Romania is a land of a thousand faces.
The crossing point between the Occident and the Orient,
and a melting pot of different cultures
and is also a country unlike any other in Europe.
With over half of Carpathian mountains range weaving through it,
Romania is the custodian of Europe's greatest surviving mixed forest
and two thirds of its apex predators.
As well as native Romanians, is home to Hungarian,
Saxon,
Roma, Serbian,
Greek and many more diverse peoples,
united by the borders of a nation
that stretches to the mouth of the Danube.
Here, Europe's largest wetland fans out into the Black Sea,
creating its own vast, priceless and fragile ecosystem.
Inland, Romania is rich with historic cities and villages,
majestic national parks,
ruined castles,
medieval monasteries
and a legacy that dates back thousands of years.
However, this unique country's natural and built heritage
is under threat from reckless development
and the race to modernize which often destroys
the very things that could ensure prosperity for generations to come.
In season two of Flavours of Romania we will again embark on a journey
through Romania's nine historic regions,
discovering magical landscapes,
mouth-watering recipes,
music,
crafts and local traditions,
meeting the people who make this
one of the warmest and most hospitable countries of the world.
We will also find out how Romania has evolved in the last five years
and identify some of the challenges it now faces,
and how tourism could still provide one of its best hopes for the future.
TRANSYLVANIA
Welcome to a brand new season of "Flavours of Romania".
Four years and a couple of kilos later.
Lots has changed and lots hasn't changed.
I bought a house,
I am currently living at the edge of a national park
deep in the mountains of Transylvania,
down a four mile dirt road
which is why we will starting this adventure by horse and cart
and then traveling by bike as usual
all the way up the east side of Transylvania
through the Hungarian speaking parts, Covasna, Harghita,
across the Moldova,
down to the Danube Delta,
and then Muntenia, Oltenia, Banat, Crișana,
up across Maramureș, Bucovina
and finally back here through the west side of Transylvania.
I am a bit apprehensive, as usual,
because I am getting on the bike once more after a long break
and facing potholes, sheep, cows in the road,
horse and carts, crazy drivers and maybe a bear or two.
As always, stories evolve during the course of the journey
so even I am not entirely sure what we are going to find
is about time we showed that Romania has as much to offer
as the most beautiful countries in Europe.
There are new guest houses, new hotels, eco lodges that are opening up
and the potential for tourism here is better than it has ever been.
So join us for the adventure of a lifetime
once more into the bridge, dear friends.
As they say, the longest journey begins with a single step.
Doru!
I'm going to miss you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. It's my adopted father.
And he is going to be looking after...
My boy. He is my boy!
Doru is going to be looking after the house while we are away
and in order to get to the bike
he is going to be driving me by horse and cart.
- Bye! - Bye!
- Come back safe! - I shall miss you!
Don't drive too fast.
- Yes! Absolute. I promise. - He promises.
He is Gheorghiță, the horse.
He is a vital member of the family, especially in winter.
Let's go.
Be good!
- Hey! - Hello!
- Welcome! - Thanks!
Jen has been kindly looking after the bike, for me.
He is doing great things for this village
because he is bringing people to enjoy the countryside,
no ATVs just electric bikes, horse and carriage rides,
this is the kind of tourism we need to promote in a village like this,
nature and eco-tourism is the way forward, folks.
Right!
From this moment onwards,
we are swapping the real horse for the steel horse.
Let's hit the road!
Leaving the sharp peaks of the Carpathians behind us,
we head towards Covasna,
the smallest county in Romania and one of its most colorful.
Famed for its mineral springs and houses,
Covasna is short ride from Brașov.
On route, it's worth stopping by the citadel of Hărman,
one of the most perfectly preserved examples
of a Saxon fortified church in Romania.
Its four meter thick walls
remaining almost impervious to the ravages of time.
- Hello. - Hello.
- Hi, Charlie. - Hi!
- Nice to see you. - Nice to see you too.
- So... All well here? - All well and we have something new.
We have the old clock work from our old clock in the tower restored
and it is a museum object.
You can see it in the tower at the second floor.
How did this happen?
About six years ago we had two visitors, one from Austria and one from Germany.
They went to the tower with Dan and they saw that all clock work
and they said "when will we be retired
then we will come here and restore your old clock".
So, you say they volunteered. They said "we'll come when we retire".
Nobody thought about it six years long.
And they worked here about ten hours a day every day and restored the clock.
And they fixed it, now it works as originally.
It's quite nice to see
because that clock work was built in 1819 in Leipzig.
But of course the castle itself, or the fortress itself,
is much older, is it?
- Yes. - Yeah.
I mean, what's the original day we can pin it to its first constructor?
