“I tend to do physically well after a few months of traveling. Steps no longer stall, my well of energy is deeper and my gear’s weight is utterly unnoticeable. I can feel myself going farther.” – Old Sean
Solo Journey
Alas, I’m back to traveling alone. After a month spending time with my siblings in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the United Kingdom and France, I finally have time to strike off on my own.
I selected Romania as my next desired destination. Not only do I think the country is absolutely gorgeous, but my friend from China has recently moved back there. I mostly needed a quiet place to hunker down and work for the foreseeable future, so Cluj-Napoca became a good bet. I scanned COVID requirements and found them easy to handle. And then, I prepped to fly once more.
I managed to find a flight out of Bordeaux and off to Cluj. I had a slightly delayed layover on the wonderous Greek island of Mykonos. The Greek islands are fully of short brush, scruffy brown stones, searing white buildings and broad turquoise bays. I didn’t spend much time walking around, but I was a bit disappointed to find that Mykonos is far from a island paradise. Tourists absolutely cram the streets to an enormous extent, making motion an exercise in half-step shuffles.
Illegal Exit
My flight finally locked onto a new time, and I was recalled to the airport. I soon found myself on a short, drowsy flight to Romania. However, upon arrival, I was swiftly barred entry.
Four years ago I was in Romania. I had been desperately trying to find a cheaper method to Belgrade by crossing the Romanian boarder. Bus tickets were a hefty 50 Euros, so when an American came to me with a ride-share for just 10 Euros, I eagerly forked over a bill.
Four years later, I’m inclined to believe this might have been a poor idea. The shuttle service probably wasn’t entirely legal. My passport was never re-stamped after leaving the country. As a result, the Romanians had me in their system as an illegal immigrant for the past 4 years. I never even noticed the discrepancy, since I was able to leave Serbia easily enough a week later.
Back in the modern era, six security guards gathered around and I was slowly grilled about details of my general residency for the last 4 years. Which, to be fair, is not necessarily something easily explained. Spending nearly half a decade without a single mailing address or stable lodging for more than a month at a time creates a fairly compelling story.
Thank Myself for this blog. It took a huge amount of scrolling, storytelling, photographic evidence and additional past passport stamps, but I was able to piece together a narrative from the past 4 years. I spent nearly half an hour showing the security guards old Leftfade Trails posts from the last four years, until they were convinced that there had just been a system error. My passport was finally stamped and I was waved through.
Entering Cluj-Napoca
Sadly, I had made it through the exit gate a tad too late in the evening and money exchanges were closed. I ended up with a small fistful of Euros and no way to spend them. Luckily, there were several people heading onto flights entering the EU, so I was able to haggle an exchange.
Cluj-Napoca is a surprisingly pleasant city, with a relatively young crowd of university students ambling through the streets. I ended up staying in a lovely Airbnb near Central Park, where I gathered food for the next few days and did some minor explorations. My evenings were spent reading books in the park, watching the ducks paddle around and waving to the enormous crowds circulating through the park during weddings for photos. I would also spend time gazing at the rather tacky and fun plastic boats rotating around the lake in the shapes of curved flamingos or green serpents.
The following morning was my “off” day for Romania. It was the final day where a large segment of my day wasn’t crammed with some sort of work.
I spent many hours hiking through the downtown area, sampling coffee, eating snacks and continuing to read books through my digital library card. The Old Town area is particularly beautiful, laden with a fair amount of bustle. The Romano-Catholic Church Saint Michael is an easy landmark to work around. And Unirii Square has some interesting statues, including dragon-head installations being used as promotional material for the upcoming August music festival, Untold.
Though the outer zones of Cluj-Napoca are a somewhat depressing display of cracked-concrete Soviet-era architecture stacked in unexpected ways, the Old Town area is beautiful. Many buildings are topped with variations of onion domes. The buildings themselves are often soothing pastel colors with white trim framing doors, windows, decorations and small carvings.
Botanical
After trotting around Old Town, buying a quick breakfast and purchasing a SIM card for my phone, I angled south. My next stop was Grădina Botanică “Alexandru Borza,” the Cluj-Napoca Botanical Gardens.
I love visiting Botanical Gardens in general. They’re relaxing, sublime and people are creative with all that can be done with arts, statues, plants, vines and the interrelations between them. While I wouldn’t call this garden far beyond the norm, it was lovely nonetheless. There were narrow streams, mounds of flowers, stately statues, cobbled trails going up hills and a networks of white beams creating a greenhouse.
Naturally, there was also a Japanese Garden section.
All across the world, Botanical Gardens emulate the Japanese cultural gardens, carefully manicuring plants, making bright red Torii gates and constructing curved roofs. It’s sort of… sad, however. The Japanese gardens in Japan are planned with synergy and harmony, using careful calculations and cultivations. The Japanese garden emulations scattered across the world simply don’t have the meticulous culture to compete, making recreations of Japanese gardens always a bit pale, ill-fitted and haphazard.
They’re still lovely. But they’re also not quite Japanese.
