This is the Romania that Most Tourists Never See

if you have an itch to get way off the beaten  path in Romania I think this place is probably   where you need to come really squelchy the main  thing is to not fall down oh my goodness it's yet   another totally adorable little village house  well it's amazing for such a Tiny Town I mean   I think it's literally one street we managed  to get slightly lost all right it is breakfast   time I'm gonna say that I'll probably not dive  into these raw onions as a kindness to Jillian   oh this does not look like the Natural Energy okay  it's not the easiest oh my gosh it's the bathroom way to see Romania you go to brush off  you take the tourist bus to Dracula's   castle with hundreds of other people maybe  you check out a couple more top sides and   that's it you've done Romania well that didn't  appeal to us at all we wanted to see a totally   different side of the country and that's how  we ended up here we're at the very beginning   of a week-long hike through Transylvania we'll  be spending our days hiking from one Charming   Village to another and at night we're going to  be tucking into very hearty home-cooked meals   in traditional little guest houses we've  got a beautiful lamb stew looks fantastic   and for me this kind of experience this  is really what slow travel is all about [Music] the day is really heating up so  I've got my buff on I've got these   very very stylish Sun Sleeves and  sunglasses I think we're all set the hike that we're doing is called the Via  Transylvania now don't worry if you've never   heard of it before it's a brand new hike in  fact it was literally completed just last year this Trail is pretty epic it's about 1400  kilometers long going right across Romania   of course we're only going to be doing one  teeny tiny little portion but I think by the   end of the week it's gonna feel long enough  we're doing this as a self-guided hike in   partnership with the natural Adventure company  we've been using their website as inspiration   for a lot of the hiking Adventures that we get  up to and now we finally get to test one out   and the trail has been really well marked  with these awesome via Transylvania markers so closing in on our destination for today  which is the village of beer 10 and we can   see it right there down below it doesn't look far  but we're all the way up here so we still need   to wind our way down before we can have that  nice cold beer in the village to end our day we've made it to the first Village of our  hike and also the first fortified Church   which is right behind me and looks absolutely  gorgeous but by the way if you're new to our   town you've never met us before I think we're  overdue to do some quick intro yes so I'm   Jillian and this is Stephanie we've got our two  exhausted poodles down here Jasper and Huxley   so the four of us are traveling the world  full time and showing it as we go [Music] good morning we had such a blissful rest stop here  in the town of malincrav and I honestly think that   there's nothing better for a good night's sleep  than having a few really hard days on the trail   and isn't this town so Charming so I hadn't known  this about Romania before but apparently this part   of Romania so where we are in Transylvania right  now has historically hosted a few very distinct   groups so there are Romanians of course but  also hungarians and also Germans and in fact   this town that we're in right now has the  highest proportion of ethnic Germans of the   whole region which I found really fascinating and  in fact our host the guest house that we stayed   in let us know right off the bat she didn't  speak English but she definitely spoke German I'm just loving the traditional architecture  of all these little Villages that we're passing   through it seemed to be very important to  all the residents to have the year when   their home was built so this one is 1858  that one is 1939 and the other thing that   I love is that the residents are not afraid to  go with a real pop of color for their homes oh all right we're getting things started  with a little mud on the trail come on   Chelsea let's keep those feet  dry for at least the beginning   Lee squelchy oh okay it had to happen sometime  the main thing is to not fall down well   and now we've got some study uphill well this  is just getting steeper and steeper it's quite   a way to start our hike this morning okay we  finally made it up to the top and I think that   was the big hill push for the day made it to the  top and it is beautiful up here boys let's go foreign these Villages like the one we just stayed in  really is the reason to be doing the Via trends   of Annika I mean there are lots of Alternatives  if you're looking to do an epic hike in Europe   of course there's the Camino hike and that one  is definitely on our bucket list just like it   is for thousands and thousands of other people  there it's a tour Mont Blanc which is a hike we   actually did a number of years ago and I remember  being really spectacular but also pretty crowded   on the trail in fact we had to sleep in a refuge  in a very small room with a very large number of   people including one fellow who was I would say a  championship snore that's why a hike like this is   such a treat it's new it's