We know the village was founded in 1211.
The first thing they built was the church
and then, in the beginning of the thirteenth century,
the next ten or 20 years they built the first wall around the church,
so when next attack came, Tartars, Mongols, Huns, whatever...
A lot of brigands.
It's easier to tell who didn't come around.
Than who did.
Because this area was attacked by just everybody at a point or another.
So this became a sanctuary,
the whole village would come in here during times of conflict
and they'd hide and they'd have places to stay.
Yes, but in the beginning, it was only a simple wall around the church
and the people came into the fortress, at that time it wasn't the fortress,
and during the attack the whole village was burnt down.
That's the reason why
this fortified churches have these pantries, these storage rooms.
They kept really everything they had on goods
and when the next attack came, the houses were burnt down.
But they had to eat, they had seeds for the next year,
they won't die from starvation or something
It's brilliant. It's simple based, it's effective, isn't it?
It's effective and like that, they survived centuries.
I'm going to have a look around, thank you so much.
Look around, enjoy it, if you have questions...
I know where to go.
- Bring them to me. - I will. Thank you!
What a beautiful piece of mechanical engineering.
They don't make them like they used to.
This is the sound of history,
the sound of time passing in a really visceral way.
For my next stop I'm heading to a dormant volcano, deep in the forest.
Riding uphill through a tunnel of birch and oak trees
we enter a green world where man is not the only apex predator.
Stay.
Good bear, stay.
I haven't any food. Stay where you are.
Stay.
I'm stopping in safe distance from these bears,
because human contact is the worst thing you can give them.
They become habituated to people,
a lot of cars just stop,
they throw food for them and the bears, as a result,
start losing their fear of us.
So, drive on, don't feed them.
Yes, they may be cute,
but they're actually wild animals and they need to stay wild.
Moving on, we continue our ascent on the slopes of the Ciomatu volcano.
Currently dormant, but according to volcanologists
becoming increasingly restive in recent years.
At its peak it's Sfânta Ana Lake, a breathtakingly beautiful crater lake,
and part of the Mohoș nature reserve which includes an eerie wetland
with white skeletal trees and marsh ponds that look black in the overhead sun.
I am here to meet park administrator Levente Dosa
for a stroll around the lake shore and to find out how he manages
the crucial balance between people and predators.
Bears are really clever animals.
They really well adapt to the environment
and since they are always after food,
they are looking for easy food
and that's one of the preconditions, you know, to get close to people
and become as I name them "rubbish bears",
habituated bears, like you said.
The normal wild behaviour of the bear is to avoid people
and that's why for example here at the lake
although we have quite a large number of bears,
they are not entering the area... so called area of the people
where tourists are visiting the lake.
Actually what we do is that we have people time and bear time.
We have a visiting hour,
starts nine o'clock, ends seven o'clock in the evening
and when we finish
we close down the place where bears could have human origin food
and we give them the territory.
At the end of the day,
this is their place, we are visitors here
and I think that one of the problems of people is that they lack knowledge
and they don't know how to behave around bears and nature,
wild animals and wilderness in general.
You know what's lacking?
Proper wildlife management based on real knowledge.
Actually, right now, we don't know the real number of bears.
We are talking about 3.000, 50.000, 7.000... whatever the interest.
And how can you manage a population
if you don't know how big that population is
and you can't do a proper objective census, right?
Yes. Like I said: Knowledge.
If you know things, then you can act according your baseline.
Further down, the arboreal slopes of the volcano.
We reach our stop for the night,
Hotel Balvanyos, an old school resort
reinvented as an aspirational five star retreat with luxury spa.
While I am not usually a fan of big hotels,
this one is a bit different.
What a cosmic view!
This gives you an idea how much forest there is in Covasna.
Looking across that valley and to the hills beyond
all I can see is trees, not a single house.
No wonder there's so many bears.
Behind the hotel, there's a foot path that takes you up through the forest
to what must be one of Romania's most sinister attractions.
A small tunnel that serves as a mofetta, basically a carbon dioxide jacuzzi
which can cure you or kill you, if you don't treat it with respect.
You can see why one Hungarian author described this as "the gates of hell".
It's a strong smell of eggs, which is hydrogen sulphide,
and that's what makes this mofetta unique because it's not just carbon dioxide here,
it's a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide
and you can see the sulphur coating the walls.
This is an old mine and during the wars people who didn't want to go and fight
came and they mined the sulphur which went into making the gunpowder.
If I sit down... let me show you...
if you get your head below this level here it's "lights out", quite literally.
Watch!
And now it goes.
The cave of death.