I took the long route heading back into Cluj-Napoca by swinging through Central Cemetary. The cemetary is enormous, with tons of well-polished, ivy-coated, packed-together graves stretching into the distance.
Cultural Motifs
The shady walk through the cemetary is also blessed with interesting features of Romanian culture, including the so-called rope-wood-cross. These intricate semi-cross-like carvings are found across the country and usually have careful geometric patterns along with sun, rope, horse and Tree-of-Life carvings embedded in them. Similar designs can be found in Romanian traditional wooden folk-art, most especially on traditional wooden gates. Supposedly, the motifs on these wooden carvings are astrological symbols from a distinct crossroads culture from a thousand years ago.
The Sun Motif is usually semi-circular with sharp rays or triangles interspacing it, symbolizing life and fertility. When Christianity was folded into the existing belief system, crosses were usually depicted with the zig-zag motif alongside halos or rings of holiness.
The Rope Motif is a delicate pattern. Wood is carved in a series of twists, creating a branch which looks almost exactly like a hemp-cord rope, protruding from flat surfaces. The Rope Motif is usually seen connecting aspects of art or looping between points on a cross. The knotwork of the rope was a symbol of infinity, protection and connection of Earth below and Heaven above. With heavy Christian overtones, this symbolic carving also adhered to the Orthodox Catholic Tradition of bending to touch the ground after making the sign of the cross.
The Horse Motif I spotted much more frequently on buildings and gates. It was less common on the Romanian artistic wooden crosses. Tiny little gargoyle horse-heads jutted out in arched curved from wooden panels. A symbol of strength, the horse bridges motifs of the Rope and Sun, following a popular pagan legend of horses being yoked to tow Sol across the sky. The motifs are smoother and more freeform than the previous two and may have been used to demonstrate summer, livestock protection, the banishing of evil spirits and healing.
Finally, the Tree of Life Motif is found across many European ancient cultures. When embedded in Romanian wood-art, it is a refence to a very old Romanian myth. Aside from demonstrating the timeless phrase “As in Heaven, so on Earth (or As Above, So Below), the myth is interwoven into the Romanian creationism story. After God constructed the world, humans walked it freely without harm. The stars and sun lounged near, keeping them warm. But the folly of men was deep, and when humans began to fight without abating, God pulled the heavens upwards beyond the flight of the lightest bird. The fighting stopped, largely because humans were now covered in cold, sleet and rain, dying without shelter. Thus, God provided Wood to be used as shelter, most famously the beech, sycamore, fig, willow and apples trees (which are symbolic to ancient Romania). To be frank, this is the barest meaning behind the Tree of Life. Romanian Lore dedicates huge epics to both the symbolic tree, it’s purpose, it’s use in stories of gods and creatures and it’s relationship to Christianity.
Ethnographic Museum
After I finally wandered free from the cemetary, I stopped for some traditional Romanian food, eating something called Fasole cu Ciolan Afumat, a bean and pork dish. Feeling slightly sluggish and pudgy, I next visited the Ethnographic Musuem of Transylvania (Muzeul Etnografic al Transilvaniei).
This museum was a wild place. I spent a good hour on my phone hacking through Romanian translations to understand what I was looking at. Aside from odd, decorated tools and unique, clearly ceremonial clothing, there were odd decorated orbs, unique textile patterns, upright mannequins, virtual reality museum displays and hulking dark Christian crosses. I learned about the 10,000 different types of textiles and their obscure meanings in Romanian culture, with clothes made for Carpathian Folk Art out of wool, hemp, linen and cotton). There were many traditional tools used for wood-crafting, fishing and weaving which were oddly artful and delicate-looking. The cultures that called Romania home were masters of whittling functional designs.
While the Ethnographic Museum was interesting, it was nothing compared to my next stop. On a whim, I hiked across the city to enter Steampunk Transylvania.
A Steampunk Gem
By my steam-and-plasma-counter-culture dreams.
I’ve been to a lot of museums in the past month. Like an almost numbing amount. However, this museum rendered all others moot. It is dead center on my personal interest chart.
Steampunk Transylvania is a bizarre and delightful art collection showing off many scultures, guns, tools, symbols and maps which are staples of the Steampunk genre. Gears rotate, copper casings reflect light, deep-sea creatures lean on walls, alchemical substances bubble, creepy art molds with darkness and wires lance out in smooth directions. The entire art display has English cards describing the birth of the genre, with many special homages to Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, the Victorian Era, K. W. Jeter, the Belle Epoch of France alongside more contemporary contributions. The alt-history display takes a good hour to appreciate just the bottom level, wandering through the vast and currently growing gallery of sculptures.
The staircase heading up opens up a wildly new area as well. A huge artificial tree dominates the center of the room, while the edges are lined with steampunk-fairy artwork mash-ups. Dried mushrooms painted delicate colors are backlit with small staircases, tiny figures and creepy eyes. Settled glass orbs splattered blue reside in curling bits of driftwood, supporting fairy homes. Deep-nature creatures rose forth from corners and then there were the books.
