Day 5 – Monday 12th October

Sibiu to Rimitea via Corvin Castle and Alba Iulia Citadel

When I first planned this trip Corvin Castle was one of the “must see” highlights (the hyperlink provides some very interesting background). Prior to that I knew nothing of it beyond what my travel AI and Google had told me; everyone visiting Transylvania knows of Bran Castle for example, but Corvin is not commonly known.

It took a couple of hours to get to there, and we arrived at 11:30 and wandered, as on Mondays the Castle doesn’t open for  visitors until midday. It was quite fascinating, and I’ll let the pictures tell some of the story (combined with the ink above).

Corvin Castle is located in the town of Hunedoara, and the town itself is interesting - a left-over industrial wasteland from the communist era. Huge run-down factories left to rust and rot. We were told that at the height of the system, in say the 60s, no attention was paid to the economic cost of production. If the target was to build and sell say 5,000 units (let’s say of cars, but really whatever), and sell them at say USD7,000, it didn’t matter that it actually cost USD10,000 to make them. And if this year’s target was 10,000 units, and only 5,000 units were made and sold, it was reported up the chain that actually 12,000 were made and so next year’s target would be say 15,000 units. So that whole system was destined to collapse, which it did. Not just here of course, but across the whole Soviet system. According to Victor the collapse had started in the 70s, and by the time Mikhail Gorbachov came to power and brought in perestroika the end was inevitable. Of course we in the West know and to some degree remember this, but seeing the long-lasting impacts here, 35 years later, is stark. We are told that it’s only in the last decade or so that people have started to return to the town (many left when the factories collapsed) and that it has started to recover.

Then it was on to Alba Iulia Citadel, and what a gem that was. Again, I’ll let the link fill the background. There was something vaguely familiar about its design – the star shaped design invented by Vauban [Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis of Vauban] – and I realised that we had seen a very similar design in Navarrenx (see Another World). Alba Iulia is the key place where Romania’s national day is celebrated – all over the country obviously – but the main ceremony with the President and dignitaries is here.

Last stop for the day was the cute little village of Rimetea. It is a Hungarian village in the middle of Romania, about 160 klms from the Hungarian border, which I guess is not far. The main language spoken in the village is Hungarian, as it has been for some 400 years I gather. The architecture is different – I assume Hungarian – and I’m told the food too. A couple of photos of houses follow. Our hostess for the evening speaks Hungarian, German, Romanian, English (and probably others). Her English is almost “international”, by which I mean that she doesn’t have a particularly distinct accent.

It’s been a fascinating day.