But in small doses
as long as you don't get your head down, it's very therapeutic
and it's great for all kinds of ailments like rheumatism or arthritis.
Back in the land of the living,
things were heating up in the garden of Gastro Lab,
one of Balvanyos two gourmet restaurants
which specializes in authentic local recipes,
fusion and vegetarian cuisine.
And its own homemade bread,
baked each day by their resident bread maker,
who is laudably committed to doing things in traditional style.
I stop by for a quick life affirming tipple,
the few minutes of tranquility around the campfire.
During the weekend, the hotel's second restaurant, Fork,
open its doors to those looking for a truly epicurean experience.
It's a Gruner classic, it's a well-balanced wine
with a very good acidity and minerality.
What is really lovely is that every year I stay in Romania,
a quality of the dining experience just gets better
and more and more amazing restaurants like this are opening up
in remote places.
I mean, we are in the middle of Covasna, in the forest,
and yet we have almost Michelin star restaurant
right here in amongst the trees.
So, the first course is artichoke cream soup with vegetables.
I hope you enjoy.
The smoke is wonderful.
- Very unusual. - It's rosemary smoke.
Before hitting the road, it was time to brush off the cobwebs
with an invigorating trip to one of Covasna's famous mineral baths.
Băile Csiszar is located further down in the forest
on the hills opposite the ruined castle of Balvanyos
which can also be reached by a hike along remote woodland paths.
The baths are comprised of a number of pools
each with different mineral properties and varying degrees of bracing.
This is called "The Chocolate Spring".
They say here the water temperatures
stays low to 20-22 degrees Celsius even in the hottest summer day.
However, those who are willing to endure the initial shock
are rewarded by a unique experience whereby the active chemical compounds
cause the body to warm up after five to six minutes in the water.
Well, I can see that might be a problem, but we'll give it a go.
Again, it is good for vasoconstriction, well, it would be, if it is that cold,
of course it's going to cause vasoconstriction,
cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis,
aching joints caused by flu and certain types of neurosis.
Wow, that's cold!
Now I have to stay here
until the naturally occurring carbon dioxide in the water
starts to heat my body from within.
At least, that's what it says.
It's also little bit of sulphur,
getting eggs, faint traces off,
but I am sure this is really good for you.
It's certainly waking me up.
I don't think your hangover could survive very long
if you came in here. It's extremely refreshing, I will say that.
With the forest behind us, we turn north towards Harghita county.
On the way, I wanted to stop at a young couple
who have developed a business making artisan cheeses
in this style of good old fashioned English Cheddar.
- Hello. - Hello. Welcome.
- How are you? Good to see you! - We're working.
Hello, young man! Hi five!
Hi five? Wow, very good.
- It's smells very nice. - Unpasteurized cheese.
- Not pasteurized. - Yes.
- Natural. - Natural, exact.
Made from milk from the cows feed only with grass.
Only mountain grass from around us.
- Great. - With spices.
Talk to me about the cheeses.
This one is with rosemary.
That's quite strong.
This is an archaeological find, a cheese two years old.
This is from the spring.
Okay.
- Yeah... - It's with cumin.
From the spring... With cumin?
- This is with lavender. - Lavender cheese.
Lavender.
And the rest... With basil or ramson.
May we have a taste?
- Sure, let's go. - Perfect!
It's only cheese around here.
- That's a knife. - With ramson.
I can really taste the ramson. Superb.
It was good?
More research is required, I think.
OK.
May I help you?
Thank you.
Sensational. What's next, this?
This is the two-year old.
That could compete in the cheddar contests
of the west country in England and do well.
I'm... yes, really nice, that was fantastic.
I think that really needs to go behind the camera.
Enjoy!
Thank you so much for let me try your cheeses.
- Thank you. - Congratulations and success.
Thank you.
By middle afternoon we reach Harghita,
one of the wildest parts of Romania.
Like Covasna, Harghita is home
to a large population of Hungarian speaking people.
Under the treaty of Trianon signed in 1920,
Transylvania was ceded to Romania from Hungary
and many of the Hungarians who inhabit this region
have been reluctant to accept this unasked for cultural assimilation
proudly holding on to their language and traditions
and in some cases, maintaining the claim of what was their native territory.
I wanted to witness the sunset from one of their most secret sights,
the hilltop monument and place of pilgrimage of Harghita Măldăraș,
high above the surrounding hills and valleys.
Arriving at the summit, you are confronted
by a small forest of monuments, craft wooden memorial posts
that have become a cultural symbol of sacred land
and believed to withstand from spears or justice lances
placed in the ground to commemorate those fallen in battle.
