Guest Blogger Erin Caslavka, photography by Jon Deinzer
On the streets of Sibiu, pedestrians stop to gaze into store windows filled with jewelry from Turkey, shoes from Italy or clothing from China. But just outside the fortified walls of the city is a an outdoor marketplace waiting to be explored, where shoppers can fill their bags with the treasures of Romania: luscious local fruits, vegetables, honey, eggs, and cheese.The farmer’s market on the outskirts of Sibiu, about a 10-minute walk from the city center, was the embodiment of all we’d come to suspect based on the lush, verdant fields and hillsides we’d driven past during the month of May. Romania isn’t exactly the “breadbasket of Europe” - that title’s been assigned to the Ukraine. But with its close proximity to the former Soviet state, Romania can boast very similar rich, fertile soil. With such a cache of terroir riches, it’s no wonder that at the Sibiu farmer’s market we spied plump tomatoes the color of rubies, mounds of cabbage in translucent shades of green, golden local honey and ivory-toned cheese.
Anyone who’s interested in the Slow Food Movement, or a devotee of farm-to-table dining, should have a trip to Romania on their travel radar. Although the culinary influences at most Romanian restaurants are clearly Eastern European, the abundance of fresh produce and recently-harvested food products makes dining in the countryside an adventure unto itself.
Most people are aware that truffle hunting exists in France and Italy, but truffles in Transylvania? Believe it or not, an option available to foodies is held in the area near Biertan (with its fortified Saxon church) via Pacific Perfect Tour’s “Gourmet Truffle Weekend.” Accommodations are provided in guesthouses that have been restored to keep their traditional architecture intact (but with the added conveniences of modern life), and during the daytime, you head out for a truffle hunt with a guide and his trained dogs. The search for the “black diamonds” of the culinary world is thrilling in-and-of-itself, but following your foray into foraging, you head back to the kitchen for a lesson in how to prepare a meal utilizing the highly-prized fungus.Anyone who’s seen the menu of an upscale restaurant would agree that those truffles are an expensive addition to a dish - an ingredient, you might say, fit for a king’s pocketbook. So imagine for a moment while you’re in Romania, dining on one of the world’s most expensive food products, that you are royalty: where would you stay? If you’re a prince from Great Britain, and you happen to be named Charles, you’d stay in a traditional home painted the deep blue color of the Romanian sky.
From the outside, the Prince of Wales’ house doesn’t look like much; but pass through the gates and you enter an interior courtyard that reveals a garden, grapevine-draped walls and a covered, outdoor dining terrace. The house has three double bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen, and is filled with simple-yet-comfortable furnishings. On the day we visited, the housekeeper was cleaning up after the previous night’s guests, and preparing the house for the next set.There aren’t too many places in the world were you can literally sleep in the same bed as a living monarch, but in Romania, you can. Most likely because Prince Charles (himself a staunch advocate of sustainable and organic farming) is only able to ‘get away from it all’ and stay at his farmhouse a few days out of every year, his house - located in the Transylvanian village of Viscri (a UNESCO World Heritage site) - is open to paying guests. Not only is the experience unique, but a portion of the rates you’ll pay for staying overnight are gifted to a local orphanage.
Although the prince (and sometimes his son Harry) is considered a town resident, nevertheless life in the rural village is still much as it was hundreds of years ago: cows are still milked, chickens are still relieved of their eggs, rows of seedlings are still planted and harvested, and gypsies still arrive on a schedule all their own to make charcoal in the countryside.
A 15-minute drive from Viscri will take you to the charcoal makers who supply fuel for the fireplaces in the village (and for sale elsewhere). Fourth-generation charcoal makers, the transient workers - a husband, his wife and their apprentice - construct huge cylindrical mounds of wood, cover them with a layer of hay, and finally ash and dirt. A fire is set inside the enormous wood pile and allowed to burn for days, turning the once-brown wood into pieces of dark-gray charcoal logs; whereupon the charcoal makers will bundle them up for market.In rural Transylvania, visions of an earlier version of the world still exists. So save the window shopping and boutique-ing for the other Europe; in Romania, embrace the slow pace of life and enjoy the pleasures that ‘the simple life’ provides.
Perfect Tour is the third-largest travel company in Romania, and is a widely-experienced travel source when it comes to assisting group and independent travelers. We worked with its US division, Pacific Perfect Tour, to help us make the connections we needed within Romania. They can be contacted at:
Pacific Perfect Tour
Phone: (818) 726-5151 / Daniela Ionescu
For more information go to: http://www.perfect-tour.com/perfect_tour_provides_travel_services_for_movie_production_companies.html
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