Nearby Cluj Napoca, on the way to the Apuseni mountains, there are some villages. As western Europeans, we expect a center, with a church, some roads around, surrounded by big houses.
It has been 5 months since I am traveling along in Romania. This shape of village is not in my mind anymore. Rachitele proved it too. In this kind of village, there is no network, no internet, only nature, the people you go with and the people you meet.
We went to the small village, located south of Huedin to hike to the Bridal waterfall. It was huge, and reminded me of the Bridal veil in Oregon. The waterfall is famous in the area, you need to walk 5 km from Rachitele downtown. There are also some signs on the way.
Online, we found a log cabine, Cabana Dealu Rasinarului din Rachitele. First, we looked in English, then in Hungarian. Finally, we found many choices in Romanian. Once we called, no one could speak any of the languages we had around us: German, French, Turkish, English. We had to call over a Romanian friend and finally be able to book few rooms.
According to the map, the cabana (as Romanians call it), was located between the village center and the natural reservation of Apuseni. We had to climb on hills, where they were no roads to go back to the cabana from the center. All the houses were spread around.
We were actually well located. Between the center (at least the way went down to reach there) and the waterfall, our main goal of the weekend.
Our hosts were also really friendly. They provided us of local milk, cheese, placinta, fat meat and raining clothes. With my friends, we also enjoyed to be part of the village’s life. We got to visit the field, and to milk from a cow.
The son of the host guided us to the waterfall. We tried all the way to share what we had. It was hard to insist.
It took around 15 km to walk the whole day, from the cabana to the waterfall, from the waterfall to the center and from the center to the cabana. It was a bit raining but when you are from a raining country; this doesn’t stop you anymore.
Related articles
- The Delicious Plăcintă (recommendationromania.wordpress.com)
- The Apuseni Mountains Free of Cyanide! (ireport.cnn.com)
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