An entire shelf from floor to ceiling dominates a single wall, but these are not average tomes. Instead, artists open bindings and created three-dimensional scultures emerging forth from the page, spilling onto the shelves and tables nearby.
The staff of the Steampunk Transylvania Museum was delightful, helpful, informative and engaging. Even better, one of the primary artists, Professor Silvester Levente (Instagram: rather.exiled) has an operational workshop upstairs, where he is creating more creative, steampunk masterpieces even as I write this.
Amazingly, all I have written here is not the full story. The Museum has some additional secrets and surprises for visitors, which I refuse to spoil. But the hidden portions are a worthy addition to the experience.
Steampunk Neighbor
Trembling with excitement, I learned upon departure that I could go even further on a Steampunk-themed adventure. Ten minutes to the South on foot is Enigma. Recommended to me by the Museum staff, Enigma is a bar also made in the Steampunk Theme. Home to rotating gears, backlit bottles, and elemental rooms showcasing Steampunk fire, air, water and earth lounges, I stayed a good, long while. I ordered a recommended drink (which was excellent) and successfully chatted with the staff for long hours, eventually making myself late for work.
It was brilliant.
The following day was my last day in Cluj-Napoca before I headed north to meet one more friend. I wasn’t actually planning on staying in the city, however. Instead, I took an early-morning hike to the bus stop Cluj-Napoca Autogara. I was unable to find information on bus schedules online, so I was essentially winging it.
One of the things that I find very freeing when I travel solo is just… stupidly winging it. When I’m responsible for planning routes for others, I cannot simply wander out to nowhere and gamble on finding a way back. But when I’m traveling alone, I indulge my stupidity and do exactly that.
It’s one of the rare charms of life I tend to treasure.
A Trip to Turda
I managed to catch a bus to the southern town of Turda.
Turda, in a word, is simply not interesting. It’s an average, medium-sized town, without terribly much to do and a few handy shops scattered around.
The main appeal to Turda (which is announced on dozens of billboards) is actually just outside the city itself.
Salina Turda is a massive underground mining chamber that has been an operational salt mine for centuries, opened to the public in 1992. I got a taxi to the entrance before the mine opened and happily wandered inside. The ticket prices were much steeper than expected, but that’s a hazard of Romania in generally. Always cheap until it’s not.
Salina Turda has long, straight passages leading to the main attractions. The tunnel, which is comfortably well-lit, tall and wide, is a work of art. Slick walls of black stone with wavy white are visable at shoulder level. Below, drips of water have formed slightly grungy salt crystals which create patterns at knee-height. Unable to resist, I found a quiet corner in the mine and licked the wall. It was, as you might expect, almost offensively salty.
After wandering for a while, guests can arrive at the main antechamber. An absolute monstrosity of hollow underground, the main lower area of Salina Turda hosts an operational Ferris Wheel, two separate staircases, two balcony catwalks along the high ceiling, a tiny mini-golf course, a rotating souvenir stand, a pair of tiny theaters and what appear to be ping-pong tables. The grand chamber had essentially been turned into a miniture, subterranean amusement park.
Whoever hung the lights in the main chamber deserves a reward. Cylinders of white light suspended in rising intervals on wires light the entire black-stone white-salt echo chamber. I was among the first inside and to celebrate my experience in odd emptiness, I let out two shouts, which reverberated for a long minutes to the people waiting on the elevator up above.
A Boat in a Chasm
However, Salina Turda actually has a second layer. Heading down another staircase allows visitors to come to the drainage lake, where moisture steadily trickles into a perfectly calm, wind-abandoned lake of water. A rocky, salt-encrusted island sits in the middle of this lake and visitors are allowed to take boats around the calm waters. Rides are twenty minutes.
Truthfully, the boats probably aren’t worth the asking price. But since I was alone in the dark quiet and strange lights, I opted to take a boat out, doing three slow laps of the impossible water.
As I left the mine, I made sure to stop at the somewhat horrifying Trolley Room. Built in 1881, the massive, wood-spiked rotating device was once the main source of elevator power for the mine. Miners would cut slabs of salt and load them onto a hemp-rope elevator, powered by several yoked horses. Sadly, the horses were often rendered blind after their deed was done. The mine only had torchlight for most of history, and the horses were often led outside to graze. But the bright light without protection after long days underground gradually caused permanent blindness, making the Trolley a horrifying torture instrument in a earthen chamber.
I finally emerged back into the light myself, taking special care to wear my sunglasses. Luck was on my side, and I managed to catch a taxi back into the city and eventually found a lucky bus back to Cluj-Napoca. I wrapped up some work in the evening and hung out with some new Romanian friends I met around the city. The following morning, I packed and wandered out one last time.
Onward to Baia Mare
Currently, I’m seated at a brilliant restaurant called Zama, which serves brilliant Roman fares. I have a friend-of-a-friend driving me north to Baia Mare for my last month in Europe. I haven’t researched the area at all, so doubtless, surprises await.
Until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written July 25th, 2022
Read more about visiting Cluj-Napoca and seeing the world by visiting Leftfade Trails Blog.
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