Romania is a land of a thousand faces.
The crossing point between the Occident and the Orient.
And a melting pot of different cultures.
It is also a country unlike any other in Europe.
With over half of the Carpathian mountain 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, it 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.
However, Romania's natural or built heritage
is under threat from wreckless development
and a race to modernise which often destroys
the very things who could ensure prosperity for generations to come.
Welcome back to our ongoing odyssey
of Romania's Great Historical Regions.
After two months on the road, we reach Oltenia, in the south.
Another one of Romania's least known areas,
but one of its most beautiful.
It's late afternoon as we ride across the border,
heading for our first stop.
A remote ecolodge, consisting of luxury igloos,
tucked away in the mountains, west of Vâlcea,
up on a challenging dirt track.
I was met by Ionel Lucian Crăcană,
who was suitably dressed for the occasion.
Before retiring to my pod for the night, it was dinner and a camp fire.
With music, pălinca and a glass of wine with the other guests.
At least until proceedings were cut short by an encroaching storm.
Dramatic weather is even more exhilarating
when experienced from the extravagant confines of a transparent igloo,
with views toward dark mountains,
that burst into bright relief with each flash of lightning.
There are few more relaxing ways to fall asleep
than being serenaded by a torrential downpour
and deep rumbles of thunder
while you remain warm and dry under a thick duvet.
Before breakfast I caught up with Lucian and his wife, Raluca,
for a quick chat to find out more about their story
and how they dreamt up such a bizarre place to stay.
- Good morning! - Good morning.
What a lovely, lovely experience that was!
It's been snugging me up, being so exposed, at the same time.
But I think that's what this is about, isn't it?
It's for those who love nature, but also want the comfort.
Was it difficult?
It is, yeah.
It was difficult and is still difficult
to create something from scratch.
Obviously, there were challenges.
People didn't really know what's in our head,
how to construct what we want to do.
- I bet local people... - They'd never done it.
...thought this was a little bit strange.
Obviously. And the people who worked, as well.
So, tour me through the process.
So, you came here, you fell in love with the area,
you saw this piece of land, you bought it...
- Actually, my dad, yeah... - He gave it to him.
- Ah, ok... - Ok, and...
What did your dad say when you said: "We're gonna put some igloos"?
No...
He got some potatoes, long time ago, here, yeah.
In the beginning, it was nothing, absolutely nothing.
- Just... - Potatoes.
- No potato. - Not even any potato.
So then we had to bring obviously, everything.
Electricity, water.
Yeah, all the way from down in the village.
- You used to live in England, in London. - Yes.
- Yes, in Watford. - In Watford.
Why did you leave?
What made you come back here and do something crazy, like this?
I thought... I mean, we wanted to have our own business.
And there, in England, it was difficult to have a family business.
And then we decided, with the kids and everything, it's time to go back.
And we really wanted to do something for ourselves.
This part of the southern Carpathians
bore witness to some fascinating and brutal moments in history.
Here, in these valleys and mountains,
countless battles and skirmishes were fought.
As far back as the time of King Decebal
and as recently as the Habsburg Empire.
This is maybe the most beautiful natural arch I've seen in Romania
and it's two thirds of the way up a cliff
but you can understand and appreciate
why this region is so rife with folklore and legend.
It goes back as far as the Dacians.
When the Romans were attacking towards Sarmisegetuza
they came up through these valleys.
And they tell stories of how the Dacians would appear
rain down hell on them in the form of spears and rocks, from above,
and then they'd disappear into the hill
as if by magic, and pop up somewhere else.
An actual fact: They were using this network of caves
that runs throughout these hills.
You can see many of them on the far side of the valley over there.
But much later on,
during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
the outlaws or bandits
would take advantage of these caves and these mountains,
to hide from the authorities.
And they'd have camps in places like this
probably lightening fires here, spending nights here,
and also dispensing judgment here.
That cliff over there, on the far side, with a very long drop,
was known as the "Court" of the outlaws
and anyone who betrayed them
or any traitors in their midst
were marched to the edge of that cliff and thrown unceremoniously off it.
A bit like the pirates' tradition of walking the plank,
but with an awful lot further to fall.
There's a particularly lovely story,
where the head of the haiduks for a while who was called Papură Vodă,
and the Austro-Hungarians were desperate to catch him and his merry band of men.
They'd send soldiers into the hills and the forests, to try to catch him
and then they'd always kill all the soldiers.
The Austro-Hungarians thought: "we're losing too many soldiers,
let's just forget it, because we're never gonna catch these people."
So they decided to hire mercenaries instead,
and they advertised for mercenaries to come
and help hunt down the haiduks.
So, what did Papură Vodă do?
He and his haiduk friends all signed up
as mercenaries for the Austro-Hungarians
to catch themselves.
Which, of course, they never did,
but they carried on, getting paid to be haiduks,
and living their life up here, in the hills.
It's absolutely hilarious.
And in fact, in the end,
the Austro-Hungarians were herded out of here,
because of the power of the haiduks, they formed a militia.
And effectively, they them evicted them from this area.
Below me is the Cheile Oltețului gorge.
Believed to be the narrowest canyon in Europe,
with only 70 cm at its slimmest point.
To access it, you have to descend on a vertiginous path,
that winds down beside an overhead bridge.
From there, you are committed to a two-kilometer scramble
of freezing wade along the riverbed.
With no way out until you reach the other end.
This reminds me of the game we used to play as kids, rock-hopping.
The secret is trying to cross the river as many times as possible.
You get a point every time you cross, but once you slip and go in, you lose.
So far, I've managed to stay dry.
If I was Bear Grylls, I'd probably tell you
that this is one of the most dangerous environments known to man.
A rock boulder or tree
could land on my head at any minute.
Meanwhile, the storm is building up in the mountains
and it could precipitate a flash flood
that will come barreling down this canyon and sweep me away.
I have to go very fast,
because every minute here is potentially lethal.
However, we don't do that around here,
so let me confine myself to saying
"that was a very pleasant stroll".
Not far from the gorge is the town of Baia de Fier,
which makes a good base-camp for exploring the area,
with several new eco-hotels to choose from.
