Claudia Curici Photography
Exploring my passion for photography
‘Europe’s eighth most idyllic place to live’ (Forbes)
That’s Sibiu, one of the Saxon medieval cities in Transylvania, Romania, and this is an information I found on Wikipedia (link here). To be honest, I haven’t spent enough time in Sibiu to confirm it is good or not to live in, but there is one detail that really impressed me (and my dad). Parking around the Old City is relatively easy, and it costs only 1 leu for a full day (just to place this in context, in my home town, Targu-Jiu, a small city, it costs 2 lei for one hour of parking and in Bucharest the parking situation is a total nightmare). I tend to believe that a city that makes it easy for its residents to park, it’s more likely to be a good place to live in). As a side note, the mayor of Sibiu from 2000 to 2012 (12 years!) is now the President of Romania. In 2007 Sibiu also became the European Capital of Culture and is now one of the most popular tourist destinations in Romania.
I always like to see a city from above, but I had no plans for this trip and had no internet connection, so we decided to enter the Lutheran Evangelical Cathedral at my mom’s suggestion, without knowing we can visit the Tower. When me and my dad decided to go up, they asked us if we have fear of heights, which we don’t, but only when we started going up we realized how important that question is… It is NOT easy to climb up in that Tower, and I would only recommend it to people who are sure they are not claustrophobic, are in good health and are sure they don’t have fear of heights. But, once you are there, the view is magnificent and since is not easily accessible, you might have all the place for yourself (which in fact is four small turrets on each corner, with small windows that can be open).
Feeling blue…
Although I am due another post from Sighisoara (the medieval town I covered in my previous two posts), today I’m feeling this… Pictures are taken at The Village Museum (‘Muzeul Satului’) in Bucharest, a must see if you ever find yourself in Bucharest.
Sighisoara, view from above
Back to Sighisoara (first post here). Once up in the Clock Tower (in Romanian ‘Turnul cu Ceas’), a 64 meter high tower built in the 13th century and the landmark of the city, also the Museum of History, I felt like a child in Lego Land. I alternated between the 23mm and the 56mm (Fijifilm) to try to get as much of the view as well as the details. I can only wonder how many stories and dramas and quiet lives those roofs and windows witnessed – and protected – for eight centuries?
The colorful streets of Sighisoara
By a wonderful coincidence, Lonely Planet just released their top travel destinations for 2016 and Transylvania, Romania is number one on the regions’ list (Link here). Romania is beautiful and has enormous tourism potential, however, if I have to be honest, there are still lots of things we have to work on. It was my first time visiting Sighisoara, a famous medieval town in Transylvania and I was surprised and slightly disappointed by few things: 1. people don’t smile and I came across unnecessary rudeness (it feels like locals are annoyed they have visitors), 2. touristic commerce is appalling (it has nothing to do with the wonderful traditional Romanian handcraft, especially disappointing considering Sighisoara is a craftsmen’s town), 3. the house where Count Dracula (Vlad The Impaler) was born is a bad joke and I would never recommend anyone to spend 5 lei to visit it (a dark room covered with cheap red and black satin like fabric, a table and 2 statues, red light and a drunk man sitting in a coffin, all of such a bad taste, I was embarrassed).
Apart of these things the tourism board of Sighisoara can work on, the town is magical and deserves its reputation as one of the most beautiful medieval town / citadels in Europe. On the plus side, I was impressed with the accommodation; we stayed at the Sighisoara Hotel, a building dating from 1520 located in the heart of the old town, where the price was great, the people friendly and helpful, amazing architecture and good wifi. (Green and yellow building in Image 7). A cheerful and somehow unexpected sight was the many groups of school kids (so many for such a small place) flocking from the few schools in the citadel, speaking Romanian and German and just being kids (I couldn’t help thinking they were lucky to be able to walk home from school, breathe the fresh air and being surrounded by such amazing architecture).
I’ll start with few photos of the colorful streets and I’ll continue with another set of photos in a different post.
Autumnal emotion
I have this Romanian poem ringing in my head since I visited Romania a couple of weeks ago and because I haven’t found an official translation, I’ll humbly try to convey the emotion in English. This is not a poem translation by any means, barely just a literal translation.
