Some of the highlights of the trip included going to Kalotaszeg for their Rosehip Festival. Rosehip is a fruit and the people of the town make homemade jam when the fruit ripens. We were there for the opening of the festival so we got to see the opening ceremonies, which was neat. The school age kids in the town dressed up in traditional clothes and performed several traditional dances. The people of the town were also selling their homemade goods: fabrics, table clothes, pillow cases, ornaments, food, etc. Some of the things they made were really beautiful.
Women making the rosehip jam by hand
Stirring the final product
For those of you that had no idea what a rosehip was (like me) this is what they are
The following movies are all of the children dancing during the opening ceremonies of the festival
Another great thing we did was go to the Torda Salt Mine on the 2nd day. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from a salt mine and wasn’t prepared to be impressed, which I was! This particular salt mine hasn’t been in operation for many years because the company that owns it had financial difficulties, but the tour guide said there was enough salt left in the mine to supply the entire world for several years! We choose to use the stairs to get down into the mine itself which was definitely the right choice! It was neat to see how the salt was accumulating on the wood and other materials put there by humans. The main room of the salt mine was incredible. It was huge and the walls were beautiful. The veins of salt running through the ground looked just like expensive granite. They had converted some of the area into an amphitheater because the acoustics in the mine were good for classical music. We also got to rent a row boat for 20 minutes and row around the little lake at the bottom of the mine. It was neat because we could get right next to the walls.
The Fulbright group outside the Salt Mine
Fulbright group and our tour "mom and dad"
The walls of the salt mine
After the salt mine we went to Torocko which is famous for some its
original houses from the 19th century. The village sits in a valley between mountains so the views are incredible.
One of the original houses of the town
Kolozsvár
The area where we had lunch in Kolozsvár
Kolozsvár
Kolozsvár
Kolozsvár
Nagyvarad
Nagyvarad
The theater in Nagyvarad
Nagyvarad
Before I
went to Transylvania, people told me it was like stepping back in time 50
years. They were wrong. It was more like 75-100 in some areas of the
countryside. I saw more horse drawn wagons in three days then I have seen in my
whole life. I saw people harvesting big fields of crops by hand and using a
wheelbarrow to transport the crops out of the field. I saw people using scyths
to cut corns stalks and then rake them up to heat their house in the winter and
feed their animals. I saw cattle wandering freely in pastures and horses staked
out on long ropes to graze. Most of the houses had some sort of garden where
the family grew fresh produce and a farm area where they raised animals to eat.
Many houses also built trellises on which they grew grape vines. It looked like
the grape vines served a double purpose as both shade next to the house in the
summer as well as a source of food. Driving down the road I was struck by 1. how
physically hard life is there. I take for granted being able to go to the
nearest grocery store and pick out my food and I have a garden in my backyard
because it seemed like a fun thing to do – not because I needed its produce to
survive. I can’t imagine walking though an entire corn field and harvesting
ears of corn by hand or cutting down the corn stalks with a hand held scyth. And
2. how the people there waste very little. The grape vines were evidence of that.
The vines themselves served two purposes, and by growing them on a trellis, the
people were able to use other ground area to grow different plants. Driving
through the countryside brought home to be how priviledged I am in my everyday
life to have the ease of living that I do.
Something else I noticed, and my friend and I talked about it on the way home, is that people stay pretty close to where they are born. They don’t seem to have the cultural ideal where moving away from your hometown is a sign of adulthood and independence like in the USA. One of our tour guides still lived in the same town in Romania where she was born. She mentioned several times during the afternoon how difficult life had been because there was no real source of income. Tourism to the area had been minimal, but was picking up in the last few years, for which she was very grateful because it meant extra money. However, I couldn’t help but wonder why she just didn’t move somewhere with more opportunity, but that didn’t ever seem to be a viable option. She even talked about how her grandaughter was being raised in a Hungarian household, attending a Hungarian school, and learning only the Hungarian language, even though they lived in Romania. (There are many native Hungarians who live in neighboring countries because of the way Hungary’s borders were redrawn and shrunk after WW2). I asked Nora the question of why the family didn’t just move back to Hungary, and she said that this was their home. It was as simple as that. Coming from a place where moving across the state or the country for a job, a relationship, an opportunity, or just because you want to is normal, natural, and sometimes expected, this attitude of sticking it out because it is your hometown is equally impressive and baffling to me.
Transylvania was beautiful, unexpected, and eye-opening and I am very happy I got the chance to visit, even though it was for a short time. Hopefully before this year is up, I will get the chance to go back to the area and the country and see more of it.
Welp this is awesome. Can I just steal it for my blog, haha??? No truly, great pics that do as much justice as is possible for such an amazing place. Rock on to keeping up with chronicling your adventures. Looking forward to making more!
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