Halfway down the Danube

Up the old Olt

You've never heard of the Olt River, have you? (Talking to the non-Romanians here, obviously.)

Well, neither had I. Until Saturday.

Oh, I'd seen it on the map. And I drove across it once, on a business trip to Craiova. "Say, that's a big river there," I thought, and drove on. So I was aware of its existence, in a general sort of way.

What I didn't know was that the central valley of the Olt is one of the great scenic drives of Europe.

Well, it is. It's spectacular. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. And hardly anyone outside of Romania has heard of it.

Why? Well... look at a map of Romania, and you see that the country is sort of an oval, with the Carpathian mountains running across it in a right angle like a backwards "L", and the high plateau of Transylvania in the middle. The Olt drains the southern half of that high plateau. (The northern half is drained by a bunch of rivers that flow into the Tisza, which is another extremely cool river that none of us have ever heard of.) The Olt then runs south to the Danube. But to get there, it first has to get through the southern arm of the Carpathians. It has done this by cutting a very steep, deep and narrow valley.

So as you drive north from Pitesti, you're driving along the river... and the mountains gradually close in around you... and the slope to the side of the road turns into a cliff... and suddenly you realize that there's a sheer drop on the other side of the road, twenty or thirty meters down to the fast-moving river. That's when you sit up, look around, and realize that you're driving through some seriously amazing scenery.

Dark peaks, wrapped in forests, reflected in the water. Ruined castles. Huge raw gouges where the Communists took thousands of tons of stone and gravel to build hydroelectric dams. And mountains, mountains everywhere.

It's actually a series of gorges, separated by wider spots where the river runs more slowly. Some of these wide spots are now filled with lakes -- the aforementioned hydroelectric dams. (The power potential of the Olt must be quite something.) Some, though, have spa towns. The area is slightly volcanic, and there are hot springs. People have been going up the Olt for the natural baths since the days of the Celts and Romans.

A side note here. I haven't encountered a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of the Ceausescus. However, from time to time people have commented on certain things that they do miss. And one that's come up again and again is this business of the spas.

See, under Communism, almost everyone got free trips to spas. It wasn't just if you were sick, but every year or so, free, whether you needed it or not. I think it got started as a populist gesture -- back before the Communist takeover, spas were only for the rich. But after the Revolution, comrades, the doors were thrown open to the peasants and workers!

Well, okay. But I never really understood why people got nostalgic about it. Once a year the government gives you a free hot bath... big deal.

But now I understand it a bit better. The spas are in a region of profound natural beauty, surrounded by places where people would pay good money to ski, swim, and hike. For American readers, it's a bit as if the government was giving away free weekends at Aspen, Vail, and Lake Tahoe.

Which brings us to the other why: why is the Olt Valley still unknown outside Romania? There is some tourism, but not nearly as much as there should be.

Well, I think there are a couple of reasons. One is that tourism marketing for Romania is pretty crappy generally. (European readers: do you have a strong image of Romania as a place to visit? Nope, didn't think so.) Another is that the Olt is rather inconveniently located. There are only three cities in Romania with serious international air connections -- Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara -- and the Olt Valley is at least three hours' drive away from all of them. Unless you plan to take the the overnight train from Budapest down to Sibiu (about which more anon) it's not that easy for a foreigner to reach this part of Romania.

Which may not be such a bad thing. Aside from the spa towns, with their interesting mix of old French and Swiss style chalets with Communist-era blocks, there's not a lot of development here yet. No billboards, no motels, no fast food outlets or roadside souvenir stands. Just the road and the river.

That will change, sooner or later. Meanwhile, if you're ever in central Romania, don't miss the Olt.

Posted by douglas at July 13, 2004 12:05 AM