At the begining of last week, I had to drop of some clients in Budapest Hungary, and based on my experience in the short time I was there (1.5 days), I decided to write here a few of my impressions.
First thing that you have to do, is actually exit Romania. For this we chose to cross the border at Valea lui Mihai in Satu Mare county. On the Romanian side I could not really tell if we were heading towards the border or if it was just a dirt country road for a few kilometers, but a bit further up I noticed they were actually redoing the road, this explaining the poor condition of the.

We reached the border quite easilly and after a brief check of our documents in about 3 minutes we were in Hungary, heading towards Debrecen.

Understanding your way around in Hungary is not hard at all, but they do seem to have a bit of shortage pointing towards the right way. One example is in Budapest where we saw a sign leading us to the highway, only once and briefly and we missed it, and than there was no sign for km, and we had to turn back.

The highways are very nicely mantained, with parkings and gas stations every 20 or so kilometers. Driving in Hungary was quite relaxing, despite what the guide book said, with the drivers being impatient and agressive.

After about 2 hours on the highway, we reached Budapest. I was nicely surprised at the beauty of this capital, with its lovely buildings and lively streets. Except a few streets and a bridge that were under construction, everything was just amazing. The people turned out to be quite friendly and helpful as well. One thing to explore is the Central Market. This is one crazy lovely place.

We left the car parked in the shade on some street on the Pesta part of Budapest, and started walking along the Danube river, taking photos of about everything that came into my sight. Unfortunately I was quite tired so I didn’t have enough power to wait until evening to take more photos of this stunishing city, but here are some of the photos I took, just to give you an insight.

Time is always a problem when I travel, this being one of those trips when I wished I could have stayed a few more days to explore everything. If you are into photography like I am, this is close to heaven.

After a few more shots of the Chain bridge we crossed to the Buda side of Budapest, and took the funicular, built since 1870, up to the Royal Castle. Here we walked around through the old city, until we reached to the Fishermans Bastion, which unfortunately is under restoration. Though, the wonderful view over the Peste side, with the Parliament Palace, was worth it going up there.

One thing we did have some trouble with in Hungary, was finding an exchange office, and understanding the restaurants. Most places we passed through, we could not tell which was a restaurant, because we do not know any hungarian. Unfortunately for us, we had to be limited to McDonalds and Burger King, which definitely would not be our first choices when it comes to food.

The next morning we drove to Hortobagy National Park, and enjoyed a bit of this flat land area with the Tisza river and its channels. We walked for about 10 km in the search of Cranes, which started their migration.

What I did notice at this park is how well organized they are.

Our next and final stop in Hungary was Beckesaba, right before the border. Here we stopped to eat, and since again, we had trouble with the language, the famous yellow M helped us. We also looked at the parking pay point for quite a while, pressing all the buttons until it released the parking ticket.

We crossed into Romania, without anyone asking us anything this time, not even checking our ID’s.

Well I hope you enjoyed this short visit into Hungary.

This Sunday I spent my day with Michael and Renee, 2 Jewish Americans, in search for their family roots. His great grandparents lived in Iasi, and as many others, Michael is interested in any detail that it could lead him to lost family members…

We began our day with a visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Iasi, where in the hope we could spot the names of his family anywhere on the graves we managed to spend about 3 hours there.

As we were about to leave, at the gate we took the time to chat to Olga, the administrator of the cemetery, and Michaela and Adriana, who were visiting the graves of their loved ones. As my clients got more curious about them, Michaela started telling us the story of her life, and the story of her loved ones, who have survived or not the Holocaust in the World War II.

As she never married, she was the last one alive in her family, and she almost cried as she filled us with details of her mother.

After a few more minutes, she started unpacking some lunch, inviting us all for a snack, showing she had so much love and care to offer. Even more, yesterday I received a phone call from her, letting me know some steps my clients could take in finding details about their family in the National Archives.

Adriana on the other hand, was intriguing to me, being quite young. I never noticed any antisemitism in the people I know in Iasi, but she confirmed the fact that some do make nasty remarks towards the Jews, which is quite sad. Hopefully we will get together and discuss this subject again.

Last but not least, misses Olga, the administrator of the cemetery, is a person who seems snappy all the time, but she does love attention. If there are things you want to know about the cemetery, ask her first, else she will be all upset like a small child. She has a very funny character.

After having a wonderful lunch at Bilius House and visiting a few more places of Jewish interest, we took the time to see other landmarks of Iasi, not related to the Jewish Heritage. One of these places is the Culture Palace, built along 2 decades at the beginning of 19 century.

The exterior of the building impresses everyone, and finally they have started restoring it. Some sources say it will take about 3 years to restore, but I think they are being optimistic. During the restoration the Palace is fully closed. Nonetheless, we managed to sneak inside…seems the guards have decided to make their own visiting tour of the Palace.

