Meeting
The meeting was great! We had a good time together...I had my own presentations which went out well and a successful client event.

I ate so much...Israel has great food and my love for spicy food has been satisfied.

Hopefully more to come...next year should be Cape Town...sounds good I'd say.

Holy Land - Tel Aviv & Jaffa

Who would have thought about Israel...another year, another IESF Regional Meeting and another pin on my personal world map.

The trip is fine so far. We flew with I think, the oldest plane Tarom had, with a large group of Christians (Orthodox). They were with their priest and their nun traveling to the holly places before Easter. I was so lucky to sit just behind the priest. Adelina and I were convinced that no matter how old that plane would have been with a priest in front nothing could have happened or at last we would end up in Heaven for sure. 

It's not as easy to get into Israel, especially if you are a young girl with light hair. As you don't need a visa we didn't bother our heads with invitations and other official stuff, but it turned out that such a paper would have served us well. First a girl stopped and interrogated us just as we got off the plane" "Where are you going?" "Why?" "With who?"...etc etc...very in depth questions, by the way. As if that wasn't enough we got even more questions at passport control...so it took a while until we were actually in Tel Aviv.

The Taxi driver ripped us off of course, but when you come from a country where this is normal...it doesn't bother you, you expect it.

Tel Aviv is different. Sunny weather, beautiful beach...but a city which makes you feel as if you are nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It's a complex mix of American/ European/ Arabic infrastructure and architecture. On one road you feel like in Miami, then you feel like in Milan and a few streets away like in Greece. The city is actually being rebuild. They are "restoring"...which means that they practically take down the whole building but a wall, and then build something new :)

Though the state is strongly militarized you don't feel that on the street, or you somehow expect it. They check you every time you enter the hotel, there are planes and helicopters going back and forth, but I only saw armed police men once. You don't feel any threat...By the way, the military is mandatory here. After highschool girls go for 2 years and boys for 3. After that, boys have to go in every year for one month. They don't serve the government, they serve the nation (that's what they say). So basically everyone here knows how to shoot a gun.

The people are also a weird mix. I can't tell a certain common physical trait they have. They look Jewish indeed, but I can't say why. Some of them have a very light - gingerish figure and others are a bit darker. There are no blondes here for sure, but otherwise...Still, I do identify them with the people in this region. They don't look European or American...

I missed staying in this nice hotels and I was so looking forward to sleeping in these super mega soft beds...We have a great view also :D

On our first day, just before the IESF dinner, we got to travel around bit. First we went to Dror's office where we learned about this strange tradition. People here are strongly connected by their religion and their religion becomes their law. For example it a state law that restaurants are not allowed to serve meat and diary at the same time. So if you have diary in your restaurant, there will be no meat for sure (except fish). ***though, there's no state law on Kosher in restaurants regarding dairy and meat - even McDonald's serve cheeseburgers. Many restaurants, however, do have Kosher certificates issued by the rabbinic authorities, after the owners had voluntarily applied for them.

Another thing is that they have at the entrance of each door a wooden thing which inside has a scripture from the Bible which protects the room you enter.

I can't say that we visited Tel Aviv from Dror's car, because we didn't really have time to see everything. The only thing we actually visited in Tel Aviv is the old train station and Jaffa...a placed filled with catttsss (all females were neutered by the way :) beautiful place...