Today the plan was a tour out of Bucharest, to see a bit more of Romania, visiting a subterranean salt mine, bubbling mud ‘volcanoes’ of Buzau County, and some of Romania’s best wine (according to them.)
I went outside early for today’s start, because I didn’t want to be late for my guide. He sent me a message, telling me he was in a grey skoda. I had no idea what a skoda was, but someone pulled up so I got into his car, and we had a great day. Hopefully he was my tour guide? (He was, mom – I checked the ID, I promise)
So originally, I was told the first stop would be the Salt Mine. When I met Octavian (or Tavi), he told me the winery had to close today at noon. I told him that was fine, I wasn’t worried about it. I thought that meant we were not going to it. Instead, it meant I found myself at a wine tasting at 9:30, and half drunk by 10:30.
We toured LacertA Winery. They’ve won a number of awards in recent years. I tasted a number of them and I can confirm that, in fact, their wines taste like wine.
It is a small winery, but they all are in Romania. There were over 25 wineries now in the area. I kept picturing Lucy and Ethel making wine, but this was a little more sophisticated.
They’ll be starting the harvest on Monday, starting with the green grapes first, and then the red. They’ll be done with the harvest sometime in late October.
They don’t label the bottles until they’re ready to sell. This could be because the labels might change, depending on where they are sending it (different countries have different requirements, and they label in multiple languages), but also because if a bottle breaks, it would ruin all the other labels near and beneath it. I asked if they ever got mixed up about what wine was what and labeled the wrong thing, and was told “No. We do not drink while we work” which I thought was meant to be a joke but no one else laughed.
The second stop was the Unirea Salt Mine, Europe’s second-largest salt mine. The mine is no longer functional as a mine; it now just serves as a tourist spot. It has a unique microclimate, with natural air conditioning and a constant temp (53.6f), and they say that the air here is the purest air on earth. There are some that believe the air has medicinal purposes, and there is actually an area sectioned off for Lung Cancer patients to come and rest.
The mine opened in 1943, and functioned until 1970.
The mine has 14 chambers – in addition to the medical areas, there are art areas and sports areas. They gave stats on size but everything is in meters so I have no idea. What I did get was that from floor to ceiling, it was 200 meters – and the ceiling was 200 meters below the surface. Dear readers, that means I was 400m, or 1,312ft, below the surface.
It was amazing. I had never seen anything like it before. The salt is mixed with earth, and was hard – you couldn’t pull chunks away, they had to cut it (or blow it out, with dynamite).
It can serve as a nuclear bunker, but we do not talk about that. (There are supplies but only for a certain list of people)
From there, on our way back to Bucharest, we went to look at these weird geothermal cones that spout mud and natural gases near the town of Berca, that we can call mud volcanoes. They’re typically a few meters high (6′-10′, I was able to do that conversion), and look pretty cool up close. The guide said it looks a little like the surface of the moon? I have not yet visited the moon, so I cannot independent verify this. It was pretty insane; I’ve never seen anything like them. You have to hike a bit to get there, but well worth it.
I asked if it was healing mud, like at spas. Tiva said to be very careful not to touch it; if I do, tomorrow morning I will wake up and my hand where I touched it would be burned. (So I think that means no, it isn’t like the mud in the spa?)
We climbed around a bunch, and I got dirty. I felt bad, because the interior of his car was black and very clean, so I was brushing myself off…when Tavi pulled what seemed like a horse brush out of his trunk, and brushed me down.
The rest was seeing a lot of country-side. I saw sheep, goats, horses and cows along the way, and got my first glimpse of their Carpathian Mountains. (They look a lot like American mountains).
We also listened to a lot of Bob Dylan, and some of Rammstein. He was surprised I did not know them. I know them now.
Schengen, Cont.
So Tavi says yes, of course you must hate the Austrians, because they lie and play games. But behind the Austrians, the issue is Holland. Hell and doesn’t want Romania into the Schengen area, because it will make their ports too accessible, and Holland will lose out on too much business. So Holland has traded some secret or favor with Austria, for Austria to vocally oppose Romania, because if it were Holland, they would look selfish.
A different take on WWII
Tavi doesn’t think Romania should have switched sides (remember, Romania was fighting alongside the Nazis). His take is Romania had to take a side – Germany or Russia – and both were evil. By switching sides, Romania actually made BOTH Germany and Russia mad at them. If they had stayed with Germany, Germany still would have lost the war, and then Romania could have been a part of the Marshall Plan. Instead, Russia got control, and punished them.
Also, he told me a “funny” story about American planes flying over Bulgaria, that were low on fuel and still had bombs, so they dropped them to lose weight. “Bulgarians are not even important enough to kill on purpose!” – so maybe he didn’t use “funny” the right way, but interesting!
He also shared that in addition to many Jewish being removed to camps, mainly from Transylvania, 60,000 Gypsies were also removed. As he talked more about Gypsies, it became clear that he has a very bad opinion of them. We saw what he said was a Gypsy hooker at one point on a corner, and I pointed out that he had been complaining none of them worked, but she clearly had a job?
Russia
He was sharing that Romania has a complicated relationship with Ukraine. I asked then what he thought about Russia: “if you know your history, you will hate them until the end of your life.”
Great Britain
Romania was the first country King Charles visited, when he became king. He apparently has a summer home in Transylvania and loves the country.
The Revolution
Tavi was 2. His father was a police officer. He was quick to clarify NOT the secret police. His father was arrested, by the secret police, and held for three days during the uprising, and his mother assumed her husband was dead – executing police was exactly the sort of thing the Secret Police would have done. Tavi himself was a police officer until 2 years ago; then he decided life should be more interesting, and became a tour guide.
Pork
So, they eat a lot of pork in Romania. It turns out, this is because when they were under Turkish control, all of their food was taken. The Turks were Muslim, so they would not take the pork, as they could not eat it. So pork became incredibly popular to raise, and eat, because it was their only option to retain food.
Priests
There was a huge issue in Romania with priests in the smaller communities telling people if they got vaccinated, their skin would turn to snake skin. It was a huge issue because in small towns, people trust their mayor, their police chief and their priest. Tavi blames Facebook.
Michael Jackson
He came up again! Tavi said for them, Romanians were as excited about seeing Michael Jackson as Americans were when we landed on the moon, and they talk about where they were in the way we talk about where we were when JFK was killed.
Bears
Romania has the biggest community of bears in Europe. Tourists will try and feed them bears to get selfies and then are very upset when they are attacked. There are also wild pigs that will kill you. We saw neither.
Tel Aviv
Tavi says that Casinos and gambling are illegal in Israel. The casinos here in Romania are an important source of tourism from people from Israel, and the casinos actually subsidize flights from Tel Aviv to make it even more convenient.
Questions
He says I ask a lot of them 🙂 (he went on to say it is good to want to know everything, and some tourists don’t want to learn about where they are, so he was happy to answer them!)
I headed back to the hotel, and stayed close for dinner, and then got packed up, as I leave in the morning for Hungary! I’ll miss Tom Selleck, but I trust more adventure awaits.