It is first time when I managed to take a few photos of the main hall, with its detailed decorations and stained glass windows.

This tour that they decided on their own to create, is a visit through the maze of halls leading to the Clock Tower. After almost getting lost through those rooms, we enter the attic where the heat will literally take your breath away, and you will have the sweat running ” in places you didn’t know it could run”, to quote Renee.

Once you reached the tower, the air is much more cool, and you can study the clock mechanism with its 6 bells, which every hour will sing the Union song.

From up here you can enjoy a panoramic view over Iasi city, and especially Stephen the Great boulevard.

As I am a curious person, I started questioning the guard, and it seems the tower is open only once a year, on Iasi days (14th October). I was just about to ask him if he was aware we were in July.

Now now, I will not complain…I finally managed to see the things I didn’t thought I could, and to be honest, I believe the guards would make much better managers for the Palace, than whom ever is in charge now.

We ended our day with a view from Bucium hill over the Iasi city.

Romania is a country where you can have a great range of adventures. It could be driving ATV’s through mountain routes, doing kayaking on some of the rivers, you could even do Bungee Jumping at Vidraru Lake, fly with a hot air balloon over the beautiful fields of this country…but….

I can bet with you that you did not thought you could have this type of adventure:

What you see in these photos is a brilliant idea we had, to try a new forestry road connecting Poiana Marului to Muntele Mic, about 40 km far from Caransebes, 3 weeks back or so.

Due to the rains that have been going on the past few days in the area, the side of the road collapsed under my front right wheel…and despite our efforts to get the car out we still needed a jeep to pull us out. I should mention here that our fuel tank was almost empty, so the situation could have been much worse.

As any photographer, I let my boyfriend to go find the jeep, and I remained to “guard” the car…and while laughing at the situation I wanted proof of what had happened.

The first thing that came to my mind when I evaluated the situation we were in…Thank god it is insured. Though I have to warn you…do not try this at home…or even better…just get a 4×4 if you want to give this sort of road a go…

Yet this was not enough to ruin our plans, so we continued our drive towards Timisoara…No…not on the same road, but the road we came in at first.

Somewhere near Buzias city, we managed to enjoy this beautiful peaceful sunset…as if nothing happened.

Now I hope these photos did not scare you, and you will still use our services.

PS: I am looking at options in aquiring a 4×4.

Yesterday I took off from Iasi with my destination Tulcea, where my boyfriend had to attend a course. The itinerary passed through Vaslui - Tecuci - Galati - Isaccea  to finally reach Tulcea. After crossing the ferry over the Danube at Galati, in about 10-15 km we saw a sign for Dinogetia Fortress. We took the dirt road that the sign was pointing to (later we found out that the sign was put there by the fortress guard and not by any officials), and drove on the side of a pond until we reached Dinogetia.

Dinogetia is a roman-byzantine fortress located on the side of the Danube, where Siret and Prut meet, dating back to the Dacian times, its name being preserved by the Romans and Byzantines.

Once we reached the fortress we met mister Gheorghita, the guardian and guide of the fortress. His father worked here since 1968, and he took over the job in 1990. He was kind enough to show us around and tell us a bit about the history of the fortress, which has also been his home since childhood.

The fortress is ongoing some restoration at the moment and seems in august they will start some more digging. The place looks charming with its ancient run down walls, the grass growing all over, the beautiful landscape all around. It is definitely worth a go.

Entrance is 2 lei/person.

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the Retezat Mountains lately, or better said close to them. It was about time for me to explore more than the outskirts of the forests of the Retezat National Park (had 2 attempts in winter, but had to give up due to the amount of snow), so today me and Cosmin, left bravely towards Rotunda cabin and drove until the end of the forestry road at Gura Bucurei, with our destination…Bucura lake.

Bucura lake is a very beautiful glacier lake, the biggest in Romania, situated at 2040 meters altitude at the base of Peleaga peak.

Do not let yourself fooled by the marking towards the lake saying 1.5 - 2 hours walking time…probably that time is for people who are very fit, and used to hiking :)…

With shame I admit it probably took me about 3.5-4 hours to get to the Bucura lake, but in my defense, we did make quite a few stops on the way.

The route to the lake is quite charming, passing through the Pelegii meadow, especially once the forest finishes and you reach about 2000 meter altitude. You will climb some rocks, cross some rivers, enjoy the horses grazing (I am not sure if this is very unusual but one of the colts had blue eyes)…and of course enjoy the amazing mountains which surround you with their peaks.

The weather up there can be quite moody, so you should bring something warmer with you even if down it is warm or even hot.

As I got closer, I could enjoy the view over Lia lake, than as Bucura lake showed her self in the cradle of the mountains with the tiny tents as igloos protected by small stone fences on its shore, on the left you could also admire Ana lake.