Before going in search of one,
I wanted to pay a quick visit to a professor from Timișoara,
who weekends here
and is one of the few people in Romania
who still knows the recipe for Carpathian jamon.
So, welcome to our table!
This for me is a great curiosity,
because I've never seen a jamon,
you're using the Spanish term, in Romania, before.
How did you do it?
Well, the story starts with my grandfather, actually.
In the 50's, he was somehow the butcher of the village, you know,
and every year he refined and refined recipes
and marked somewhere in a notebook these things.
Tried to improve.
He improved, yeah. Of course, I learned next to him,
but I never cut a jambon before he died.
When you cut a pig, the first thing you put aside is the jambon.
This is the most precious.
It must be very hard, you know, having to do this
and to make it wait til it's spring, so...
tell me more about that, the process itself.
First process used is the salt and with different flavours,
because the salt is drying the meat.
So, you can put herbs in it, in this process?
Herbs and different... Not at the same time.
Every two or three days I have to add something,
I have to do something, especially the water and other things.
So you have to watch it like a baby.
Somehow.
It's really like... It's really like this.
And then you have to dry it, and then you have to smoke it.
To imagine, I never put this in the fridge.
Even now, we are at the end of August...
No wonder your grandfather wouldn't let you near it.
I mean, it's a very complicated process.
Yeah, it is. It is most treasured.
That's why only in Easter night this was the first thing we wanted to taste.
"So, how is the ham this year?"
It is not done, yet.
It's just... Ok, we taste it and that's all.
And then we put it back.
And we wait the tomatoes.
- We wait for the tomatoes until June. - With tomatoes in June.
- How tantalizing that must be! - Yeah.
Well, given the fact that it's now late August...
May we...?
Yes, now it's time.
- It's time, yes. - It's due time!
It's a special moment.
Because, after such a long time, you're so curious...
if it's good, it's not good?
It's too dry, or too salty, or too something?
- So, it's... Every time I'm a bit... - Anxious.
- Yeah, anxious, I'm a little bit. - You see how your baby has turned out.
And curious, yeah.
- Please, let's start. - OK.
So, first I'm going to take the...
I feel... this is very emotionally charged.
It is. After nine months...
- Literally, nine months. - When I said a baby, I wasn't joking.
Nine months of incubation.
Yeah, after nine months, we are taking the top off it.
You give it a slap.
Make sure it's breathing.
- And... action! - Oh, my Goodness me!
That is a piece of art.
Look at the striation in that, with the fat, and the muscle, and the meat,
it's that mottling that you have with a very good steak.
After nine months, so...
I think you can be happy with that result.
- Yeah. - Aren't you?
Yes, I am. Well, actually...
- A proud father. - We didn't try the test of taste.
No, we didn't. So far, it's good.
So far, so good. Yeah.
Now, the secret is to be very thin.
Because, otherwise, the ham is quite strong,
so if you take a big piece, it won't work too much.
So I invite you to taste, for the first time...
I have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation.
It's beautiful. It's a delicate flavour.
This compares very favourably with...
some of the great jamons I've had in Spain and Italy.
For me, this is a first.
I had just no idea that we can produce in this country
ham of this quality.
Down in Baia de Fier, I'm checking into Conacul Olarilor,
built in the style of a historic manor house,
combining ancient symbols with a contemporary design.
I was welcomed by owner Mihai.
- Mihai! - Hello, Charlie!
- Greetings. - Greetings!
- Nice to have you here. - Thank you so much.
This is impressive.
- Very new. - Thank you. It's about four months.
It's quite interesting, 'cause it's like the conacus from the area,
but you built it from scratch, haven't you?
Yes, indeed, I have a very big passion for the traditional things.
No kidding?
Yeah.
I'm noticing a lot of Brâncuși.
Yes, because Brâncuși was from Hobița, near here,
and we are proud of it.
So the elements of the design here, this station, symbols, all kinds of things.
Yes, we try to get the traditional signs
and the stories,
in every piece of furniture, in every corner,
in every room there's a different story.
For example, one of the rooms is called "The Sun Room".
Another room is about the symbol of the eclipse of the Moon,
which has reinterpreted ancient symbols
because here, in Baia de Fier, on the top of the mountain,
there are Dacian ruins, yes.
And we incorporated that in one of the rooms.
You can see, even the chairs have one piece of the Column of Brâncuși,
and these signs are the crosses
which represent the faith that guides us through life.
And, if you look at the table,
there are about one thousand hundred holes in it,
and it makes a traditional model that our grandparents made the textiles.
It's called mileu.
What about the designs on the vase? They're very beautiful.
It's made by a traditional artist here,
the same artist that painted our wall there,
- What, the murals on the wall? - Yeah, the mural on the wall.
She's called Daciana Ungureanu.
- That's really stunning, isn't it? - Yes.
Here we've got dancers, is that right?
Yes, that's the Romanian dance of Unification.
It symbolizes the Unification of all our territories,
that's the ceremonial dance.
And she's local, is she?
Yes, she's local, you have to meet her.
- Tell me where she is and I'll go see her. - She's near, she is in Novaci.
It's about 15 to 20 minutes from here.
Give me her address. And we'll catch up with you later.
Artist Daciana Ungureanu's house
was a twenty minutes ride away, on the outskirts of Novaci.
Unfortunately, I got caught in another thunderstorm.
Hi!
Welcome! How are you?
Cheers! All good?
A bit of a trouble with the rain, but we like it.
Rain is an omen of richness, you know that, right?
Richness. I want to show you something that's very important to me.
Here is a chest, it's my grandmother's dowry chest,
and on it lies a carpet that's a hundred years old.
An inspiration for your work?
Yes, it is inspiration for myself
and moreover, it has a very interesting story,
because it was buried in the ground during World War I, to keep it safe.
It is a hundred years old.
Here are a lot of old shirts,
older and newer ones, the oldest are a hundred years old,
shirts from rich women like the ones in my family,
everything has certain significance.
For example, here we have the eight-points-star,
sewn on the shirts of the shepherds and sailors,
to help them find their way home.