With 360 degree views across huge ways of Romania
from Bucegi to Făgăraș in the west to Ceahlău in the est
and Călimani National Park in the north,
this is an awe inspiring and deeply spiritual place
to watch the last rays of light sleeping below a vast horizon.
The next day, our journey brings us west, towards the Saxon part of Transylvania.
But before leaving the land of the Szeklers,
I wanted to find somewhere to sample a popular Hungarian delicacy.
You can't come to Hungarian speaking Transylvania
and not have one of the signature dishes, Kürtős,
which is sugar, flour, cinnamon, nuts, a bit of chocolate
and this case, zmeură or raspberries.
Should be ready in about two minutes.
Sublime!
That is Moorish!
Positively dangerous,
and the raspberries just make it little bit sour at the same time
to contrast with all that sugar.
Riding onwards, we venture in the Saxon country
with its regimented villages, its houses laid out in rows
with imposing gates, rusted tile roofs,
porches in the back and large wooden barns for winter storage.
During the twelfth century, German artisans and entrepreneurs
were invited here by the king of Hungary
to settle and defend the frontier of his realm.
Between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries,
they built hundreds of towns and settlements
that have since defined this part of Transylvania.
Among the best preserved of all these
is the UNESCO World Heritage village of Saschiz
with its medieval church overlooked by the ruins of a once great citadel
under slow assault by the encroaching forest.
Thanks to cultural grounds, work is now on the way
to stabilize and partially restore this crumbling edifice.
And as I passed, I noticed the stone ramparts with clad
in traditional wooden scaffolding.
About 20 km north-west we come to Sighișoara
and perhaps the most spectacular citadel in Eastern Europe.
Flanked by nine towers linked by walls and battlements.
This is one of the few fortified towns
that is fully inhabited and plays host
to a constant stream of visitors from around the world.
Overlooking the Târnava Mare river
it was in its heyday a vital trading hub
with merchants traveling here from across the holy Roman Empire.
The old center is a maze of cobbled streets,
winding alleyways
and secluded squares.
It's also the birth place of Romania's most famous anti-hero.
This is allegedly the birth place of Vlad Dracul.
I didn't realized he lived above the restaurant.
Well, being immortal, it's a fair chance he's still around today,
so let's go and see if he's in.
VLAD DRACUL HOUSE - RESTAURANT INTERIOR GARDEN
I just got hit by very large spider.
Okay, it's a bit dark.
That's scary.
That's a health and safety hazard.
Dracula!
Bravo!
- Bravo! - Good health!
- Where are you from?
England.
Actually I felt sorry for Dracula.
It's a hot summer day and there's no air condition in that room.
I know he's supposed to be cold-blooded, but I bet he gets hot under the collar.
Being UNESCO World Heritage since 1999,
Sighișoara looks like it's now set in stone
and it's not going to change much in the future, which is a good thing
because walking around here feels like you're stepping back in time,
apart from the old car, of course,
and the stances of medieval music ringing out in the streets,
nice bars, cool restaurants,
and lots of traditional gifts...
all the way from China.
I can't work out if that's Dracula or Salvador Dali.
There are also festivals and concerts throughout the summer.
As I was getting ready to depart,
an orchestra was warming up the crowd with some eighties classics.
Serenaded by the sounds of Deep Purple
and with the sky about to turn the same colour,
it was time to go and search for our stop for the night.
The small Airbnb in the little town of Ocna de Jos,
about an hour drive to the north.
The owner of The Magic Cottage is a charming English lady called Rosy
who welcomes guests to her colourful retreat
which shields and shares with an undetermined number of cats.
- Hi. - Rosy, hi!
- Welcome to the Magic Cottage! - Thank you very much!
How nice to see you! Very welcome!
It's been quite a journey, actually.
I got lost and it was a little bit hairy on the motorbike.
- This is Transylvania. - I know.
- We are used to it. - That's why we like it.
- Lovely to meet you. - And you.
How did you end up here, Rosy?
You never set out to live in a remote part of Transylvania, did you?
Well, no, I bought a house I've never seen,
in a country I have never been to,
- Which was a bit impulsive and mad. - Where are you living at the time?
India. I have an Airbnb called "Rosy's Retreat"
in Udaipur, in Rajasthan.
And so you came across this... what?
I was with some Indian guest
who thought it was strange of renting their holiday accommodation
from an English person in Rajasthan,
which sort of prompted me to go home look and on the internet
for who is venting Airbnbs in strange places
and I thought,
I wonder what goes on in Transylvania where I have never been
and didn't know anything about and there was a lady
who had just taken photos of the countryside and wild life
and the countryside was so beautiful and then I found myself on Google
putting in "property for sale in Transylvania"
and up came the Magic Cottage which was a roofless ruin.
