Roșia Montană

August 2024 - we made a bit of a detour to see this rather unspectular WHS, at least we combined it with TWHS Rimetea. The road from Turda to Hunedoara (Eisenmarkt) goes through wonderful landscape along the Aries river which is worth to change the itinerary for. For Goldbach you have to take a worse road. We parked our camper in the town center and were welcomed by some straying but friendly dogs. The town is in a catastrophic shape with crumbling facades but has typical Habsburg-flair just like banska stiavnica in Slovakia. We made another stop at the Roman mine, where we visited the outdoor exhibition only. We missed to hike along the pit. As the kids were too tired. 
Make sure to visit the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara, which might be on your way. It is quite sth.

Roșia Montană has grown into something of a ‘cult site’ in the WH Community, while it seems rarely visited by ‘normal’ tourists. Several sources had suggested that if I wanted to see the underground mines from Roman times (that’s where the OUV is), I should announce my visit beforehand. It was funny to read the many Google Reviews about the erratic opening hours of the mining museum (officially Tue-Sun 9-16, mostly Tue-Fri between 9 and 14.30 but on “some days they don’t show up”). A few days before I e-mailed them in English and (Google Translated) Romanian on the address given on the official website to communicate when I planned to visit. I got a swift reply that they would be waiting for me.

Getting there proved to be easy by rental car. Just at the point that my Google Maps navigation announced “You have arrived”, I saw a sign pointing to the mining museum on the left side of the road. But that’s about it for directions – no “brown signs” and no UNESCO WH logo. At 10.30 a.m. on a rainy Wednesday morning, I found the gate to the museum compound closed and a small black dog barked its head off to this lonely visitor. The door to the right was open though and I told the man who appeared that I wanted to visit the mine.

He seemed to remember having received my e-mail, although he was still visibly concerned about how to …

I visited this WHS by car in 2023. To make sure not to miss out, this WHS requires an advance booking by calling at least a number of days before: 1) to make sure the mine is open and accessible on the day you intend to visit, 2) to make sure that a tour in English is available, 3) to make up your mind whether you want to pay for 5 guided tour tickets + the entrance fee (highly recommended to visit alone and have the guide to yourself) or if there is a particular day with other people prebooked to share costs.

I would like to point out right from the start, that not only tourist infrastructure is lacking in Rosia Montana, but almost any kind of infrastructure whatsoever. The roads to get there are the winding type, one-lane each way, and lots of slow heavy trucks, so allow enough time to get there safely without missing your booking. Most staff, including the very unique engineer-guide, speak very little English, restaurants are non-existent, all the facilities except the mine are crumbling and extremely old, and floods and landslides are very common all year round. Make sure to bring an extra jacket as the temperature is cold at Rosia Montana even in summer, and drops even more inside the mine. The engineer-guide is quite peculiar but once you get accustomed to his irony/satire and his accent, you'll definitely get an honest in-depth tour about the pros and cons of …

Romanian people are nice!

That is the first thing I would like to say, even after the several predicaments I encountered trying to get in and get out of Rosia Montana without my own transportation.  

But before I talk about Rosia Montana...

This was my 6th trip to Romania, but it happened while I'm living in its southern neighbor Bulgaria during my 2nd 3 month stay.

At this point I'm eager to finish the UK and France to finish up Europe, but due to Covid and other annoyances I couldn't make it to those countries. So I reluctantly decided to just tick off the 2 (and only 2) WHSs in Europe newly inscribed in 2021 in order to keep my European record clean (except islands and Spain and Portugal, for which I have a special plan). After spending 4 nights in Belgium mainly to visit just one new WHS (and 5 TWHSs) I flew to Timisoara, Romania.

Getting in:

1.

From Timisoara I took a bus to Alba Iulia. That Thursday the bus I was waiting for at the Alba Iulia Autogara was the second to the last one to Gura Rosiei (5 km west of Rosie Montana), or so I thought. According to www.autogari.ro, it was supposed to leave at 16:00, and I saw the bus coming from the Autogara cafe at 15:45. But by the time I went out to the platform at 15:50, the bus had left! WT....??? When I …

With Roșia Montană scheduled for the 2020/2021 WHC, I had made it a fixture in my travel plans for Romania. Figuring out which bus connection to take wasn't easy, but eventually I found one that would work. Plan was to arrive at 18:00h by bus from Alba Iulia, hike to my B&B, drop the luggage, get some food and finally some rest.

And then the rain came. It was at 17:30h when the road between Abrud and Campeni was closed due to flooding. It took two hours to repair the road and when I got off the bus, it was 20:00h. I still had 5km of hiking to get to town, my stomach was empty, and, how could I forget, the road leading to Roșia Montană was also flooded. To add insult to injury, I had sprained my ankle in the morning in Sighisoara; Romanian roads and sidewalks are full of potholes. A strenuous hike with luggage up a flooded road at nightfall was just what the doctor ordered.

In addition, google maps in Romania provides some rather unconventional directions. With nightfall 30min away, I was stuck in the hills of Roșia Montană looking for a trail that just wasn't there.

Side note 1: Follow the car road if hiking.

Side note 2: The "car" road may still be more a trail than a road.

Side note 3: Really consider if you want to do Romania with your own car.

Stanislaw …

Visited June 2019

In my opinion this is one of the most dramatic natural and man-made landscape in Romania! Underground and open mine sites, artificial lakes, old houses and roads, industrial monuments hidden in the forests, beautiful nature, lots of walking paths through abandoned industrial scenery, history that started before the Romans came in, and that continues to our time. Two days is not enough to discover all that. But in my case, it was not about discovering gold mining history of the region, but enjoying the breathtaking beauty of the area. Be prepared if you decide to take Roşia Montană village as you base, because the tourist infrastructure in here is not very well developed; there are some places where you can spend a night or two (in old houses, of course – you’ll have a chance to see how the wealthier ones used to live, i.e Casa Petri), only one store, and no restaurant at all (there are two or three local ones and bigger shops in Dăroaia/Coasta Henţii, 3 kms to the west).

Some archaeological findings prove that gold mining in this area started well before Romans. While visiting the Roman mine you’ll hear that the gold of Thracian kings came from this region. And the Romans developed mining to the point that today the underground network of tunnels is the most extensive ever created in antiquity. Ancient dwellings, cemeteries, mine galleries, lots of artefacts, wax tablets among them – all that come from the …