Holidays in the Countryside

The programme offered special accommodation fees in countryside guesthouses in September and October.

Daniel Onea, 15.10.2015, 13:03

The tourists who want to take a break from the hectic city life benefit from special accommodation fees in countryside guesthouses over September and October this year. Holidays in the Countryside is a programme run by the National Association for Rural, Cultural and Sustainable Tourism. The program is drawing to a close, but its offers are still available for a couple of weeks. So today we will be speaking about how successful the Holidays in the Countryside programme has been, and about accommodation offers in Romanian villages for the winter holidays season.

The Holidays in the Countryside programme has now reached its 25th edition and is run jointly by the Romanian Association of Travel Employers (ANAT), and the National Association for Rural, Cultural and Sustainable Tourism, known as ANTREC. The ultimate goal of the programme is to promote tourism in the Romanian countryside.

This years autumn edition was scheduled to take place between September 30 and October 30, with accommodation fees ranging from 40 Euro per person in a 2-star guesthouse, to 65 Euro per person in a 5-star guesthouse. As usual, guesthouses from all over the country have come up with offers. With details on that, here is the president of the National Association for Rural, Cultural and Sustainable Tourism, Marilena Stoian.

Marilena Stoian: The programme has always been popular, because it gives low-income people the opportunity to spend a holiday in the countryside, in Romanian villages. Another element contributing to its success is the fact that the programme has been implemented for many years now and we already have faithful tourists, guests who come over, again and again. We receive requests for information even before the official opening of the programme. But the holidays in Romanian villages, in rural tourist facilities, are popular throughout the year, even after this special-offer-special-fees programme comes to an end. In November, December and next year you can spend weekends or proper holidays, even if fees are a little higher than during this period. Nonetheless, hospitality is everywhere as usual, the food is as tasty as it used to be, while hosts are just as welcoming, offering a wide range of programmes, be they leisure or cultural.

There are many foreign tourists, most of them Europeans, but also tourists coming from America, from Asia, Japan in particular, who want to get to know the Romanians at home, to get acquainted with their traditions. And theres no better place to do that than the countryside, says the president of the National Association for Rural, Cultural and Sustainable Tourism, Marilena Stoian.

Marilena Stoian: “There are foreign tourists who come here for the winter holidays as well. They want to see the local traditions on Saint Nicholas, Christmas, the New Year and the Epiphany Day. They are interested in food, wine tasting, they are also interested in visiting tourist assets, like museums or monasteries. They are delighted with authenticity, and with the fact that people are very natural, that food is natural, not necessarily organic in the strict sense of the word, but the varieties of food available are natural. They are delighted with the flexibility of the program, with the openness of Romanians towards foreigners.

When should we start booking our winter holidays?

Marilena Stoian: We should start looking for our destination and make our bookings straight away. Already there are many guesthouses where all rooms have been booked by the tourists who came there in previous years. They stayed in touch with the hosts and have already made reservations. But places are still available in lots of villages and in areas which are well-known as destinations for rural tourism: Bran, Moeciu, Fundata, Mărginimea Sibiului, the Neamt region, or in areas where the tourism industry has just started growing in recent years: northern Oltenia, Gorj, Valcea. These are areas where special programmes are staged for tourists during the winter holidays. Such programmes reflect accurately the way people have a good time here, how they keep their traditions alive, and tourists take part in that, they join the locals in the cooking, or in the kneading of the dough for the pound cakes, or in making the fire in the courtyard oven for the pound cakes and bread. Also, tourists learn or just listen to carols, which in rural communities are still authentic, they have not been altered by modernity. So were waiting for all of you in the Romanian villages. We are always glad to have guests, and the winter holidays, including Saint Nicholas, Christmas, the New Years Eve, Saint Basil, and Epiphany Day make the perfect time for guests to get to know us, to get acquainted with traditions, to relax and get ready for a new year.

Here is Cornel Poenar, the manager of a three-star guesthouse in Cavnic, located in northern Romanias Maramures:

Cornel Poenar: “We can arrange three and five-day stays in our region. For the first day, we recommend a brief tour of Maramures. The schedule includes a visit to Birsana Monastery, which is one of the worlds most beautiful wooden monasteries, the Merry Cemetery in Sapinta, which is unique in the world. Then there is the Memorial of the Victims of Communism and the Resistance, including a visit to communist prisons in Sighetul Marmatiei. For the second day, we recommend Viseul de Sus, for a trip on board a narrow-gauge train on the Vaser Valley. The tour takes eight hours to complete, and the route is among the few ones left in Europe. Then you can visit the Village Museum and the History Museum in Baia Mare.

Speaking now is Albumita Preotescu, the manager of a four-star guesthouse in the village of Vama, in Bukovina, a region which is famous for its traditions and gastronomy.

Albumita Preotescu: The guesthouse has a specially arranged area where tourists can find maps with all the objectives worth visiting during their stay, all sorts of leaflets, gastronomy magazines, other information. Bukovina is a region that God has blessed, and were waiting for you all, so that you can discover with your own eyes this wonderful land.

So all you have to do is contact your tour operator and make an inquiry about winter tourism offers in Romanian guesthouses. They are operational, and the booking season has already begun.