- What did you do then? - At four o'clock in the morning
I wrote madly emails to the guy and five days later I bought it
and then of course, you know, once you bought it,
you got to get on and do something with it.
I had a low cabin in England which I sold to raise money
for a part of the renovation.
I mean upstairs they were hanging hams and cheese and all sort of things,
but it made a wonderful bedroom, it's a fabulous, huge family space.
Yes, absolutely.
I think I'm the only one in the village with this kind of loft conversion.
- The other ones are still full of hams. - Yes.
But it might catch on.
- And no plans to return to England? - Oh, God, obviously not, never.
Once you moved here, you know...
It's one of the things... I find myself, as an expat.
- Once you move here... - This isn't available in England anymore.
This wilderness unspoiled, the wild flowers, the butterflies.
A had an wild animal that pooped in the garden this week,
I mean, all this in England is rather gone.
It's gone.
The following day, the weather turned which provided the perfect excuse
to visit Praid salt mine to escape the rain
and experience Romania's most comprehensive
subterranean amusement park.
Ditching the bike, I took a minivan deep to the bowels of the earth
where I was dropped in front of a huge timber door
like an underground gateways to the Hogwarts.
At the other side, was a different world.
It's like an underground city!
Kids climbing frames, spa, massage...
Yes, World War Three, this is the place to be.
I can see a whole post-apocalyptic thing going on here,
bring down some UV lights, get your seeds, your vegetables growing,
get some cows, lots of food banks...
You can probably last here for many generations
without have to come back to the surface.
People emerge, white, with wide huge eyes
having spent five generations living in Praid salt mine.
- Hello. - Hello.
A cappuccino, please.
This has to be one of the most bizarre coffee shops that I've ever been to.
Here we are at 130 meters or so underground
and I am having a cappuccino.
It's not with salt, isn't it?
A little sugar, a little salt.
Little bit of salt for the atmosphere.
Returning to the surface,
I went to check out another Praid's most visited attractions,
an exotic butterfly enclosure
which started a few years ago as a small greenhouse in a field.
I may not be a lepidopterist,
but I am sure I've seen these blue butterflies in the Amazon jungle
and there almost impossible to film.
I think we're gonna have a little bit more luck in here.
Say hello to my little friend.
Leaving Praid in the rear view mirror,
we ride one hour and a half to Reghin, known as the city of violins since 1951
when violin maker Roman Balanciug opened the first factory here.
Today, there are several companies making violins in Reghin,
but also a number of independent master craftsmen
who's works are destined to be heard in concert halls all over the world.
I am here to meet one of them
and to get an insight in what it takes to create a later days Stradivarius.
We are making violins and cellos and double basses and violas.
How long have you been doing this?
I've started in 1987
after finishing a woodworking school.
I've worked nine years in a woodworking factory in Reghin,
"Hora" was its name.
After nine years I've decided to start my own business
and I've started this way in 1996.
And you're supplying violins to people all over the world now, is that right?
Yes. Fortunately, we're selling in Japan, China and the US,
and Europa, most of it.
Talk to me about the process.
The whole process starts in the back, with the tree trunks.
First, you look for the wood in the forest.
I look for the wood at storehouses and I have some connections in the field.
After the wood is selected, it is cut to length
depending on its thickness, of his qualities,
so that we can decide what to do: Violin, cello, double bass...
Choosing the wood is essential,
it's the first decision in making a good instrument.
The wood decides, after that, the execution...
After the wood is dry,
this is the half-finished wood.
These are two pieces for a cello face.
Then it is cut out and it gets to this stage, like this.
What constitutes a really exceptional violin or cello?
The secret is also in the job,
in the mastery in which the phases are executed,
musical knowledge is a must.
This is a finished violin,
someone played at it,
it was build two years ago,
it was studied to enhance its sound.
An instrument like violins, cellos and double basses
must be used.
Their sound is enhanced after a few years.
The sound is better and clearer.
Well, in that case, no further encouragement needed...
Really beautiful, thank you so much.
- Great, good job! - It was a real joy to play...
No, it was horrific, terrible, but really nice. The sound...
West of Reghin lies the Mureș river valley
which we followed back into Harghita in a mountain outpost of Toplița,
home to friend and wildlife expert Samir Teslovan,
a former hunter who swapped his guns for cameras
and now he specializes in hosting people
for nature safaris in the surrounding hills.
Arriving late, I was greeted by Samir,
his wife Florentina and their sausage dog, Mitruț.
- Hi, Florentina. - Welcome.
- Thank you very much. - We were waiting for you.
- Samir! - Welcome!
Long time, no see.
- How are you? - Very well.