Well, a bit like the GPS nowadays.
I have placed this star almost everywhere on the ceramics I have decorated.
I like it very much.
This, for instance, is the eye, I'll show you where it comes from.
Wait... Here, look!
- I will bring the shirt. They are alike. - They are alike!
They say it is the sign of the eye...
These are eyes?
Yes, for super-vision.
For protection.
What else have I used? I used the girls hora dance,
which was performed to bring fertility to the soil,
a girls' dance on the ground to make the ground fertile,
and I used the wheat for prosperity.
And if you watch very carefully you will see these small lines,
a lot of small lines, used to show abundance.
This plate is decorated with Dragobete. Do you know the Dragobete?
It's the Romanian feast of love, much alike Valentine's day.
- Yes, I do. - You do?
The birds are depicted beak to beak, symbolizing a new beginning.
It is the spring, it is the love. This is the actual symbol.
- So, the spring. - Yes.
Here's what I know about the birds.
Birds connect this world to the other world.
If someone is no longer with you, right,
they have gone to the other world and you find out this story,
you will like it very much.
OK. You want me to show you how I work?
Yeah, show me how it's done
Let's see!
I'll create the model now, because your coming was a surprise
and I didn't think what I would do.
When you're painting, do you know how a piece is going to end up,
or do you improvise?
I don't have a sketch or a plan on paper, no.
I am very passionate about this,
I like the burnt pottery, the pottery made of burnt clay,
and, you know, when I put this wet thing on it or water, there's a scent,
it creates a scent that I love very much,
and that's when I create the model.
I am self-taught. I have some studies in Art, but not much.
I have painted what you see here in the last ten years or so.
I paint taking inspiration from this traditional area.
Yes, and I feel I'm not leaving this place, momentarily,
I mean, further and further... I still have something to say.
Back at Conacul Olarilor,
Mihai was hosting a culinary evening with celebrated chef Cristian Șorop.
My name is Cristian Șorop, I cook out of pure passion,
so you can rest assured, I will not poison you.
- Thanks! - This way, please.
You have little plates here, cutlery...
This one?
What do we have here?
This is just the starters.
But I feel obliged to try everything.
The problem is there's a second course.
I don't quite understand how you can manage to eat a second course
if you try everything we've got here.
But I'm on a voyage of discovery, so...
I just gonna have to make room.
During the Ottoman Conquest,
the women and children of the area were forced to hide
in the many caves in the mountains,
while their menfolk went off to fight.
The most famous of these caverns is just outside Baia De Fier.
The story of the women and their struggle has inspired an annual festival
through which local people and visitors retrace their steps
through four different caves
and out along the hills, while they chase the Ottoman south,
dressed only in honey and feathers, according to the legends,
in order to further scare the heathens.
These days, I'm not convinced it would have the same effect.
You can imagine the toll it must have taken
on the women and the children
living down here for months on end.
It wasn't just the fact that they ran out of food,
it's the damp, the constant cold that seeps into your bones
and total absence of any light except candles and fires,
which means also inhaling smoke in order to stay warm.
No wonder they finally decided:
"Well, if we're gonna die, we'd rather die beside our men."
As it was, fate had something rather different in store for them.
I think it must be one of the most striking and inspirational examples
of female empowerment in that or in any age.
The womenfolk of the local communities, having hidden out here,
decided to come to the rescue of their men
and together routing the Turks all the way back to Craiova.
This is a Hollywood movie, someone ought to make it.
If you want an example of how resourceful Mother Nature is, take a look at this.
This is the oldest of these lights,
you can see it's aluminium, it's battered, it's been around here for years,
shining on this stalagmite.
And it's green.
And it's covered in mold and lichen and moss,
even deep underground here.
All you have to do is turn on the light and you have an explosion of life.
I was born an original sinner,
And I was born from original sin.
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
it would be a mountain of money piled up to my chin.
Very nice acoustics, indeed.
A rock concert down here, quite literally.
My next stop was directly overhead.
It required a steep hike up the mountain to a rocky outcrop,
where I was due to drop in on adventure guide
and local hero, Dan Chiriac,
who organizes, among other things,
the most panoramic place to hang out in Romania.
After slogging up a mountain, what you really need is some downtime,
maybe a nice, cosy hammock in which to kick back and enjoy the view.
Wonder where I could find that.
Good morning, Dan!
- Good morning, welcome! - Hi!
I hear you might have a hammock spare. Where did you get this idea from?
The idea started from the fact
that no one has stayed here, before.
And why shouldn't you stay here?
You should stay, and he should stay, and him,
everyone should have the possibility to lie in a hammock
not only on the porch, near trees,
but also to have the chance to do it
at a height of circa 200 m above the ground.
To admire a beautiful landscape and to try
to overcome their fears,
their inner barriers and blockers.
The local people here have told me
you're sort of the godfather of adventure tourism in this area,
that you do a lot to promote adventure tourism.
Tell me, why here?
The question "why?" only has one answer:
Because it's possible.
And because nature has put on an extraordinary landscape,
giving us the possibility to admire this landscape
and to "live" this landscape both in summer and in winter,
and because...
each tourist has the right to discover something new.
So, where am I gonna sleep?
- There. - Perfect.
- Let's do this! - Moment...
- Please... - Yeah.
Thanks!
For you, for me.
OK, yeah.
- You have...? - Yeah.
- Right? - Yeah.
Up!
Okay...
Large.
- There you go! - OK, you're free!
What a fabulous place to have a quick snooze.
This is probably not something that you'd like,
and I'm addressing the man behind the camera right now.
Not brilliant in the hammocks.
So, this could easily flip over, so I should stop doing that,
but once you get used to the altitude
it's quite relaxing, somewhat invigorating
and soporific at the same time.
And what a view! I mean, honestly, you're actually in the view,
you're part of the view. You get used to this.
Quite a nice place to spend the night.
I can see all the way to the top of the Transalpina,
which I hope
we'll be taking you to later in the programme, if we have time.
Meanwhile...
Take five!
One relaxing powernap later, it was off to Ograda Bunicilor.
