Author archive for
Raluca Spiac

Story by Warren Singh-Bartlett One of the most visually distinctive features of Transylvania’s Siebenbürgen (Seven Fortresses) are the guild towers that line their citadel walls. Sighișoara originally had 14, nine of which remain today while Sibiu, the centre of Saxon Transylvania and the region’s most important citadel, had a whopping 40 towers, each built, manned […]

Story by Warren Singh-Bartlett Romania’s shepherds, or ciobani, are a ubiquitous sight and if you’re lucky, you’ll come across one wearing a cojoc, a yeti-esque ankle-length sheepskin coats that doubles as bedding at night. Unlike their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, Romanian shepherds are still semi-nomadic and live out in the wild, herding their flock between […]

Story by Warren Singh-Bartlett Some of Romania’s more remote villages can feel like living museums, looking much as they have for centuries, save for an occasional intrusion from the modern age and the odd coat of paint. This is particularly true out in the farmlands of Transylvania, where in the old Saxon villages, it’s still […]

Story by Warren Singh-Bartlett Wander along the busy boulevards of Bucharest and you’ll be forgiven for thinking that with the exception of the historic core and a few graceful older buildings, the entire city is shiny new glass towers and crumbling old Communist concrete blocks. Take the time to wander its backstreets, though, and you’ll […]

By Warren Singh-Bartlett Remember the legend of the Pied Piper? In 1284, the people of Hamelin, a town in the German province of Lower Saxony, hired a rat-catcher to help them with an infestation. Enchanting the rats with his music, the piper was able to lure them into a nearby river, drowning them. Possibly deciding […]

How to get up close to Europe’s magnificent megafauna If you want to see a bear in the wild in Europe, your best bet is to journey to the Carpathians. 60% of all the bears in Europe live in the region, along with wild boar, deer, foxes and other fascinating fauna like wolf and lynx. […]