Don Quijote's Giants

Likewise Don Quijote, the character of Cervantes, you will be defeat in the battle by the imaginary giants. You will not be defeat by their power, but by their beauty. Somewhat smaller, in the authentic Romanian version, dating back to 4000 years ago, these giants are lost somewhere in the Southern Carpathians, in a local area called Rudaria. The river with the same name crosses the huge and steep rocks with the human appearance, named Adam and Eve. Between these two rocks, the waterfall noise combined with mills rumour gives you the feeling that you are in the middle of Don Quijote’s story.

What is really amazing here is that a slow and quiet watercourse has given the necessary energy for all the water mills built on the Rudaria small river. Like Don Quijote, the villagers have seen the potential in something insignificant and they have built dam made out of trees trunks, rock tunnels, and gutters so that small lakes were formed for the 340 mills. 

Every mill was used by a couple of families and each of them had to grind in a certain day of the week. That is why the mills kept the names of the families that used them. Nowadays, there are only 22 mills as the rest were vanished by floods. Although we can say that quite a large number of mills survived in time, it should be noted that some changes were made to the original structure, meaning the hydraulic system of Kapllan. The mill wheals and stones require special care, without which everything will be ruined. The corn flour and the flour made in water mills have a better quality than the industrial products because during the process it does not heat, therefore it will last longer. This area entered under the protection of the Astra Museum from Sibiu and became the largest mill park in the South Europe.  

Even with these changes, this area keeps the charm of the Romanian traditions, the wildness of Rudariei Valley and the unique landscape. Don Quijote will envy your opportunity to get so close to the giant, to study their mechanism, their strength and their weaknesses in order to get the chance to conquer them.