A neo-traditional lodge, where owners Cristi and Melania
were organizing lamb on the spit, Oltenia style.
Complete with live music,
courtesy to the hugely talented lăutari band from nearby Târgu Jiu.
Cristi, good morning.
Welcome in Ograda Bunicilor.
- Thank you so much. - In "The Grandparents' Garden".
Hi! How are you?
We have a special dish.
You've really pushed the...
- Yeah. - Look at that!
It's a pastrama.
And this frame is made specially for it.
Exactly. It's slow cooked.
We prepared this pastrama two days ago,
and we keep it with some flavours...
- It is marinated. Natural marinate. - Exactly. Natural, yeah.
- What herbs? - It's a secret.
- The grandparents' secret. - Okay.
We cook very slowly, two hours and a half
depends on the age of the animal.
How long have you been open?
We opened only four months ago,
we try to make something traditional, to make something for our soul.
We came back from Timișoara, from a big city of Romania, in the countryside.
You couldn't get more of a contrast than this.
The house design is really interesting
because you've taken all the traditional elements
from the old grandma's house.
Yeah, we want to keep the traditional,
and our biggest problem was to not be kitsch.
In the same time, we want to give to the tourists what they need.
An authentic experience, but with comfort.
So, this is gonna cook now for another hour, is it?
Yes, something like this, about 45 minutes, one hour, it will be ready.
It's an unusual cut, the way they've just opened it up like this and displayed it.
I've never seen this done anywhere else. You've got all the different cuts.
You know, the ribs, the leg, shoulder.
Yeah, it's a long process, I've told you. And the taste, how is it?
Oh, my goodness!
- It's divine, absolutely divine. - Yeah.
For the love of herbs, I'm gonna start guessing what herbs you've put in there.
We have garlic, we have salt.
You've got some thyme in there, any rosemary?
- Yeah. - Any rosemary, I'm getting rosemary.
A little piece of basil.
Ok, so we're gonna wait for this to cook, yeah?
I want to show you an experience with some friends.
The Taraf From Gorj.
But it's not just the speed in which they're playing,
it's the key changes
just like millions of them, all the time,
they keep changing key, but it works.
It works, it's like jazz, it's an... the cymbal.
It's like you're playing the piano
and you're listening to the harp, you know, it's somewhere in between.
And combined, as it was frantic, but beautiful sound.
- It's looking almost ready? - Yes.
- But... - Let's try it.
- We need to be sure. - Yeah.
Perfect.
Well, you're good to go. Pastrama on the grill.
- Claudiu made a good job. - Yeah. Congrats, Claudiu, thank you!
Thanks.
Cheers.
- Good health! - Good health! Cheers!
That was beautiful. Did you notice?
When your wife started dancing,
the sun came out.
Yeah, we're lucky.
- You're a lucky man. - Yeah, I'm a lucky man.
- Cheers! - Cheers!
After lunch, I was met by local guide, Bogdan Babaligea,
who kindly invited me to visit his grandparents,
on an isolated farm high in the mountains.
The only way to get there was by four-wheel drive.
A pitted and precarious dirt road took us up through the forest,
along ravines and steep valleys.
The horizon opening up behind us,
as we ascended the Carpathian reaches,
fording small streams,
navigating hairpin bends,
and trundling on, until the trees finally petered out.
And we emerged into the evening glory
of alpine meadows and rounded hilltops,
affording hundred mile views across the lowlands of Oltenia
that stretched into the haze.
Forging on, we plunged back into the forest.
Despite the imminency of sunset,
I was unable to resist stopping for a couple of minutes of foraging,
before we continued.
A quick pit-stop, five minutes.
And a bag of chanterelles, look at that.
They need a bit of cleaning.
A bit of mud.
But those are the most delicious mushrooms,
along with porcini and coal field mushrooms that you can possibly get.
Fried with garlic and butter,
on some toast at breakfast,
maybe with some bacon chopped it, crispy bacon,
finally chop some sprinkle in.
That is gourmet.
I also found a very small cockscomb mushroom.
These... really darkened, you see there the filigree on them,
and these are also delicious.
But they disintegrate quite easily.
Right. Here we are, all of it!
Having a slight traffic issue here, in the middle of nowhere!
- Hello! - Good evening!
Welcome!
- This is Charlie Ottley. - Nice to meet you!
My grandmother and my grandfather.
This is our sheepfold.
And they've been living up here since when?
May. I think, the last May.
That's kind of cold still, up here in May, isn't it?
- Yeah, it is. - We have some supplies.
Let me get them from the car.
You know, the strange thing for me is
that this it's so reminiscent of Scotland!
Those open hills that we were driving across
and that heathland, that moorland,
it was the same, the difference being, of course,
that there are wolves, bears and lynx in this landscape,
it's completely untamed.
It's a lot more beautiful in spring than it is now, in autumn.
But your grandfather, your grandparents, they are here by choice.
Do you think there will come a time when they stop doing this in the summer?
Because a lot of people at their age could take a cruise, you know?
Or just maybe sit out on a deckchair and enjoy their retirement?
I don't know, my grandmother say.
No.
It's been 19 years since I've been here.
Nineteen years. He was three years old, we went across over there, at Mușătoiu.
- Never. - Never?
- Always here? - Here.
It's just the two of us,
and the work here is actually for more than for two,
but we manage the household as well as we can
and we do it all, just us two.
How do they feel about increased traffic, more tourists?
Because, you know, development here is starting to encroach,
even in places like this.
Disaster, in a way.
These folks with ATVs should be given a route.
They should get rules on the speed and all that.
Because now they pass by...
- Oh, my! - Listen!
You can hear them.
They drive by, forging the motors, they're going up and down,
some of them are really...
They storm over, they destroyed the road, they destroyed everything.
You see people on the big roads who drive pretty well,
while these guys make a mess around here.
And nobody intervenes in any way.
This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in Romania.
I observe it where I'm living, they're observing it here,
there is a huge spread of ATVs,
because the government, or the European Union, I don't know who,
decided to offer lots and lots of money for people to do start-ups,
running ATVs.
Now you've got more and more companies
springing up on the side of the road like mushrooms,
offering everybody trips off-roading by ATV.
