This is Romania

Rucar Bran Lane's Citadel

The traveler that crosses the Rucar-Bran lane which separates and in the same time unifies the Bucegi and Piatra Craiului mountain massifs, will recognize the originality and the beauty of the hilly and hollow region. Being an old lane connection between Transylvania and Wallachia, the Rucar-Bran lane offers many customs and traditions in their original form. So does the program offered by EcoXtrem http://www.ecoxtrem-trekking.ro/program.php?menu=3&id=12 .

The hurried traveler can go through the splendid highway corridor that connects Brasov to Campulung Muscel. But those who think that crossing the road will meet the deep space, are wrong. Often, not far from the ribbon, an incredible and unknown peaceful world appears.  Taking the mountains’ paths
you will be surprised how you loose the altitude that was conquered with so much effort. You will see the colored houses of the villages and in the background the impressive landscape of the mountains.  This is how you can meet the ruins of the Oratii Citadel.

 

The curiosity will push you even more. The locals say that the fortress was built by people who lived in the region. Others think that it was built by the Teutonic knights, but there is no documents to certify that work.

Initially, the citadel was designed as a defense fortress under the name of Neamt Fortress.  It is said that even Count Dracula stayed here for a while and it was once caught by the Turks into the citadel. Subsequently it became a customs point, but when the trading ended and the city was abondoned, the citadel was destroyed. Nowadays, the citadel is known as Oratii as the name of the valley that lies at its foot.  

However, no one knows how the citadel actually looked like. The county council initiated a projected for the rehabilitation, but this will be difficult as there is no picture of the former building. Some architects from Bucharest have come and tried to imagine how the citated shoud be built, given the existing ruins but it seems that they do not succeeded as the projected did not start.  

So, how it would you imagine it? You, the traveler, will have the entire freedom to imagine how the citadel really looked like.

The Fortified Churches

This program http://www.ecoxtrem-trekking.ro/program.php?menu=3&id=16
of EcoXtrem Trekking will offer you the chance to discover the unique phenomenon of Transylvania's fortified churches.

If you were in danger, how would you defend yourself? Some centuries ago, the protective measures were primitive: deep tranches, with or without water, land or wood fences and other methods. In time, people thought of building smaller, but highly enhanced citadels. More of them were used as a central church, but also like a fortified refuge as guarding towers, shooting holes, throwing fuel and secret passages were built. 

Fortified churches are a unique and very interesting phenomenon. They can be found in a few places in Europe, but in Transylvania they were more than 300 fortified Saxon churches.  

One of them is the Axente Sever church which date back to the XIV th century, being built in 1322 in the name of All Saints. The church is composed of a square room and a pentagonal choir place. As a unique phenomen, the belt tower is placed above the organ. This gives a melodious resonance to the sounds. The choir place is bounded laterally by strong stone arches, while the vault is made of bricks, without ribs, built over three floors of the tower, representing the guarding place of the citadel.

The church’s yard has an oval track with 6-8 meters height. From the interior, the walls seem smaller due to the high level of the court. The guarding road is above the warehouses, having access inside them through the ceilings. These storage rooms were build in the north and east side, both inside and outside.

Some of the fortified churches fared better and have been restored. They survived with pride even in abondened or forgotten villages. This was also the case of the fortified churh from Axente Sever which was restored by a Dutch Association. Still, there are others that have dissapeared or they are endangered.


The fortified churches have protected us for a long time. Why we do not protect them now?

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.