Transylvania Region of Romania. March 25-26

Wednesday, March 25.
6am left Budapest for Transylvania
Crossed the border, got a sweet stamp on my passport.
Nagyvarad (Oradea). I guess I should explain why I will always write two names for the same city. The first is in Hungarian, the second in Romanian. After WWII Hungary was punished for its allegiance with Hitler by re-losing its territory Transylvania, among other territories in an effort to limit Hungary's power. As the Transylvanian region was given to Romania, Romania now holds the greatest minority of Europe (1.7 million Hungarians). An ongoing struggle exists today with Hungarian Transylvanians demanding certain rights such as Hungarian language and education in Romanian schools.
Visited the Catholic Church and Baroque Palace of Oradea. Later, visited the old city of Nagyvarad's art nouveau buildings and synagogue. It was sunny and warm here but then we made the trek up the mountains to Kalotaszentkiraly (Sincraiu)it was snowy and cold.
Thursday, March 26th
Because of the good deal of snow, rather than heading for the old Romanian region (Moc Land) in the mountains, we instead visited another small village named Korosfo (Izvoru Crisulu) in the morning. Next, we went to Kolozsvar (Cluj Napoca) where we explored their ornate Eastern Orthodox church and went to a lecture at Babes-Bolyai University. The lecture was on "The Problems of the Hungarian minority and the minority policy in Romania after 1989" ha, also learned about Dracula. Dracula somehow gets worked into many discussions here in Transylvania.
Next, we went to this real "pearl" of a village named Torocko (Rimetea) a small, medieval village part of the world heritage protected by UNESCO where we stayed with Hungarian families. It is nestled within the Transcaului Mountains of Western Transylvania where time seems to stand still. In fact as we pulled in there were people being carried about by horses and donkeys and even cows wandering into the town center for a drink of water from the well. No one seemed in a rush, a general feeling of ease over the whole village. Everyone was really charmed. The food was amazing, the palinka (romanian super, super SUPER strong fruit brandy made from home some up 60 proof alcohol) was potent. We had a great time :-) Pics: top left Synagogue of Nagyvarad, middle right: Korosfo. Bottom Left: Torocko and friend.