And they come to places like this and they tear up the top soil.
Doing that they create soil erosion,
they pollute the atmosphere with noise and petrol fumes,
they scare the livestock, they scare the wild animals away,
and it just destroys the beauty
of these remote and perfect places, doesn't it?
When you tell them that they are not allowed downwards or upwards,
they give you all kinds of obscene hand gestures.
- Yes. - Yeah.
They...
They, not...
I think we are in violent agreement about it, aren't we?
Thank you so much for having us.
God help us!
- Good health! - May you live long!
Back down the mountain I've reunited with the bike
to visit a rather topsy-turvy house.
Located in the village of Bumbești-Pițic,
a brainchild of a man called Alex,
this increasingly popular visitor attraction
or perhaps lacking in gravity
is standing conventional ideas about tourism on their head.
Quite literally.
I suppose... I have one question.
- Why? - I like new things, which are not...
I've done some research, this house does not exist in Romania, not built.
I liked it very much.
It also fitted the past years,
and I thought, since everything has turned upside-down,
then we should also turn.
And so we literally turned a house upside-down.
In the first three months it was...
To get the word spread out, and photos, to have people hearing about it,
it was a bit more difficult time,
but then tourists started to come,
the photos started to spread on the internet,
so more and more people started to come.
So, the local people were laughing, when you did it,
but they're not laughing anymore...
No, they're not laughing anymore.
Now they each started to develop their own thing around us,
our neighbours are considering creating accommodation spaces,
selling their traditional products,
each one out of their own home.
I imagine it's very popular for children.
- They love this, yeah? - Yes.
For children, it's very, very good.
- Fantastic! - Yes, fantastic!
Was it difficult to build?
Very, very difficult.
The furniture is very, very heavy.
First of all, we're talking about the interiors.
This was more difficult to fix it in place.
In an ordinary house, you put it up on the wall and that's it.
The most difficult room is this one, the bedroom,
with placing the covers on the bed, we had to fix the mattress in place, too,
and then, the toilet, which is also the most...
That weigh a lot. You don't want a toilet landing on someone's head.
Yes, that's right.
It is a metal structure.
It would have been impossible to do it in concrete.
It was build upside-down from the start.
We began with the roof, then the walls,
and in the end we built the foundation.
You must have a lot of visitors. I've seen a lot of people outside.
Yes, we have visitors.
We didn't have so many in the first months,
but then they started to come.
In the holidays seasons.
Yeah, and I guess everyone wants to take photographs.
- For Instagram and... you know. - Yes.
Now we are working on a gingerbread house.
In two or three weeks, we hope we'll finish it.
- Hansel and Gretel. - Yes.
Have you ever spent the night here, just for fun?
There would be a big, big problem: Who would be on top of a woman, here?
Yeah, but it's very easy to get out of bed in the mornings.
Although people do call and ask us for accommodation.
We tell them we cannot hang them up to sleep at night.
It's one of the craziest ideas I've seen so far in my travels,
but it works, and people love it, and the kids come here.
And it just fires your imagination.
And you can get a really silly picture.
If we flip this around.
- Thanks a lot! - Have a nice day!
The two most famous scenic roads in Romania are the Transfăgărășan
and the less well-known, but equally spectacular Transalpina.
The latter starts from the town of Novaci
and meanders over the Carpathians before descending into Transylvania.
This is a spectacular drive, providing you have good weather.
But it's worth checking beforehand,
as conditions can be very different near the summer.
The road is closed for much of the winter due to heavy snow,
and even in the summer it can be chilly, particularly if you're on a bike.
Luckily, it was another day in paradise.
With a wide-open road and the wind in my helmet.
The only way was up.
- Good morning! - Good morning! Welcome to us!
Thanks!
Look at that!
- Do you have fresh mushrooms? - Yes.
Boletes!
I hit the jackpot.
Fresh porcini.
Look at that!
Boletus edilus.
Otherwise known as cèpes,
or in Romanian hribi.
These are the king of mushrooms.
You can sell each one in a restaurant in England for about three quid.
But here...
They are in great abundance.
- How much? - 30 lei per kilo.
OK. Perfect. One kilo, please.
That one.
That one. There.
Let's check it out.
Let's see.
I knew it was worth coming up here.
Now I need you to get to appreciate the most extraordinary view.
Feels like you're on top of the world.
But... fresh produce.
On the side of the road, like I keep saying.
That is one kilo 65.
Oh, thank you very much.
Super, OK.
- OK. - You can have that back.
Thank you.
Thanks.
And that's not all.
Cheese, brânză.
We have palinka, of course. It's mandatory.
And we have cherry liqueur, blueberry liqueur,
made with berries, probably picked from these hills,
and all sorts of pickled mushrooms.
This is like pickled hribi, honey, wildflower honey.
These are merișoare
which literally means little apples.
They're full of vitamin C and they grow wild along with the blueberries
which are also here, wild blueberries.
- Thank you very much. - You're welcome.
Driving back down into Oltenia we pass through the town of Rânca.
One of the finest examples of what happens
in the absence of any planning regulation.
Sadly, if this kind of uncensored development is allowed to continue,
in Romania's most wild and unspoiled landscapes
and the potential for international tourism
is inevitably destined to decline in the future years.
The town is so ugly it's almost an act of vandalism.
Wouldn't it be nice if communities such as Rânca
adhered to some architectural plan?
Maybe the City Hall can offer recommendations everybody's stuck to.
Not only would this enhance the beauty of the community,
but also the beauty of the landscape around it.
People seem to forget when they're building a hotel,
a boarding-house, or a house
that it's not just the view when you're looking out,
it's what everyone else sees when they're standing outside, looking back.
While Romania
has some of the most progressive universities in Eastern Europe,
it's educational system is still woefully underfunded.
With many rural schools forced to close
due to primeval amenities
like outside toilets and a total lack of heating.
For this reason, kids in isolated areas
have to travel much further to attend larger schools.
With bigger classes, more pupils,
and less individual attention.
Meanwhile, historic schools in remote communities sit derelict and unused.
