When I was younger, I could tell I had fallen in love in Romania a couple of times, as one does. However, it took some time, some traveling, tasting some good fruits, and spitting out some bad ones to finally be able to say: I’ve fallen in love in Romania and I’ve fallen in love with Romania too. Both have happened to me. And it might sound as if it's nothing, but with a country like mine, you tend to live with a so-called “small country syndrome,” where the grass is always greener on the other side.
It was really this realization that not just me, but the whole team at Tășuleasa Social, the NGO where I’ve been an executive director for almost 20 years, have had. Throughout the years, Alin Ușeriu, the president of Tășuleasa Social and the initiator and coordinator of Via Transilvanica, has been guiding us through travels around the country, not just work ones, but also leisure ones. We genuinely think of him as a true visionary.
The beginning of our project really is a case of: one fine morning, Alin said to us, “Romania is truly such a beautiful country. We need to build a path so people can walk on it and take the time to discover this themselves.” Sure, we’ve heard of long-distance trails before; I myself walked on one, but at that point in time, in 2018, it seemed so far-fetched to even imagine an NGO like ours building such a grand project. The year 2018 also marked 100 years since The Great Unification of Romanian provinces into one country. Yet, we still had the feeling that all the cultural, historical, ethnic, or geographical differences across the country were still playing out as differences, instead of the more positive perspective of diversity. We wanted to create something that was truly about union and togetherness. The vision was there, so we all embarked on this journey trusting that we could make it happen, but thinking it might take us at least ten years to complete.
Four and a half years after that moment, we were celebrating the opening of a 1,400-kilometer-long trail, called Via Transilvanica, with over 12,000 people gathered in a square of a historical Romanian city, Alba Iulia, where four years prior our team and a handful of supporters came together to announce that we were going to start working on this seemingly impossible project. This only happened because an unexpected number of people contributed either financially or actively working on our project.
One year after finishing the project, in September 2023, we were in Venice, collecting a European Heritage Award 2023 for Citizens’ engagement and awareness and by the end of the ceremony, we were also awarded the Public Choice Award. Needless to say, no one saw this coming merely four years prior. It’s still the greatest honor we’ve received to date and it really put Via Transilvanica on the world map.
Now, what is Via Transilvanica? It’s a 1,400-kilometer-long trail, crossing Romania diagonally and thus becoming a path of discovering the complex layers of Romanian heritage, what we call “the road that unites.”
The trail is divided into seven cultural historical regions, each of them with their particularities. One of the most important things for us was to explore all the ethnic layers across Transylvania: Romanians, Hungarians, Szeclers, German Saxons, Rroma gypsies, Ukrainians, Croats, and up to at least 13 more ethnic groups and their impressive heritage can be discovered on Via Transilvanica, from specific architecture, culinary experiences, languages spoken, and more. So, the seven cultural-historical regions are as follows: Bucovina, Highlands, Terra Siculorum, Terra Saxonum, Terra Dacica, Terra Banatica, Terra Romana. Of course, there is an important social aspect to our project, as we speak about this impressive diversity of people across the country, we also speak of their lifestyles and prospects. As the trail mainly crosses rural areas, it’s important to address the rather dramatic situation of depopulated villages, or people hardly making it in these places. Via Transilvanica promotes a kind of slow tourism that is more delicate not just to the environment but to the communities of people as well. It offers undeniable development opportunities, from local businesses to all kinds of services like accommodation, offering transportation etc, while also allowing these people to perform their traditional activities like agriculture. It was important for us to meet the needs of tourists and those of people in these rural areas that would become the service providers, somewhere in the middle ground.
And when I say this meeting is always spectacular, I really mean it. Most of the people living in the approximately 400 communities on Via Transilvanica are not used to tourists, they are not used to the idea of seeing people backpacking for days on end. A lot of people living in rural areas are seniors, their lifestyle is still a very traditional one. However, now that the trail has been walked for longer and more and more people go on Via Transilvanica each year, locals have become accustomed to this idea and they understood the opportunity. It’s really heartwarming for me to go back to some of these places and listen to the stories of people meeting and exchanging experiences. One time, a young family with a small toddler who moved from a town to a village and built a guest house, not exactly knowing if it would have any success called us to say that if it hadn’t been for Via Transilvanica and the hikers they accommodated, they would have gone bankrupt. That speaks volumes about the impact this road we’ve built can have. We are forever grateful for all the people who actually started walking on this trail, some of them for a few days, others for its entirety. A lot of people are from Romania, which goes to show our country was in need of such a project and there are also people from all across the world coming on Via Transilvanica every year. For all of them, Via Transilvanica acts as a genuine ambassador of the cultural and natural heritage of our country.
On the topic of nature, I must say that the natural heritage is one key element of Via Transilvanica. Since the road starts in the mountains and reaches the Danube, the natural scenery changes in a matter of days. A Romanian biologist compared the natural diversity of Via Transilvanica to that of the Appalachian Trail. From coniferous species to secular beech forests, ferns, Mediterranean pine trees, various species of wildflowers, Via Transilvanica is a showcase of the flora and fauna specific to Romania. We also did not shy away from crossing areas of heavy exploitation, since one of Tășuleasa Social’s main activities is tree plantings. We wanted to stay true to our core values and to this social aspect of the project, so we try to also raise awareness of the issues Romania is facing, not just to show its beauties.
Via Transilvanica itself is also an art exhibition. Its unique signaling consists of andesite stones carved by national and international artists. Each stone is therefore a work of art. They have a double function, on one hand to show the way and on the other hand, they become part of this outdoor sculpture exhibition. It was important to us to promote Romanian culture through art as well, to basically emphasize the fact that art is not a luxury, but a social circuit.
On a final note, I’d like to finish off with something that I think brings Via Transilvanica a lot of authenticity. It’s the strong feminine energy this project has. A lot of women were involved in the creation of this project. I myself was the leader of an all women group of extraordinary ladies. Together we documented the trail and wrote a Traveller’s guide with all the required information. It was important to show that this type of activity, walking, biking or even horseback riding on a long distance trail is not an activity dedicated to just fit, muscular men. This inclusivity, not just gender based, but also in terms of social, economical, racial, age, fitness etc, was something we’ve worked on and even among the hikers on the trail, we’ve met women, people with disabilities, seniors etc who walked on this trail. Some of them even solo thru hiked Via Transilvanica. Also, on the part of people offering hospitality, most of them are women. The traditional gender role of the woman who is a homemaker was slightly shifted and these women became business women and to those tired from walking all day, some even become some sort of heroes with the food they make, the stories they have and their warmth and hospitality.
Nowadays, we’re working on improving the infrastructure. We have many ideas on how to make this project more coherent, more durable, while staying true to its core values. We’re hoping to see more and more hikers from all over the world discover Via Transilvanica and Romania. It’s really a matter of perspective. With an open heart and with your own two feet, there are many things awaiting to surprise you, to heal you, to offer you a new vision of not just Romania, but of people, the world and yourself.