Romania

Mobilities - Romania

We met in Sighisoara, one of the best preserved and still inhabited medieval fortresses in Europe. We stayed in a haunted hotel, a few hundred kilometers away from Dracula’s castle. We realized that, in order to be safe from the Dark Lord’s nocturnal attacks, we had to stay awake late in the night, so we sat together around the table drinking something red and talking about vampires, exactly like people were doing 500 years ago.

Those who have survived all those nights went for two days in Viscri, a Saxon traditional village, where we enjoyed the traditional accommodation and the hospitality of the locals. During the first days, around that village we meet of a group of living creatures that were still there and alive from the Middle Age. It was in fact a meeting with a group of oaks, part of a natural protected area called Breite. A living proof that, for centuries people have shaped the landscape and interacted with nature. In that moment we could say that our meeting in Romania was not only about living history but also about meeting those who have been alive along history and are still living today. We started hugging those oak trees and felt the time that had passed over them.

The next day we learnt how people used to build their houses with special bricks, which protected them from the vampire and also we learnt how they shod their horses. It was a unique experience in the heart of Transylvania, where history has connected a whole diversity of different cultures and people.