Or at least, that was the case until recently.
I've come to the village of Rugi to meet the founder of a charity
that's attempting successfully to reverse this trend.
- Mihaela! - Hello!
Welcome, Charlie! Welcome to our school.
- It's shaping up, isn't it? - It is.
- Yeah. - Pretty hot.
- Honoured to meet you, thank you. - Nice to meet you, thank you.
- And thank you for what you're doing. - Thank you for coming to Gorj.
This is a beautiful project, so important.
Yes, this is one of our actually 29 projects this year.
29 schools this year alone?
29 schools this year and another 37 in the past three years.
So, in total, there will be almost 70 by the end of the year.
That's astonishing!
So, everywhere, I mean we finished already 50 schools,
and we are very proud of them.
The school drop-out in Romania is 15 percent. Fifteen.
Europe's average is ten percent,
so my goal is, you know, to decrease this down to zero.
If you see up, we are changing the ceilings.
And you have insulation, presumably, all the way down.
How much does it cost to build a school, on average?
Little, compared to how much the state is paying.
So, we managed to spend 80,000 euros for a school, last year.
Maybe this year it'll be 120,000 euros,
because the prices grew, the complexity of the schools grew,
but in average is 25 times less than the state is paying for the same work.
- Each sponsor does different bits. - Absolutely.
Radiators, painting, ceramics,
and we are absolutely grateful to them,
because everything you see here
it's because we are crazy enough to believe it is possible,
with a few people, we are six people in the whole association, just six.
Once you built a school, that's it, isn't it?
- We don't control anything, yeah. - And then it's down to Primărie.
But something changes in those schools, because everybody loves
being in a very modern, clean, well-equipped school.
Everybody, from teachers to managers, to kids, to parents.
This is why we decided, even at the beginning of this year,
we will start constructing our own schools.
And these schools will be absolutely different,
and we will provide teachers, we will be gathering the kids,
you know, the ones that don't go to school,
we'll bring them to school, we will feed them,
we will make money for them,
because my intention is for kids not to go on the fields, to work,
paid with 50 lei a day.
They have to come to school.
And we will make money for the kids to take home.
You know how?
We'll open like a market place
and we will teach kids to do whatever they can with their own hands
and we will sell, they will have their own little shop online
on that place, market place online,
and they will sell their own things and take...
So they'll be able to bring money back to their families,
as well as getting an education at the same time.
- Exactly. - I must say...
This is one of the most inspirational initiatives
I've ever encountered in Romania.
What you are doing is simply wonderful.
It's useful.
But it's a tragedy that you have to do it.
Yeah, if we don't do it, who will do it?
We will just wait and wait for the state to do it?
- I know the feeling. - It'll never do it.
These kids will never know, maybe, who we are and why we did this for them,
but it's not important.
What it's important is that these kids have a future.
Because now the illiteracy rate is...
The functional illiteracy is 70 percent.
- 70 percent illiterate? - Seven zero, yes.
And just few years ago, before Covid, it was 40.
And now it's almost double.
If we don't want to see zombies around us in the near future,
not being able to understand each other,
something has to happen now.
One of the many things that makes Romania unique
is its enormous ethnic diversity.
Aside from larger minorities like Hungarians, Roma and Saxon,
there is also a substantial Greek population,
but it's coalesced in different parts of the country,
primarily in the south.
One such community lies in the town of Cârcea, just outside Craiova.
I drop by for a spot of lunch
and a chance to learn more about their cultural legacy.
- Hello. Kalimera! - Welcome, kalimera!
Kalimera, Xantula!
The costumes are amazing.
The costumes, yes, they are the traditional Greek costumes
they are called sarakatsanika costumes and they are...
like we have in Romania: Oltenia, Muntenia,
so that's a region where they come from.
And they are called sarakatsans, these people.
They are some special costumes,
you can find sarakatsans all over Greece.
Why here? Romania?
Why did the Greeks come to Romania?
They came a long time ago, around 1800 or 1900.
They are the old Greeks, who came here to work.
Yes. There was a time when Greece was very poor.
They identified an opportunity in Romania,
Romania being considered a rich country at that time.
Bucharest was the little Paris.
And so, of course they were lured in.
Trading cereals and animals, and they came by boats.
They came up the Danube.
Many of them went into politics,
many of them were significant people in Romania.
Others were plain people, like me, like you.
Like us, we haven't done anything majestic, so to say.
While the troupe were dancing,
Sanda whipped us some tzatziki and a Greek salad.
Tzatziki is easy to make.
First, you grate and squeeze the cucumber,
to remove excess moisture.
Then mix it with the yogurt.
Then drizzle in the olive oil and a pinch of salt.
A squeeze of garlic...
and finish with a sprinkle of fresh or dry dill.
And that's basically it.
So, Charlie, I invite you to taste.
We take a bit of chicken...
With the dip, yeah.
Let me know if it is tasteful or not.
Smothered with tzatziki...
I think we've done a good job, Charlie.
And we are the lucky guys who taste it first.
- Bravo! - Bravo, children!
I think... I think I recognize that, the last song.
- Where was that from? - Zorba the Greek.
- Zorba the Greek? - Yeah.
One of the most famous movies of all time, actually, for Greece.
Yeah, exactly.
Anthony Quinn. When did you get into this?
So, most of us really appreciate Greece, itself.
And all the traditions that come with it,
everything about it, all the beaches, everything.
The beauty. I mean, let's face it.
Which brings me to my next point, which is: Why here?
Have you got any plans or aspirations
to go back to Greece and to live there,
or do you want to stay here?
I mean, yeah, it's very nice to visit Greece, but...
We would rather remain in Romania,
because we want to just continue our tradition here,
and keep it alive.
Leaving this small corner of Greece behind us,
it was off to explore Craiova, Romania's fifth largest city.
Built on the site of the Dacian settlement of Pelendava,
renamed Castra Nova after the Roman conquest.
Despite being hit by an earthquake in 1790,
a plague in 1795
and then being almost burned down by the Ottomans in 1802,
Craiova rose from the ashes
to become a thriving hub for arts and culture.