The autumn has come, please cover my heart with something, something like a tree shadow, or better yet with your shadow. Sometimes I fear I’ll never see you again, I fear I’ll grow pointed wings and I’ll reach the clouds, I fear you’ll hide in a foreign eye, and the eye will close with a bitter leaf. And then, I walk to the rocks, in silence; grab all my words and throw them at sea, I whistle the moon, I rise it, and I transform it into the greatest of love.
And the poem in Romanian, which sounds out of this world (for which I wish everyone could understand Romanian)
Emotie de toamnă
By Nichita Stanescu
A venit toamna, acopera-mi inima cu ceva,
cu umbra unui copac sau mai bine cu umbra ta.
Mă tem ca n-am să te mai vad, uneori,
ca or să-mi creasca aripi ascutite pana la nori,
ca ai să te ascunzi intr-un ochi strain,
si el o să se-nchida cu o frunza de pelin.Si-atunci mă apropii de pietre si tac,
iau cuvintele si le-nec în mare.
Suier luna si o rasar si o prefac
intr-o dragoste mare.
Hugging trees
Do you see what I see? 🙂
Brasov, a stylized view
I have this memory: being in a train that stops in the railway station in Brasov, I open the window (I think it was early morning), I smell the fresh air and I decide this is the city where I want to live my next four years (no exaggeration this was the entire decision process). This was me, back in 1998, choosing the city where I’ll do my university studies.
There is something about this city I always loved and makes me feel like home when I’m here. It may be that this is where my parents met and decided to get married?
Brasov is one of the main three medieval towns in Romania (the other two being Sibiu and Sighisoara) and is located right in the centre of the country, surrounded by Southern Carpathians. Brasov County is also home to two of my favorite ski resorts in Romania, Predeal and Poiana Brasov. I added some Wikipedia links for more details. Brasov also hosts Biserica Neagra (The Black Church), a well known Gothic site dating from 1477 (images 2 & 4).
Although I initially processed these images more realistically, I felt the need to review that and give it a more stylized view. This creamy texture is closer to how Brasov feels to me. Most of the images are taken with my Fuji X-T1 and 56mm lens.
P.S. In case you wonder what “STRADA SFORII” is (images 6, 7, 8, 9), it is one of the narrowest streets in Europe.
Romania. October. Windows.
The best thing about wandering the streets of old medieval towns are the windows, always intriguing and fascinating.
Back in time. A medieval trip through Romania.
If I haven’t posted for more than two weeks is because I was away, first in Dubai for work and then in Romania for holiday (where I still am at the moment). When I planned my trip to Romania I really wanted to do something different, so I took my parents on a trip across the medieval cities of Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu. They host some of Europe’s most preserved medieval towns, located in the Saxon part of Transilvania. If Brasov was already a town close to my heart – this is where I did my university studies – it was for the first time I visited Sighisoara and Sibiu, and it was worth every minute of it. I have more than one hundred photos and some more info I would like to share, but I will start with just three view over shots from the three locations.
Brasov. View of the old town from ‘Drumul Poienii’ – a road linking Brasov to the most popular and beautiful mountain ski resort in Romania, Poiana Brasov, situated at 1,020 meters altitude.
Sighisoara, view from ‘Turnul cu ceas’ (The Clock Tower). Sighisoara is the most popular and the best preserved medieval town in Transylvania, founded in the 12th century by German craftsmen and merchants.
Sibiu, European Capital of Culture in 2007, view from ‘Catedrala Evanghelica’ (Evangelical Cathedral of Sibiu), from its tower, the tallest in Transylvania (73 meters).
And just to give an idea about where the three towns are located:
Global Photo Walk 2015, Dallas (and my little drama)
So here I am, coming home from a great photo walk in Downtown Dallas this morning, with a new camera and lens I love, pretty excited to see the photos I took, to discover more than half of them are nowhere to be found. More than half of the walk has vanished from my camera. I suspect a card malfunction, but really I don’t want to think too much about it. I still have few to share, although the ones I was most excited about are gone.
Mr. Holga
Commerce Street
Vietnam Veteran
Pegasus x2
Bride
Vanity
Claudia Curici Photography 