Welcome to the first installment this year in our regular feature Traveler's Guide. Today we will take a look back, to see the most interesting holiday destinations in Romania in 2016. We tried to come up with offers for all tastes and pockets, for those looking for adventure as well as for those who are more into leisure activities, at the seaside or in the mountains. We guided you off the beaten track or to established tourist destinations, all perfectly fitting into a holiday to remember.
2016 began with an invitation we extended to you for Gorj County. Boasting fairy tale scenery, a rich history and legends to remember, Gorj County is the place where many personalities rose to prominence. Among them, the great sculptor Constantin Brancusi. It was the final installment in our prize-winning contest series titled "A Contemporary of Constantin Brancusi: Constantin Antonovici". The contest aroused your interest and we received 120 correct and complete answers to our questions. The winners of the contest were Khalil Abdel-Kader and Goumidi Mohamed, both from Algeria. They took part in the contest, provided correct answers to our questions and won a seven-day trip to Gorj County, full-board, six-night accommodation over April 15 - 30, 2016.
Alongside Transylvania, Bukovina, Maramures and the Danube Delta, the capital city Bucharest has it own place among foreign tourists' preferences. Statistics show that in the last 15 years, Bucharest's accommodation capacity has tripled. Romania's capital city has become a city break destination also thanks to the eight low-cost companies operating on Otopeni Airport. There are around 90 direct flights linking Bucharest to 90 cities, which makes it possible for Romania's capital city to be included on the list of European capitals as a city break destination. In February, we usually target those who love winter sports, so we took you to two of Romania's most beautiful mountain resorts, Vârtop and Arieşeni. Located at only a few kilometers from one another, they are all replete with snow and guest houses ready to welcome guests with top-quality services and food.
Around 300 companies took part in the 35th edition of Romania's International Tourism Fair, held over February 25 and 28 in Bucharest. Just as it was expected, tour operators were present with lots of early booking and last minute offers for all tourist areas in Romania. Spa tourism was intensely promoted at the aforementioned edition of the fair. We also told you about other destinations in the country, such as Iasi, Sighisoara and the Danube Delta. In March we invited you on a trip around Romania's villages. Scattered in the highlands, on mountain tops, on the top of the hills or in the plains, Romania's villages always make perfect destinations for those interested in a quiet holiday. One of the world's most prestigious tourist guides, Best Travel 2016, edited by Lonely Planet, provided a rankings of the world's top ten regions, with Transylvania coming in first. Traditions, nature, cuisine, routes for all sorts of trips, you can find all that in the region, which is famous mainly for its rural part.
In the spring of 2016 we invited you to the city of magnolias, Timisoara, in western Romania. It's a city rich in period buildings, museums, open-air concerts, fairy tale squares as well as a historical city center which is unique in Romania, made of three urban squares, each of them with their own architectural style. It's often referred to as Europe in miniature, a settlement where ethnic Romanians, Germans, Serbs, Croatians, Slovaks, Hungarians and Bulgarians all live in harmony.
In late April, we talked about Maramures and Bukovina as two favorite destinations for those who choose to spend the Orthodox Easter in Romania. It was also then that you found out about the offers on the Romanian Black Sea Coast resorts and spas.
In June we headed towards the Danube Delta. It is a destination for the active type of people, for those who love nature. A stay in the Delta may even include trips by helicopter, by bicycle, speed-boat trips or rowing trips with the local long boat, taking you to canals and waterways. Then we went to the Corvins' Castle in Hunedoara, from where we followed in Count Dracula's footsteps, in Bistrita-Nasaud. That unique trip was offered to you as part of another prize-wining contest organized by radio Romania International, titled "Holiday in Bistriţa-Năsăud". This contest too aroused your interest as we received 352 correct and complete answers. Winner of the contest was Liu Faijan of Shenzhen, China. Our listener and his wife were treated to an 8-day trip, accommodation and full board for seven nights, over September 15 and 30, 2016, in Bistrita-Nasaud County.
Then we headed towards the Romanian seaside. The big novelty of the summer season in 2016 was the fact that beaches in the southern part of the coast were expanded with more than thirty hectares. As for those who didn't quite feel up to spending a whole day on the beach, as an alternative to that we pointed to amusement parks, horse riding trips or trips to Dobrogea and the Danube Delta.
In the autumn of 2016, we invited you to get to know Vatra Dornei, dubbed "the pearl of Bukovina", a resort lying at 800 meters above the sea level. The place is perfect for those who love mountain sports, but also for those who feel like spending their holiday in an oasis of peace and tranquility. Here you can go rafting, mountain biking, do some extreme biking, paragliding, you can go skiing or you can just take a walk around the park of the resort only to enjoy the strongly ionized air. In the same period, we also invited you to the western area of the Southern Carpathians, in the Tarcu Mountains, the perfect place for the reintroduction of aurochs to the wild. We recall the aurochs are a species that had disappeared for more than 200 years.
Those of you who wanted to find out the latest on agro tourism, or about religious and healing tourism in Valcea, were invited to a county for all seasons, with recognized tourist assets. Toward the end of the year we told you about Romania being one of the world's biggest salt producers and we took you to some of Romania's most famous salt mines. And of course, rounding off 2016 were Christmas and New Year's Eve offers.
It was a plentiful year, in terms of tourist offers. We shall stick to that tradition in 2017, when our trips will be at least as interesting and unusual as those we took you on in 2016. A Happy New Year to you all !
(Translated by Eugen Nasta)
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