basically undiscovered  and you get to stay in these wonderful Villages   without any other tourists around and the  beautiful nature is definitely a bonus too [Music] well that was a very long very  hot walk but relief is in sight because   I can just see the rooftops of the  town that we are headed to actually   I think this one's really truly a tiny  little village it's called flourished   and I think that all of us poodles  included will be very happy to arrive if you have an itch to get way off  the beaten path in Romania I think   this plays is probably where you need  to come certainly tourists do not come   here on a regular basis so it should  be a very special experience for us   so we just need to get past the church  and our place should be just on the left well it's amazing for such a Tiny Town I  mean I think it's literally one street we   managed to get slightly lost so we're looking  for number 79 and I think we're going to find   it on the other side of the street here we go  huh and we get a chance to meet the town goats I think the best part of doing this amazing  hike through Romania is that we get to stay   at these wonderful little guest houses so these  are just simple little places that are part of   an effort to revitalize the local Villages  bring people back in to offer some services   to the few tourists who are passing through  so that's where we're staying tonight and I   have a feeling it's going to be a very  special little place indeed hello okay wow this is a proper Village backyard should we go  inside well this is our place and it is a true   Romanian village house so this is a real deal  we've got wonderful decorative touches over   here it looks like some real handicraft happening  wooden shutters over there and a very traditional   style stove so I'm guessing you put a big cauldron  of soup you get that going here and then a fire   below and it just heats up the whole place and  over here we have an absolutely enormous room   I mean I guess it was used for a big living  room in the past and we've got a couple of   very tall single beds over here you really have  to clamor on top of those and I'm thinking that   Village Life in Romania is a little on the  chilly side because there's yet another wood   burning stove right here and I can see that the  walls of the house are extremely thick so you   can really keep out the cold and it looks like  we have a very basic bathroom so I don't think   I'm going to be spending any Leisure Time sort of  crimping in here but it's gonna get the job done   Stephanie hello hi Jillian one of the true  highlights of staying in these lovely little   guest houses is having a beautiful home-cooked  meal we are starting out with a delicious looking   soup and I think that's chicken and noodles  and vegetables and to make it all extra   special they provided a little Cherry liqueur  I believe let's give that a try as a pepper tea   mmm really good yeah it's um it's delicious  and sweet but also has some kick to it um that is some home-cooked goodness it's so Reviving  after a really hard morning of hiking to have   something like a comforting bowl of soup wow look  at this beautiful well our main course has arrived   and everything looks just delicious so it seems  like just a really simple hearty Village lunch   we've got some stewed chicken here looks like  it's been spiced a little we have some really   yummy looking potatoes and over here we're seeing  something that we've seen on a lot of menus since   we got to Romania and that's just a sort of a  salad made up of pickles and roasted pickled   peppers so just something really simple but a  nice contrast I think to the potatoes and the   chicken well I can assure you that we worked up  quite the appetite on that hot walk all the way   to this little village so I'm excited to dig right  in [Music] today's hike is bringing us through a   very special place it's called the bright plateau  and it is a huge grassland area that is full of   ancient oak trees and I've heard that there  are hundreds of them here they're mostly over   400 years old and some are even 800 years old so  this is just a beautiful setting for today's hike I have to say that we're feeling pretty  spoiled with having this whole thing as a   self-guided hike where someone else did all the  organizing that's right so you guys know that we   are normally we're very independent Travelers  well finding all those great little hikes and   all those amazing little Inns it takes a lot of  work especially for Jillian I mean this time all   we had to do was show up and it has been a real  reason yeah so all the guest houses are booked   all the transfers are taken care of and we've  been given the GPS coordinates which means I   don't have to worry that Jillian is going to take  us from some random Trail I mean hey I haven't it's self-guided we get to go to our  own pace yeah we get to take all the   little puppy breaks that we need to take I  mean those brakes are for them not for us   no this is going off track let me just  there's Stephanie doing a good job navigating   I think it's actually joining up over here she  slipped away from me but I got the trail again   here we are we've got our orange tea  the plateau with all the Oaks was very   beautiful it was also very hot very sunny