Moldova Inn: Having fun Romanian style

After Brasov came what we really were waiting for – In Transylvania – a festival in the middle of Fagaras Mountains with just right line-up to make these four days unbelievably fun! We also had our little secret mission – to try a local Țuică – home-made strong alcohol.

The venue of the festival was a small village Sâmbăta de Sus or rather its touristic complex which was few km further than that. We had some plan how to get there, pretty complicated and we were afraid it won’t work out, but as we couldn’t come up with anything else we wanted to stick to it.

Almost there

But on the station in Brasov we met this Czech couple and their companion – one Romanian guy named Sergiu who came with them from the hostel to help them finding the bus to Orsova. Sergiu was really amazing guy, he immediately took care also of us saying that our plan is not good and we should take another way. Then he arranged everything with the driver, where he should stop for us and so on and he spent with us like 2 hours talking some bullshit stories and taking care that we get to right bus and will get to our destination. And that’s all just like this, like he said – to make better publicity for Romania in the world, so foreign people would know that Romanians are nice and the country worth visiting! That’s pretty impressive for me! Thanks to him we really saved a lot of time and troubles and got to Sambata fast and without any problems. Another example of amazing Romanian hospitality, that makes every visit to this country so special :)

The festival venue was really cool, still not too many people as it was Thursday afternoon. We put the tent up and decided to head to the touristic complex to eat something. Complex of Sâmbăta is not too big, only few hotels, and one restaurant, but it was too expensive. But we found there a barbeque “open air bar”, you know this kind of place next to the road that looks quite creepy and no one eats there. But it was good enough for us, we decided to try it out. We took some mici (Romanian rolled minced meat) with fries and the bar became our second home for whole 4 days! The meat was simply delicious, the portions were big and all was really cheap. The food at the festival didn’t taste even half as good as this.

Our first meal in the favorite place

We also drunk there a lot of beer and wine and already the first day we felt like it’s the right place to complete our secret mission. Firstly, we were a bit shy to ask directly about țuică, but finally I did this (mission is mission) in the best Romanian I could:

Scuzatii-me, spuneti, nu stiti unde putem a cumpar o tuica?
Ce???? Tuica? – a woman answered with a bit of shock on her face.

It seems like our mission will fail, but her friend sitting in this bar almost all the time heard it and said.

Cine vrea a cumpar tiuca?
Fetele. (girls) anwered woman
Fetele??? – he said loudly but with the wide smile on his face. – Miine, mine… (tomorrow).

And that’s how we complete our mission buying 1 l of local țuică for enormously high price like we got to know later from our camping neighbors, some bikers from Bran (btw with Țuică written on their caps, what make them quite a professionals in this field). Of course we planned to bring some țuică with us to Moldova, but it appeared to be impossible, Fagaras Mountains don’t let their secrets out and what happens in Sâmbăta stays in Sâmbăta ;)

The festival was as awesome as we thought, with a bunch of great music, a sea of țuică and of my favorite Ciuc Radler, once even gotten for free from the staff and with a T-shirt of Basska, one of the groups playing, given straight to my hands by its leader ; )

Local beer from Brasov region

We had some plans to hike in the mountains, but somehow we just stayed whole mornings in hammocks, napping and relaxing. Also quite a good plan!

On the way back we caught this car of one Bosnian couple, they were coming back from festival to Bucharest where they live now. With them we made a stop in Făgăraș, had a chance to visit their fortress and eat really nice breakfast. Then we got to Brasov and from there already by bus to Chisinau. Ehhh, sad, sad life when you have to go back from Romania… Well, hopefully not for too long ;)

P.S Great thanks for Annely for some pictures that are here ;)