Lots of cosy boutique hotels in the old town,
like this one, which has a Parisian vibe.
What I love particularly is the name, Hotel Splendid.
Well, it is over a hundred years old, but this is a very adequate English word.
Perhaps in the future we'll see "Hotel Marvellous"
or "Hotel Absolutely Spiffy".
After checking in, it was off to explore the old town.
Which retains some of the best preserved architecture in the country.
It's the little details that really lift the vibe of this city,
take for example ugly electrical units in the street,
which have all been painted over by local artists.
One of the cities' most opulent buildings is the Art Museum,
founded in 1954,
in the former palace of Constantin Mihail,
one of the wealthiest men in the country during the 19th century.
The building was designed by Paul Gottereau,
architect to the Royal Court of Romania,
and combines French academic classicism and late baroque,
comparable to the palaces of the Loire Valley, in France.
Its lavish interior features Carrara marble stairs,
Lyon silk walls and Murano glass chandeliers,
as we also saw at Peleș Castle in episode four.
But the main attraction
is a whole gallery dedicated to Oltenia's most famous sculptor,
Constantin Brâncuși,
which, unfortunately, we weren't allowed to show you.
Craiova is also famous for its parks and green spaces.
The largest is the Nicolae Romanescu Park,
formerly known as the Independence Park and the People's Park.
Located on the site of a grand family estate,
it's the third largest in Europe,
designed by famous French architect Édouard Redont
and constructed at the turn of the 20th century.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped into the Botanical Garden,
established by professor Alexandru Buia in 1952.
It currently houses over 6.000 species of flora,
and it's still in use as a study aid for the University of Craiova.
But more important for the rest of us, it's also open to the public.
To stroll through the landscaped grounds,
admire the blaze of floral colours,
and marvel at its weird and wonderful sculptures.
As the sun sets, Craiova's bars and restaurants fill with people
and the evening buzz works its siren song
on even the most reluctant travelers.
Adding to the temptation,
there are festivals and events that run throughout the summer.
Naturally, we just happened to land right in the middle of one of them.
Can't believe it. Unintentionally, we are in Craiova
at the same time as the Annual Puppet Festival.
They've been setting out down there,
I've been watching all the flotillas getting assembled.
Any minute now, they're gonna come up this street
and parade down past the University and the Theater.
The police have just got the last cars, the street's now closed,
I can hear them approaching. This should be fun.
It's not the police cars I'm scared of,
it's the fact that it's the Joker on the front,
quite literally the Joker, with a green hair,
bearing down on us.
Where's Batman when you need him?
Craiova also has some surprising connections with the UK,
as I discovered the next morning.
I grabbed a quick stroll after breakfast
before saddling up once more for our final adventure.
The more time I spend in Craiova, the more it starts to feel like home.
I woke up this morning with a cup of English black tea, a splash of milk,
I took a walk in the English Park,
and I'm now outside the National Theatre,
which hosts one of the largest international Shakespeare festivals
in the world.
Behind me is the man himself.
Albeit clothed in a large cape.
Like Dracula.
Two years ago, I walked part
of one of the largest and most scenic hiking trails in Europe,
Via Transilvanica,
which meanders 1.400 kilometers
from Bucovina in the north all the way across Transylvania
finishing in Oltenia, by the banks of the Danube.
For our final stop, I've come to the hills outside Drobeta Turnu Severin,
to hike one of its southernmost sections.
Joining me are trail organizers Ana Szekely and Tibi Ușeriu,
also a world-renowned ultra-marathon runner.
Plus tourism expert Călin Ilie and alpinist Alex Găvan.
Our plan is to join the particularly panoramic stretch of the trail,
and then to take an extreme shortcut.
Instead of continuing over the hills, we will plunge beneath them.
It must have been so much work
to put the trail together.
Yes, it was a big journey, so to say,
a four and a half years journey.
We started in 2018
and this year we succeeded to finish it.
We are going to have also the Official Guide, on the internet,
you can download it from the website and you can use it as a...
Like, it explains to you everything you need to know, to be able to walk it.
You don't need a physical person to come with you and to show you things.
If people need guides and persons who are walking with them
or showing them things,
they will be able to...
Have an official guide for each area.
Exactly. But for now, we have this written guide, the book.
I think it's a lovely idea, because that means you're recruiting local people.
Exactly, this is one of the points for which we did Via Transilvanica
so to involve the communities and to...
try for them to evolve their own businesses and their own things,
so that they don't need to go away and work in other countries.
Via Transilvanica offers now a possibility for them to give like...
to give a bed where the tourists can sleep, or to give some...
Homestays, agro-tourism, Airbnb
or even pensions and guest houses.
And organic food, and everything they have in the garden,
What were the challenges that you had to face when you were doing this?
'Cause you've had to put milestones every kilometer.
And signs on walls, on trees,
so people can find their way.
That logistic, it must have been huge.
One of the biggest challenges was the distance,
which was getting longer and longer from our home.
And then, the communities,
which were either very open for it, or not,
and some of the people were also trying to vandalize
our signs and our stones, and our marking poles.
Yes, or they just stole them
or they just made them vanish.
It's so frustrating, isn't it?
You're trying to do something to help the local communities.
And bring people
and commerce, and tourism into these villages,
and yet, they see an opportunity in the form of "that's a nice fencepost".
Yes, but this is only a challenge for us
to make our family this Via Transilvanica a family bigger and bigger,
so that people are helping us to do it
and to take care of this road and to embrace it
and for the communities to explain it,
so that the communities understand it
and they embrace it and they take care of it.
It's funny. These old ways of... these traditional techniques
were amazingly productive for the landscape.
For us, from the outside, yes, it's very picturesque to see them in the old way.
You can't keep people living in the Dark Ages.
Exactly. For hundreds of years,
people in this part of Europe knew how to manage this land
in a sustainable way and we still have it, you know,
in a lot of the meadows of the Transylvania.
You know, it's like the highest bio-diversity on square meter, in Europe.
So basically, in a square meter in this kind of meadows
you can still find over one hundred types of different plants.
- Which is absolutely amazing. - You can't find that anywhere else.