I look forward to come to you. What a big house.
- Samir's House. - Samir's House.
We're glad you've came.
Samir's house, I love it. Show me!
Come in.
After touring the new guest house, there was a roaring fire waiting for us
plus a mandatory jug of homemade palinka.
Tell me what the plan is for tomorrow morning.
For example, tomorrow morning at 4.30 we have to leave
because when it's daylight and the light is perfect
we have to be on the site to see the animals,
but there are slim chances to see wolves
because the plants are quite tall.
We will try to move to different locations
to have more chances
and there are a lot of sites guarded by dogs and have electric fences
and all the circuit had changed.
The electric fence, they changed the behaviour of the animals?
All the routes they had because the wolf is an animal,
the wolf sticks to his path,
to all the summits,
but now, all the pastures are surrounded by electric fences in the summer,
the wolves changed their routes a little bit.
And the chances are slim.
There are electric fences everywhere, they have electric guardians,
and the animal habitat is smaller during summer.
This affects there is potential flow
for nature tourism you are doing to other people...
This changes the fencing of mountain pastures,
the touristic paths are altered.
Let's go to sleep and see you in the morning.
At 4.30, we drink a coffee and leave.
- In that case, good night. - Good night.
The next morning, we were up before the sun
for a wilderness tour and a visit to Mr. Groza,
a cheesemaker who spends his summers living high on the alpine plateaus.
What's so strange about being in this environment
is it doesn't seem so wild,
it seems like a pasture land you might find back in England,
but it's full of wildlife.
Just in front, by that fir tree,
it's destroyed by a bear, it marked this territory.
Each bear in his own territory, marks his...
it chews the tree up to marks its territory.
If a little bear comes, it doesn't enter here.
If the other bear is larger, it drives this away.
So that broken tree is a warning to other bears
it's saying "stay off my territory". Amazing.
So the wolves' territory is much, much bigger,
the bears' is smaller, but they mark with...
evident display of extreme violence.
So I am really strong,
don't come near my land or I'm going to do that to you.
After a long and bumpy journey
we finally reach what must be one of the most remote farms in Romania.
It's very isolated, isn't it?
It's very isolated.
Yes, it's a remote area.
Let's pay him a visit to see how he's doing, alone, with the animals.
A remote, wild area.
- He has electricity? - No. Solar power.
- Solar. - Solar panel.
- Wow. And water? - He has water.
Hello.
- Welcome. - Thanks.
Milk from this morning.
This is milk from this morning and I used rennet.
It takes one and a half hours to clot.
And after that, we put the cheese to rest.
- Those are amazing. - Yes.
How long it takes?
Maximum two weeks, 14 days,
the cheese is not done yet,
until the rennet acts,
to knead it to make the cheese.
And it's a little smoked.
Yes, we use smoke.
- The people enjoy smoked cheese. - Superb.
It tastes better, like in the middle of nature,
and form the smoke tastes better and it looks better.
- Are you hungry? - I haven't eaten yet.
- We can make an English breakfast. - Okay.
I'm curious.
- Do you want that? - I'm curious.
Smoked bacon, here we go, breakfast of champions.
His day started the same time as ours,
so five a.m. because he is up milking the cows.
It's amazing what you can achieve by an open fire
in a very short space of time.
Gentlemen, enjoy.
Thanks.
So, sorry for the fingers...
- Enjoy. - Enjoy.
Thanks for the food you bought.
Doesn't it get lonely living on the way up here?
I'm not alone, I'm in the middle of nature,
there are birds, the nature, springs, you are never alone.
- No. - You can't be alone in nature.
I don't live here all the time.
In the summer, we stay here four-five months.
- Not in the winter. - No. In the winter, we have a farm.
We have a farm in the valley where we raise the animals.
- You understood. - I did.
Teach me some English when you will come again.
While Mr. Groza's summer residence is far from the usual tourist roads,
it's people like Samir putting places like this one on the map
and awakening fellow Romanians and foreigners alike
to the sheer, untamed beauty of this part of Harghita.
As tourism develops here, gastro points are becoming the new thing.
Local restaurants selling home cooked food in picturesque locations.
I drove to the village of Bilbu
on the frontier of Călimani national park to visit the most recent.
How difficult was it to start a gastro point?
We are the first gastro point in north of Harghita county.
It is quite difficult to serve the tourists in your own house,
to serve traditional food, Romanian food, organic food.
Tell me what was involved in setting up the gastro point.
It was quite difficult at first.
When I wanted to get a license, no one knew what gastronomic point was
and it took about six months until we opened the gastronomic point.
And all the food you serve has to come from the area, doesn't it?
