After competing at the “Run for Life” Cross in October 2024, organized by Life Call, we both won our races, and then gained several wonderful prizes. Anca got a two days accommodation at Inside, The Village, in Dâmbovița county, Romania. Of course, being a two persons award, we both went there. It happened in mid-December same year. This rural escape looked challenging, because we don’t own or drive personal car – we are trying to be more developed in a very undeveloped world. In the end, the challenge was not that difficult in terms of movement, but more in time spent to go there. The best solution identified is to get a train from Bucharest to the former capital city, Târgoviște, and from there to take an Uber / Bolt, for 30 minutes approximately to Tunari village, where the place is located.
Average train speed in Romania: 45 km / hour
To start with a rough piece of reality from Romania, I should mention that the train ride between the two cities, even though they are two of the most important in Romania, takes roughly two hours, for 80 kilometers. This is in European Union, in a country where nothing has done in this sector for 35 years. Going back to better things, we arrive in Târgoviște, then take short walk thru the town, go to Chindia Tower for a short glimpse – my first visit here – and after around one hour with groceries, exploration and drawing some brief conclusions, we embark a Bolt and stop at Inside, The Village. What we have discovered here it was truly amazing: a pure rural, perfectly conserved area, with all the comfort you need for somebody highly accustomed with urban life. The interior was perfectly adapted to the modern needs, but embedded in a very rustic background. The sensation is unique.
Inside, The Village, the perfect place
The biggest surprise of them all was, though, the high energetic efficiency of the house we were staying in. Thea heating inside was a classic, but enhanced, stove, where we put wood to raise the temperature. While we were expecting to do this all our trip, not little was our surprise when we seen how fast the temperature raises, and how good it keeps during the whole night, even if we stopped burning any wood as early as 20:00! It really went well for 14 hours, or maybe a bit more. Wow! I am highlighting this, because there were tens of times when we travelled in Romania, during cold season, and we had significant trouble with the heating, especially in night time. Places where the heating should have been available much better, but it was not, and the energetic efficiency was practically close to zero. On this regard, Inside, The Village is a true blessing! Going there, from a very polluted city like Bucharest becomes itself an opportunity to detoxify your lungs.
Great place for Netflix and enjoying silence
Arriving on Saturday, we spent the whole rest of the day inside, watching Netflix, and also on the terrace, enjoying the quietness of the surroundings, and the beautiful landscape, with the stray cat “on top” of the general sublime picture. Only for this, you need to spend there, in that spot, a couple of hours. Especially if you share the same history as I do, not growing up one day in the countryside. 🙂 Of course, enjoying this is nice, but what else can you do, especially if you have a full beautiful mid-December sunny day at hand. In the evening you can watch “The Crown” and enjoy the dark silence, but you need to do more, during daytime, to fully take advantage of the gift! Then what to do? You know, the thing of being here, without a transportation vehicle, means that you need to work a bit for your food. 🙂 There is a shop in the Măgura village, roughly 500 meters away, so we took the needed things in house. But we dreamt of a decent supper, and we found the ideal place, thanks to our hosts recommendation: Hanul din Meri (The inn from the apples – for a rough translation :).
Tunari, a quiet nice place, but mostly abandoned
The only little trouble for us getting there is that it is away after a 3.5 kilometer walk. We could have taken a taxi, for sure, but we wanted to explore the area, so a 7-8 round kilometer walk was not that problematic. We went through the whole Tunari village to do so, and discovered a blend between sad reality and ancestral primordiality. One positive thing here is that the main road is really well done, with everything needed for a path to be circulated by car. It is very seldom to find this thing in Romania remote areas, but here the road looks really good. And on top of this, while cruising thru it by foot we weren’t disturbed by a single car. In terms of the air we are breathing, this is a blessing, but glancing around, the reality tells a different, sad story. The village that has only 134 souls – as found on Wikipedia – looks mostly abandoned, a lot of deserted houses, or some huge started ones, but not finished, and which will never will. Those, from where you can hear out and loud manele, Romanian now traditional music, belong, most likely, to people, that work hard abroad, and once coming back, they want to build huge mansions, and even if the price to do so in this region is not that big, they just never afford to complete them.
Hanul din Meri, a great place to eat!
A brutal landscape, but we focus on nature and silence. Once exiting the village, we hit a secondary road, with most of the landscape that shouts: abandonment and hopelessness. This is the true face of Romania, for those who take time to explore the country in it’s real terrain, not only in some bigger cities, where life can seem better. The good thing is that the air pollution, caused by cars, is very thing here. After a 45 minutes walk we reach Hanul din Meri. Without having too many expectations, we are stricken, though, by a very fancy place to eat, far beyond our expectations. While waiting for the dishes to come, I identify a genuinely clean bathroom, which is always a huge good sign, and very hard to identify in Romania’s restaurants, frankly speaking. I have a good vibe. And it increases once I taste the szekely sausages, the local apple juice and the black-currant stuffed pancakes. I can really give a five-star for everything to this highly remote location. Please go there, if you have the chance, as also the service is quite fast.
Change of plan for when we leave Inside, The Village
Now, with our tummies full, we are reversing the path and going back Inside, The Village. Enjoying the place for some extra hours, the serenity of the surroundings, and planning the back trip to Bucharest. You see, initially I’ve chosen a roundtrip to Târgoviște, but as said, the overall trip goes almost to three hours, so then… I was thinking, since it was also difficult to get a Bolt / Uber in Tunari: why shouldn’t I look for a taxi, which can take us to Câmpina? Not much further, but from where we can take, on a different path, a train that can reach Bucharest in only slightly more than one hour. Which, for a 92 kilometer trip is impressive… Then, we can both shorten the trip, check a new piece of Romania on the road – which looks exactly like described above, without too many hopes – and then arrive earlier in Bucharest. The decision looks to be the correct one, so we manage to complete the experience quite smooth, without owning a car. You can do so as well!
Options to travel for all
And, to wrap it up, I really recommend at least a two nights stay in Inside, The Village, especially if you have a car. But even if you don’t, because you want to be more in the XXI century anchored, not in the needy past, you can do that, and maybe the best way is to take a round trip to Câmpina, with a taxi ride from there to Tunari. We enjoyed, in some regards also the road to Târgoviște, especially myself who had never seen the town, but if you want to travel faster, you can arrange an efficient train – cab connection and it might take you under two hours from the Bucharest North Train Station to the entrance in the small, miniature and wonderful Inside, The Village!