I'm  happy to be going back into the woods again [Music] last night we stayed in a little village that  was way off the beaten path well tonight we're   doing kind of the exact opposite thing we  are staying in a town that is absolutely   on the tourist Trail so this is one of  those must-sees if you're in Romania but   there's a very good reason for this it's  supposed to be really beautiful [Music]   oh wow so we're catching our first look  at the town right now it's the town of   sigishwara and I can tell already from way up  here it's going to be absolutely spectacular [Music] it's been a tough climb up here but we are  almost at the end of our hike and The View when we   get to the top is supposed to be incredible yeah I  can honestly say that I've never ended a hike in a   graveyard but I can't imagine a more picturesque  place to be this is just so peaceful so magical we've reached the top and this is the church  that overlooks the town of sigishwara and   the view that it commands over this Valley  is absolutely magnificent foreign [Music] we've seen the church now we're headed down  into the Citadel following this amazing covered   staircase so apparently this is called the  scholars staircase because it was built to   protect students from the elements as  they made their way up to school each   day [Music] well we've made it to the town  square and as you can see is definitely the   busiest spot on our tour the most touristy  but I can see why it is absolutely Charming [Music] good morning everyone we are just getting  ready for breakfast and then we are heading out on   our last hike of this whole trip but before we go  I wanted to share with you this guest house that   we stayed in last night so we've been staying  in a mix of Inns like little hotels and guest   houses and the ends have been fine but the guest  houses are really special and this one is I think   a very cute example so it's again an old village  house so this house has been here since I think   1869 oh 1862. so it's been standing a really  long time and I feel like it kind of looks   like it always did I mean it's got this really  old furniture in it it has lovely textiles that   look very hand crafted it has this wonderful  ceramic fireplace and it has this wonderful   piece of furniture that we've been seeing it's  a drawer bed and I'm very curious to understand   how it works I mean this one is very tall so  maybe we'll get the tallest member of our family   to try it out I'm not really sure how you're  gonna get in but don't worry I can handle it   alley-oop oh this does not look like the  natural and okay not the easiest there's   got to be a better way but here we go the bed is  actually nice and soft and I have room for two or   three of my closest friends here to join me but  it doesn't look like you can actually lie down um yeah I don't fit to be perfectly  honest well we're all packed up and   ready to go and the best thing is that we  don't have to do anything with our luggage   or even think about it so we just leave  it behind here and then it's magically   gonna appear and the next guest house  that we arrive at a little later today well this is our very own yard outside our  guest house and it's a real farm experience   here there's an area with a variety of birds  I've been hearing a turkey gobble all morning   and I think I can actually see a peacock too but  we're headed this way gonna just pick Jasper up   because there's quite a lot of barnyard  animal poop around watch out over there okay thank you [Music] some of the breakfast we've been  served in our guest house but this   one is actually at the house of our  host so we're headed over there now well it's quite a Scenic little walk to breakfast all right it is breakfast time and I would have  to say that this spread is very representative   of the kinds of breakfast we've been served  here on the Via Transylvania so of course   we've been starting every day with a lot of  eggs and also a lot of cheese many different   types of cheese we have some homemade preserves  over here a lot of butter to go with all of the   spread we've been served there has always been  a lot of vegetables every morning at breakfast   I'm gonna say that I'll probably not dive into  these raw onions as a kindness to Jillian and   we have something a little different here  so at every place we've gone to there's   always something a little bit particular to the  house so in this case we have some really yummy   looking vegetable fritters I'm dying to try this  Fritter oh my goodness good I want to say zucchini   it's got a really good fried yummy decadent  taste for breakfast and I think it'll be a   nice Counterpoint with all the fresh  vegetables we're having here [Music] now I know that you guys are always very  interested to hear about how we manage   these epic hikes with the dogs and I would say  that this part of Romania has turned out to be   very dog friendly so we have been welcomed into  most of the guest houses and Inns and that has   all been fine in terms of Fitness I would say  that you do need to be very aware of how your   dog can manage a long hiking day so for our little  guys we know that they can do 10K comfortably and   after that they start getting pretty tired the  only Hazard that we have run into with the dogs   