Friday, 11 May

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="044d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <div> <A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Thursday, 10 May"><U><IMG SRC="0450b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="previous" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>   <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Saturday, 12 May"><U><IMG SRC="0460b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="next" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A>       <IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="11" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" WIDTH="11">   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="May"><U><IMG SRC="0480b0b0.gif" border=0 width="11" height="11" ALT="up" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div> <IMG SRC="204afea0.jpg" border=0 width="175" height="234" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Coronation Church of King Ferdinand I and Queen Mary, last King of Romania, Alba Iulia</div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Gastropod's Trail</B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Gastropods Trail"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> Friday, 11 May</div> <div> Sibiu, Romania to Martinesti, Romania</div> <bR> <div> We left Sibiu early to have plenty of time to visit Alba Iulia. Alba Iulia was founded by Saint Stephen I (1000-1038), the first Hungarian king, in 1009 on the site which had already been a Roman outpost a thousand years earlier. Romania has a rich and interesting history but being on the crossroads of so many warring peoples, most of the sites one can visit today are from the 19th and early 20th centuries. </div> <bR> <div> In the 7th and 6th Centuries B.C., the Greeks founded a number of colonies on the Black Sea shore. Five centuries later the supremacy of Greece declined, and a new power arose: The Romans. During the two centuries of Roman Occupation, new roads and cities were built in Dacia. The official language was Latin, from which the present Romanian language was born. The Romans retreated from Dacia in 271 A.D. There are very few sources describing the period between the Roman Retreat and the 10th Century A.D. These were dark times for Eastern Europe, when countless warrior tribes roamed the land destroying everything on their way. The three regions that form Romania today were first mentioned as states around the 14th Century. In its attempt to consolidate its authority in Transylvania, Hungary encouraged the German colonization, which began in 1141 A.D. Bringing along the spirit of western civilization, they helped build great cities such as Sighisoara, Sibiu, Brasov, developed strong guilds and boosted trade. In the 15th century, the Romanian population stood up and fought against Hungarian oppression, receiving some rights, for the first time. Transylvania was united with the other two Romanian territories by Michael the Brave, who defeated the Hungarian Army in 1600. The revolution of 1848 proclaimed the ideals of a nation and a free world: "Dreptate, Fratie" (Justice, Brotherhood). It called for the union of all the Romanian people in the three provinces, for the cease of foreign domination and abuse (by the Ottoman, Russian and Austrian Empires), for equal justice under law and human rights in the tradition of the French Revolution. After two world wars and forty years of communist rule Romania is since 1989 a multiparty democracy and human rights have been restored. The economy, crippled in Ceausescu's time, is struggling to shift to a free market system.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="2442ce00.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="224" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The old city of Alba Iulia has evolved across the centuries by building up and fortifying the Roman citadel. It was then, and still is today, mainly a garrison and most buildings are out of bounds for visitors (I was politely, but firmly, requested to leave a couple of times). <IMG SRC="2462bc20.jpg" border=0 width="299" height="194" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="5" VSPACE="5">On the left is building erected between 1851/53 which served as the Officer's Quarters. A Roman Catholic Cathedral was built here in the XI century and enlarged and embellished until the late XVI century. The most impressive building, however, is the Romanian-Orthodox Cathedral (see sidebar) which was built in 1922 for the coronation of King Ferdinand I and Queen Mary. The plan is based on a greed cross and the buildings enclosing it are linked by open galleries supported by octogonal pillars.</div> <bR> <div> Today we wanted peace and quiet for our last night in Romania and ventured way off the highway along an unpaved field road until we could neither see nor hear the highway. A group of workers in a nearby field were surprised to see us set up camp but, apart from waving hello, discretely kept their distance. A flock of sheep were grazing on the other side of the brook.</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>