After wandering a bit more around to some smaller ponds which formed a bog, we decided it was about time to start going back down, mostly because I was frozen…yes, you guessed it…I did not bring anything warmer than my shirt.

By the time we reached the road it was 8 pm, so we stopped at Rotunda cabin for dinner, which was quite nice, than continued our road back to Nucsoara, the departing point of the day.

I have wanted to visit Scarisoara Ice Cave for quite a few years and this time it seemed to be the perfect moment. Took off from Cluj city, on the road passing through Turda and Campeni until we reached Garda de Sus village.

Here, right in the center of the village there is a sign towards Scarisoara Ice Cave. After 100 meters or so the road ends and you will have to go left on the side of the river for about 500 meters on a forestry road. You will have to pay attention to find the next road sign which says 7 km to the cave (the road climbs to the right). From here the road keeps going higher and higher and if you are not an experienced driver I do not recommend to drive here. Also a 5 seat car is ok, but a 4×4 is more suitable.

The road passes through some amazing landscapes, Apuseni Mountains being well known for their beauty.

We left the car when we reached the folk museum, and continued for about 10 minutes on foot.

The way into the cave is quite amazing. You go down on some tiny metal stairs, for about 100 meters down and from up there you could see the opening of the cave with snow. As we got lower and lower the temperature decreased reaching about 0 degrees Celsius (32 F). I will let you enjoy the photos from there:

Bring warm clothes!!

We walked around it on some wooden pathways on top of the ice admiring the beauty of the ice, old for more than 2000 years.

It is ….BEAUTIFUL!!!

On the way up I recommend you stop a few times, to let your body adjust to the heat.

The entry to the cave is 5 lei and the opening hours are from 10:00 – 5:00 pm during the week and 10:00 - 6:00 pm in the weekend.

My rating:

Today we decided to have dinner in Turda town since we were in the area visiting the Turda Gorges, in Cluj Napoca County. We walked or a bit through downtown, and on a side street we found this 4 star hotel and restaurant, The Hunter Prince Castle.
The design of the place is quite nice and interesting, and for sure it seems like the best place in town. We were appointed at a table on a terrace built from wood, with a lot of carving and built in a rustic style. Maybe a bit too many mixtures of carving styles.
At first we were put off by the waiting time…we were brought the menus, but then it seemed we were forgotten there. A few people which arrived after us were served first and we were not even taken the order yet. We were ready to go, but finally our waiter arrived as well (a different one than the one which brought us the menus).
From that moment we didn’t have anything else to complain about: the food was great, the waiter paid attention to us, and the prices are afordable. They have quite a few game courses, and those are more expensive than the rest.
In the end a meal for two people was about 30 euro.

You can find this place at the following adress:

The Hunter Prince Castle
4-6 S. Sulutiu Street, Turda, Cluj Napoca County, Romania;
Phone: +4. 0264.316.850; Mobile: +4.0745.997.264;
Website: www.huntercastle.ro; e-mail: huntercastle@hotmail.com.

Another day, another adventure.

This morning we left optimistic toward the Turda Gorges. From Mihai Viteazu village we continued until the crossroads leading to Cheia, than before entering the village, we took the road to the right, with the interdiction sign!!

After the stone and marble carrier the road turned into a rock/stone forestry road and we reached the edge of a hill reveling to us, right in front, the splendor of the Turda Gorge.

After a bit more driving we stopped at the Turda Gorges Cabin, then started climbing up on the ridge marking…

We stopped a few times to catch our breath on the abrupt pathway, and by the time we reached the ridge, a very hard and long cold rain has begun. Right there we met with another friend of Cosmin’s from Milvus NGO… After getting all soaked from the rain, we decided there was no point to continue the road. Needles to say that when we finally reached the car, the rain has stopped. It didn’t really matter because we were all wet anyway.

12:10 pm at the Aniesi Pond in Bistrita Nasaud county. Cosmin is unbelievably on a raft on this pond with one his biology friends.

Now what in the world are we doing here. We are here to collect and observe the Epitheca bimaculata dragonfly, this being the only place in Romania where it has been observed.

This pond is quite a nice place, with the exception of all the mud I had to walk through in my sandals. The place is surrounded by the Rodnei Mountains, and to get here we crossed the railway and a bridge over the Somes River, than followed a path to the left.

Next stop is the Turda Gorges, which means another place marked in my “1001 Natural wonders to see before I die”.

On my return flight from Ireland, I had to use Airlingus again.

This time I decided to pay for the luggage online since it was 6 euro cheaper than if I paid it in the airport. Though, this was not enough apparently, because I still had to pay an extra 90 euro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…

Seems the limit for luggage for this international flight from Dublin to Bucharest is only 20 kilograms/person, where TAROM’s limit (Romanian airlines), for a 40 minutes internal flight is of 25 kilograms.

In the end I truly felt ripped off by Airlingus, and probably I will only use it as a last resort.