Well, 90% of all food that is eaten here by the tourists,
who eat in the area and are in transit from Bucovina to Ardeal
must came from the household.
Do you think this offers a good solution, for people living in the countryside
who want to get into the hospitality trade?
The gastronomic points are very good for the rural areas
and I would advise all the tourists that transit not only our village,
to eat home made products, organic products.
Great sausages.
Beef and pork.
- Mixture of beef and pork. - Homemade bread.
Homemade bread. Lovely.
- The gulaș is ready. - Fantastic.
- Enjoy. - Thank you.
The goulash. The longer you cook it, the better it tastes.
You can't overcook goulash.
Yes. This goulash the longer it cooks, the better it gets.
This is a recipe hundreds of years old.
Our parents and grandparents from Austria-Hungary, the recipe is theirs.
You are most welcome and well received at the gastronomic point
whenever you transit our village.
Thank you very, very much.
I'll definitely be back.
A few rocky miles the other side of Bilbu
is an usual wild spring
believed to have mystical healing properties.
Before moving on, I borrowed the crew car to investigate.
That's definitely fizzy carbonated water straight under the ground.
It's not massively bubbly,
but it does...
effervesce in your mouth,
but again, some of it, it supposed to be very good for you.
With all these health benefits
I've been guessing on my travels in Transylvania
I expect that after a week of drinking this and everything else
I've been bathing and consuming I will probably feel like a new man.
I love these hills,
see the wild flowers, orchids around me.
This little valley is without wooden picket fences,
for the animals, absolutely beautiful.
It is good for this region that more people than ever before
are investing in the hospitality trade,
but the authorities are still lagging behind
when it comes to protecting and renovating
some of its potential key tourist attractions.
Take the historic town of Borsec
which used to be the health capital of Romania
and attracted visitors from across Europe.
Today, the old town is a depressing sight
with many of its grandest buildings standing derelict and unloved.
I met up with the historian Farkas Aladar
to find out how this happened and what its prospects are for the future.
It is so sad.
How long have these buildings been in this state?
Yes, it really does look deplorable for three decades or so.
After changing the last regime, practically nothing has been done.
Those who had it in administration they basically abandoned the building
and nobody cared to rehabilitate it.
But we have hope that it will be rebuild this year,
feasibility studies are carried out, rehabilitation projects
and will be rebuild this year and it will still be a hotel,
as it used to be,
because it was the most famous hotel from this city
built in 1889-90 according to Contmeyer's design.
What was the town like in his heyday?
There were 5.000-6.000 guests in one series,
this boulevard was full of guests, you couldn't walk.
The cinema was also full of spectators.
We were waiting for an hour to get in a restaurant
because there was such a crowd that you couldn't get a seat.
So it was a bustling resort,
the treatment was provided at the polyclinic
and at the central pavilion...
So this all happened really as a result of democracy?
Basically, the last golden age
it was in the 70s and 80s
because then a lot of people came to Borsec.
Unfortunately in the last 30 years little has been done about it,
so neither the City Council
nor the investors, who had property in the town, did something.
They hadn't either interest or money to rehabilitate the buildings
and because of this it has reached this stage.
But still there are hopes
that they open this year the new treatment and wellness base
and that will give investors a boost
and I am convinced that in the next two-three years
it will change the appearance for the better.
We have that hope.
Although I don't entirely share Farkas' optimism,
there are some historic sites
that are reemerging Phoenix-like from decades of neglect.
For our next destination, we'll be visiting one of them,
but there are a couple of things that I just had to see on the way.
We are back on the outskirts of Toplița.
This is the home of entrepreneur Adi Matei and his wife Ionela.
They recently started their own dairy, but with a slight difference.
This has nothing to do with cows.
I've studied this idea for two years, I was in Germany,
I asked around, seeing donkeys,
jennets, I didn't know what they do with them,
the Germans explained to me and I understood the health benefits,
and I've started this business in January this year.
What do your neighbours say do they think it's a crazy idea or...?
Not only the neighbors, friends and family also.
There are no donkeys in the area,
this is the only donkey farm in the whole county,
the people doesn't know these animals,
they called me idiot, crazy.
But it's actually very good for you, donkey milk, isn't it?
It's very good for immunity, it's 98% like mother's milk,
vitamin C concentration is very high, 46 times more than cow's milk.
It's very good for the respiratory system,
for the heart, blood vessels are more elastic,
and it prevents heart attacks.
- This is all proven stuff, isn't it? - Exact.
Charlie, do you want to try to milk her?
Yes! OK, I can try.
With one hand.
- You find it? - I find it.
OK.
Try to be gentle as well.
We succeeded.
Bravo!
That was an interesting experience,
that's something I have never done before.