are the aggressive Farm dogs and Shepherd dogs  that we have encountered along the way obviously   we try to give them a very wide berth as we go  past but I would say that those are hazards that   any hiker would encounter and so far we have  emerged on the other side totally unscathed foreign [Music] but we finally made it to  viscary and this Village has more tourists   than any of the other Villages we've stayed  in maybe it's because the church has UNESCO   status or maybe because King Charles has a house  here we've been eating all of our meals at these   guest houses that we've been staying in but  for today the final day of our trip here in   Transylvania Jillian decided to pull a rabbit  out of a hat and she found us a gourmet slow   food destination restaurant right here in the  middle of this very tiny town called discreet   okay it's back here and it's in  an Old Barn it looks rustic chic what a Charming spot I was not expecting  to find anything like this here   wow we have two really delicious looking  dishes to try these dishes are using very   atypical traditional Romanian ingredients  but it's done up in a very elevated way   this one is a potato soup and it's been made  with potatoes and also pickle tarragon which   is a very interesting ingredient and of course a  huge dollop of sour cream in there okay here we go oh it's really lovely the tarragon it's a really  mild flavor but it does add a nice subtle touch it   feels like comfort food so this is what you want  maybe on a cold Winter's Night I know it's kind of   a steamy hot July but it's still really delicious  okay I'm gonna try the next one now so this one is   a stew and it's quite different it is a stew made  up of green beans and then what we have on top are   cheese dumplings so the beans have been stewed  in what looks like tomato and carrot and some   nice spices I believe there's a lot of Paprika  in here and then I think with these glorious   these glorious looking dumplings oh they're so  light and fluffy and then a nice crisp around them   and then with a little of the green bean stew mmm  that is just perfect wow it's like a nice sharp   hit of cheese and then that really Savory stew  with it I'm gonna clean this whole thing right up it's the end of the trail and it's the  very last Guest House of our whole hike   okay it's letter b and it looks like  they have left the door open for us   and just like magic our luggage  is already here I love it   so yet again we're in one of these Romanian  village houses and I'm very curious to see what   it's like inside all right let's take a look oh my  goodness it's yet another totally adorable little   village house we've got all of the traditional  touches that I'm recognizing now we've got the   textiles on the floor all the lovely old furniture  we've got this huge ceramic fireplace a few little   antiques here and there and over here we have  our drawer bed which we have now seen and every   single one of our village houses and it is quite  a piece of furniture and I honestly I'm having a   hard time imagining who is hopping up here every  night to go to sleep I'm gonna give this one a   try and fortunately there's a bench over here  and I guess you just sort of crawl up here okay   I mean if you move around a lot at night that  is a big fall all right I'll stretch out I   feel like it's going to fit me a lot better  than the other one fit Jillian yeah I mean it   works I just I just would never want to sleep up  here how do I get down now the one thing I'm not   seeing right away is the bathroom but I did  see a door over here so let's go take a look this is either a closet or the bathroom  I don't know which one I'm hoping it is   oh my gosh it's the bathroom who does  this fit I mean I'm very short already oh I'll end up in here it is possible to stand  up and there's like a wee little shower   you can do the full height here I'm  interested to see how Jillian will   find it I mean she's absolutely gonna  bump her head on this what a funny space   all right final thoughts about the hike okay  I think for me it was basically everything we   hoped it would be we had lovely walks through the  forest Charming guest houses although a little on   The Rustic side we're gonna call them authentic  they're extremely authentic village houses and I   think that we really enjoyed the whole self-guided  tour aspect yeah no worries about luggage or where   we're staying yeah we just had it off in the  morning with our dogs and the GPS coordinates I   definitely think this hike ranks right up there  with some of our other favorites yeah so this   one I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed the Bohemian  Paradise hike that we did a little earlier this   Summer that was another incredible hike that is  somehow totally unknown to International tourists   oh wow what a way to start our hike this morning  we're in an area of the Czech Republic called The   Bohemian Paradise I mean from the name you can  already tell it's sounding really magical it's an   area that's famous for spectacular rock formations  Charming Villages and a whole lot of castles

Channel: Our Freedom Years

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Id: llG6b0jculI

Length: 25min 2sec (1502 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023