Vacation pics - Sarmizegetusa

First of all – big big disappointment – I didn’t get to see/take pics of the “Stonehenge” lookaliker. A little history is needed to explain my trip. Around the year 100 in the area I visited lived the last of the Dacian kings – Burebista, the son of one Scorillo. The Romans came and fought the Dacs (Dacians?...not sure) and eventually conquered the greatest Dacian fortress – Sarmizegetusa. Sarmizegetusa is actually 2 places nowadays. The one I visited is named Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa. A long name that was given to the fortress city the Romans built after they conquered the other Sarmizegetusa - the actual capital of the Dacians called Sarmizegetusa Regia. The one I visited is in a nice, cozy location. The Romans preferred a gentler slope for their city. The Dacians however had built their fortress to be almost inexpugnable.

I scanned a pic from a book to show you – >here<

The road led up the mountains and passed 4 other fortresses that had to be conquered before one actually got to Sarmizegetusa Regia (the orange arrow). I added the arrows – the positions are approximate. Anyway, the Romans had to destroy all 4 forts before taking on the big one. We tried to get there but the weather in the mountains is tricky and there is no way to get there by car. It’s a 4 hour rough mountain trek at the end of a road accessible by car and when we got close to the end of the road the mountain looked like this and the guide refused to take us any further. I did scan a few pics to show you guys what I’ve been missing on this trip (will go back in the summer):
Aerial view of the sacred area
Circular sanctuary (the Stonehenge thinghy)
Smaller circular sanctuary
Andesite “sun” – believed to have been a huge sundial
Another andesite sanctuary

So we headed back to the Roman Sarmizegetusa tails between our legs… It wasn’t a total loss though. The area is unbelievably beautiful. There’s even a buffalo reservation. I don’t really think they’re buffaloes – in Romanian they’re called “Zimbri” – but they do look a lot like American buffaloes. Huge beasts too. There were only 4 of them in the reservation at the moment – as I understood the others had been transported elsewhere for the winter. – Three buffalo pics:
the family
the angry father
the lazy father

There are also a lot of dams. The first one has a depth of almost a kilometer (900 meters)- dunno how many feet that is but I guess a lot of them
Dam one – at a certain point in time it was the highest and deepest dam in Europe
Dam two – I tried to make it a panorama

There were some amazing sunsets too:
red sunset
blue sunset
sunset - low clouds

I forgot the Roman fortifications –
arena – the Romans brought their ideas of entertainment with them – the ruins in the Ulpia Traiana Sarmisegetusa include a gladiator school and a fighting arena. The ditch you see in the middle was for the blood to drain off the “field” and for the corpses too – they were dragged through that ditch with huge metal hooks. ….Not really entertaining by modern standards but heh...
the forum 1
the forum 2 – the public part of the city – the place where regular people lived. I’ll post more pics with those – I took about 900 pics in these past 5 days.

Oh – also, about 60 kilometers from Sarmizegetusa there’s the city of Hunedoara – where one of the bestest looking gothic castles can be found: the Corvin Hunyad Castle – another of the Romanian castles that served for a while as a home to the infamous Vlad the Impaler – Dracula. The castle sure looks the part with the demon gargoyles that guard the roofs and weird, dark hallways.
Corvin Castle - front
Corvin Castle - side
Corvin Castle - the back
Corvin Castle - hallway
Corvin Castle - demon gargoyles
When we visited there was a film crew on location there – they are shooting a film about Michelangelo’s life. I took a few pics of the actors:
Some apprentices or workers
Michelangelo as a child…I guess
I would have taken more pics but the director (a German guy) shooed us off.

And finally, we also visited another ruined castle – the one in Deva – another 60 or so kilometers off Sarmizegetusa. This one is also on top of a small mountain (I shed a couple of kilos on this trip):
General view of the ruins
Detail one
Detail two
Detail three
View from the ruins – the modern city of Deva

Well - I took a lot more pics – if you’re read so far without getting bored – you can go to the gallery for all the pics (all that are online now that is).
Hope you guys like them.

Hey mihai!

I loved the story you wrote, and the surroundings you were in look beautiful.
Too bad you didn't make it to Sarmizegetusa Regia! From the scans it looks really nice... but it seems as the weather wouldn't let you take any good photos anyway.

About the photos, I like almost every single one of them... especially the last few ones of the ruins, your camera makes blue skies look really good!
The panorama one of the dam is AWESOME, the only thing you could've done to make it look even better... was perhaps using a bit slower shutterspeed, so the water seems to 'freeze'. No complaints though... nice work.

The buffalo ones aren't that special, but I can understand that you didn't want to come too close to those... ;)

Good job, mihai... and good to have you back alive too! I mean, c'mon... going to vampire castles and what not... pffooo!

thanks Minse ...umm for the panorama - a slow shutterspeed would have made the clouds move too much - it was very windy...

guess next time I'll post a single shot - too much text - too many lazy people = bad combination hihi

Damn.....those are some great pics! (good thing there were photo's, cause i couldn't read those huge ass names lol )

The panorama kicks ass. Kinda makes me dizy though lol. I think my fav's are the sunsets. They're just relaxing or something.

"Some apprentices or workers" is too funny, it looks like a "monty python" film shoot lol.

Good job!