- Try the fresh taste. - I'll try definitely.
Now it's clean, perfect.
Can you try.
Try it.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- Good health. - Good health.
It's good for your health.
It's an appropriate saying.
It's delicious in fact,
it doesn’t have a strong flavour, you can't smell anything.
Zero smell.
That's why it's good for those who don't like the smell of milk,
it doesn't smell at all.
It's a little bit sweet -Yes.
- A very clean tasting milk. - Yes.
May I finish it?
- Of course. - Bottoms up!
I think it's a bit unfair that I am the only one to drink the donkey's milk
when the babies are in there.
Come on, little ones!
Enjoy!
Go, run!
Each with his mother.
What happens when they get too old?
- I don't know. - You keep them, right?
I don't know. I keep them.
- They are not too old. - Cause this is a new business.
You're gonna have old donkeys, I am sure.
You're not selling them, are you?
I'm not, I care for them, they are part of my family.
We will see later on what we will do with the old ones.
I don't know, I will keep them alive as long as I can.
I love it.
Just outside Toplița,
other picturesque villages around Subcetate.
As beautiful and unspoiled as many parts of the Maramureș.
The old barns and traditional homes
are constructed almost entirely of wood,
with shingled and red tile roofs
that was occasionally covered in a simple line render.
This is a landscape that is sufficiently far from the beaten track
to have changed little in the last 100 years.
I dread to think what this village will look like in 15 year time.
Sadly, what most people do when they get a bit of money
is they tear down these beautiful old buildings
and replace them with breeze blocks and cement,
any yet these houses were built by the strong hands of the forebears
and they represent a living piece of history.
Yet, every year less and less of them are still standing
and every year, as a result, culturally speaking, we are poorer.
For an ultimate stop we traveling even further back in time
with the visit of the town of Lăzarea
and one of the most stunning buildings in Transylvania.
The partially renovated Lazar castle.
I am here for a private tour with the owner Vormair Tivadar
who has been fighting for years to reclaim his ancestral home.
The design of the battlements...
I have seen something similar in Hindi temples, is extraordinary.
- Style renaissance. - Renaissance. So, byzantine.
The castle gets its final form
from 1926 to 1931.
How long is the castle being in the family?
The castle was bought
by my grandfather Vormair Friederick in 1920's
and I can mention that the castle was never nationalized.
After the Revolution, after 1990,
in 1992, my father submitted documentation to the town hall
to get back the castle
and in 2018 ended the last trial between owners,
and since then we are five owners,
four from the Berzely family
they live in South America, Chile, Argentina and Brazil
and I'm from Lăzarea.
- Very complicated. - Indeed.
Each person has 20% of the castle.
This is the problem with a lot of monuments in Romania,
they are owned by so many people, they get ongoing court battles
and meantime these priceless buildings
just sit here and rot and some fall down.
So, this process needs to be streamlined,
made a bit more easy because otherwise lots of time, decades can go by
before someone takes proper ownership.
What are the future plans?
Last Thursday we opened again the castle
for visitors and tourists,
we have restoration and renovation plans
to use in restoration original materials,
we want to renovate and restore the Ladies House.
Can we have a look inside?
Yes. Let's go.
Look at this!
What a banqueting hall!
The hall was built after 1711,
but the bastions and the walls
were built after 1626 and 1631.
This was the last hall built.
A hundred and fifty people would have sat down here for banquets.
Imagine what it must have been like back in the medieval times,
torches burning all the way along on the walls,
plates of foods stacked up around the tables,
drinks being spilled everywhere, noise, smoke, fumes, laughter...
maybe a little fight.
I mean, what a spectacle must have been!
It would be very fun to recreate it for Auld Lang Syne.
Looking out to cross the high plains of Harghita,
one is reminded of just how massive this country actually is.
With a few hours of daylight remaining, we head to the border
of what used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And a rest over at the Ghimeș Skanzen eco-village in the Boroș Valley.
The buildings are on the classic mountain style
rescued to be reconstructed here to serve as accommodation for tourists.
The central dining hall providing music, events, and activities for kids.
Just a few hundred yards across the adjacent Boroș river
and we leave Transylvania behind
and enter what used to be the principality of Moldavia
which for centuries was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire
and still retains its old unique customs and traditions.
Join us next time when we will be traveling all over it
in what is now known as the historic region of Moldova.
I'll be enduring miles of dirt roads
to visit remote monasteries deep in the forest,
but I'll also be exploring the great city of Iași,
checking out some lake side beach culture,
going in search of the less famous Eiffel bridge
and raising a glass in some of Moldova's most exclusive vineyards.
Only in Flavours of Romania.