“Over the hills and far away”

Time: 6.00 am

Place: The bus station

Reason: To catch the Cluj Napoca- Abrud bus, to travel up to Campeni and from there to continue our journey by foot up to Rosia Montana. Thank God that people seem to be nice and friendly up there and they are willing to give one a ride to town.

We walk around the town and I discovered that it was much bigger and more deserted that I imagined. Beautiful old houses, with nice details and wooden windows were on the verge of collapsing and still their impact on the viewers remain intact. Most of the ruined houses had “Property of the S.C. Gold Rosia Montana” while the others had “The Road of the Gold” or “This property is not for sale” written on them.

While we left our tents, sleeping bags and other stuff at the information center, we thought about visiting the old mine. The guide was a nice old guy, ready to answer any of our questions about the mine (build by the roman, previously name Ablurnus Maior), about the village or about the places around.  The guys from the information center were also pretty nice: they gave us a ride, indicated what was worth visiting in the village and chatted with us several ours.

After almost 1 hour of hiking and climbing through the forest (well, it should be less, but we kinda are couch potatoes for most of the year), we got to the place where the Fan Fest was held every year. Not this year though, but still people were up there, by the fire, in tents, drinking, bathing in the lake, singing, chatting all in all having fun. We kinda walk around the camping, seeing both amazing views and deserted factories that spoiled all that.

Pluses: nice place, friendly people, great views

Minuses: if one doesn’t fancy sleeping in a tent, there is only one hostel, with fiew rooms available, and believe me, during the night, it is really, really cold in a sleeping bag.

Short Term vs. Long Term

I have a question for you: what do you think is more important? Some economic development that will last for about 15-20 years and that’s it, but which destroys a beautiful area, including some cultural and historical heritage or investing money into developing a long term plan for a beautiful but undeveloped zone?

We have one beautiful area (mountains, great views, great touristic potential) but filled with people with no jobs, no places to develop an industry.

Solution no 1: Opening a huge mine to extract gold and silver, a mine that will cover the entire zone. Thousands of people have to move theirs houses, but will have a place to work. The drawback is that the mine will only last up to 20 years and will use a great quantity of cyanide that will eventually destroy the ecosystem (the whole area will be useless for hundreds of years). Historical sites and old, valuable houses will be destroyed in this manner.

Solution no 2: Investing some money. Finding another way of extracting the gold and silver that won’t affect the surroundings that much. Investing for developing a touristic resort. This will take a certain amount of time and a considerable amount of money, but it will bring some long term advantages.

What would you chose?

I personally incline for the second solution. I recently visited the area and I saw some of the most beautiful views, friendly people and a great place to spend some time. Here are some pictures to see what I’m talking about.