I think it's a blessing, it's not a drawback,
to be born in the countryside.
It's an advantage.
It's an advantage if you have the capacity to see this.
So, for all these people that live here for all their life,
people like us
can actually show them that being here doesn't mean backward,
it doesn't mean, you know, primitive or whatever, or uncivilized,
but this is just another way of living.
There are many ways of living on the planet, right?
You can live in the center of Bucharest among concrete blocks, let's say,
or you can live here.
It doesn't matter that one is better than the other,
we just need to accept the diversity that we have
in a way that this diversity can work on the long term
for, you know, to still be able to exist on the planet
within the next 100 years.
We need to open.
We've just taken a great break on the road,
because there aren't many shops, so we detoured to this village.
I think this is the best project Romania has
since the falling of communism, in tourism.
This kind of shop is the perfect image of the way the community could be engaged
by Via Transilvanica in progressing and boosting.
So, in my point of view,
the project Via Transilvanica will give to such communities
a way to promote themselves.
There's so many things you can do with agro-tourism
that actually provides a boost, doesn't it?
That's my hope and I am sure the tourist will be excited
to see the way that people are living here,
So, if you want to know Romania, come and walk seven days in Via Transilvanica.
That's the best way to find out how Romania lives.
It's funny, isn't it, that there is such a lot of cultural diversity in Romania,
and yet, people don't necessarily see that, or is this an advantage?
This is a sticking point and actually, from a tourist's perspective...
This diversity should be united and this is the road which unites.
Vive la difference!
And that's actually "well done, nicely linked".
That is indeed what the Via Transilvanica does.
It brings everyone together.
And this road is good for Romania, to be a visit card.
And to create curiosity: "why should I come in Romania?"
- Yeah. - "What could I meet here?"
"Which kind of people?"
So, curiosity is one reason to come here.
And diversity is another one.
When you're training, how far you run a day?
Usually, between 15 and 25 kilometers.
But I'm trying to do, every week,
between 250 and 300 kilometers, when I'm not training for a competition.
And you're gonna run the entire length of the Via Transilvanica, right?
Yes.
Is this the longest run you've ever done?
The longest I've run was in a competition of 620 kilometers in six days.
That was my personal record.
Except that one was non-stop.
Here, we have the opportunity and chance
that, by running 1.400 kilometers, in 19 days,
the daily average distance to run is of 65 kilometers.
Still, it's gonna be punishing, because it's a long, long distance.
To many, it isn't.
Those who are unfamiliar with running think "65 kilometers is not a big deal".
The problems appear when, after ten days,
you still have to run 65 kilometers, and another 65 kilometers,
which adds up, and our body isn't built for this.
And then the mental aspect kicks in, and from there on to go all the way,
and to succeed.
It is the biggest challenge for me, too,
but I'm glad that this challenge takes place in Romania,
it is on a route that I have helped getting created,
and I enjoy this part very much,
it is the most important geography lesson for any pupil
or it was for me, at least.
It's a different way of knowing your country, and the nature,
and that's when you start walking across the country,
more than 1.500 kilometers.
I personally believe it will be one of the most fascinating in the world,
due to the mile posts, to the sculptures
and due to the landscapes that change every ten or 15 kilometers.
I have run a piece of the Camino de Santiago, too.
They are not comparable.
I'm excited. Are you excited?
Călin!
- Hey! - Hey!
Thank you so much for coming up, really brilliant. Cheers!
Nice to meet you. Thank you!
- Hello! - Hello, Tibi!
Good. It looks like we're gonna be well equipped.
Yeah. So, this is the equipment we need for the cave.
The plan is to go inside the Topolnița cave,
we will pass a short sector, just the active sector, with a river underground.
- And we're gonna get wet, clearly. - Yeah, most definitely.
I've seen pictures of this cave, it's huge.
Even the opening. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful, isn't it?
It is. It's the second biggest portal, in Romania also.
Ok, let's get on with it, then. Brilliant!
- Let's get it done. - Suit up!
I feel like James Bond after five good years of retirement.
- Look, miracle! - Miracle!
My God, it does fit.
Wow, OK.
This is a first for any president of the Hotel Federation.
The very first president of the Hotel Federation
to go into a cave like this.
You see, it's not just a desk job, is it?
- Yeah, absolutely. - Absolutely not.
We should avoid desk jobs, no.
This is the way to promote tourism, to experience it.
- A kind of remote work. - Just for research purposes, right?
I'm sure it's gonna be an amazing adventure,
for a long time I wanted to enter this cave.
And you've not been in it, it's a cave you've never been in?
Exactly. In this particular one, no.
We have the mascot, look.
Look at this!
- You're getting in a river... - I thought you were talking about that.
My mascot. Sir Robert Duck.
Oh, my God! And you'll take it in the...
A rubber duck, we'll putting in the water.
- What else can you do with it? - You have something to play with.
I'll have something to float down the river.
After a quick soak to acclimatize ourselves to the freezing water,
it was onwards
and downwards.
On first sight, the cave resembles
the entrance to one of Mexico's cenote systems.
Its huge opening looming over us like the gates of Hades.
Making our way across slippery rocks,
the light gradually faded behind us.
Until we were enveloped by darkness
and the sound of rushing water.
Scrambling and swimming forward.
It was a case of following the current,
with a little help from my mascot.
Not being lured into the many side tumbles
that branched off the main chamber.
Eventually, light bloomed ahead.
And we emerge, shivering,
on the other side of the hills.
That was tiring, but fantastic.
It took us an hour to swim and to walk and to crawl,
through the network of caverns.
We've only seen five percent of the cave.
It's the second largest cave in Romania, as referred.
And that's us, completely out of time.
Join us for the next leg of the journey,
as we ride through the western region, Banat.
I'll be revisiting what was once described
as the most beautiful spa resort on the continent.
We will be heading underground again,
this time to navigate a historic sewer system.
I will be checking out Europe's city of culture 2023.
We'll also be learning to make a local version of pizza.
We're going a bit nuts in my continuing mission to sample seasonal produce.
This and much more besides,
in episode six of Flavours Of Romania.