Since I made the introduction to a little bit of history when it comes to how Romania was formed in a previous post a few weeks ago, I thought that it would be about time to write about another travel experience I had, but this time from a whole new place.

When I visited The Monument in memory of the Battle of Mirăslău and the cemetery across the street, I had a lot of mixed emotions. This, actually, happens pretty much everytime I get to see a genuine part of history (or what is left from it), as well as when visiting monuments or statues raised with the purpose of commemorating the people who fought in many battles to form the country we have these days.

I am not saying that I am 100% happy with how Romania looks like in the 21st century as I believe we, as human beings, do a terrible job protecting what was earned with hard work and life loss, but based on all efforts made in the past, I can say that I am really proud to be born in this country.

The place I and my bf ended up exploring recently, is called Campia Libertatii din Blaj which represents the liberty field we are going to find out more about, a little bit later on the same post. However, the biggest surprise came not only when we reached the place we called the destination of the day which turned out a lot more beautiful than expected, but when we realized that this sort of monument is placed in a whole park, where people often hang out just to reconnect with nature or enjoy a walk, rather than just visiting.

As a person who's deeply in love with exploring and discovering new places, I equally love walking, or just sitting in a chill place with lots of nature all around. Hence, this is how quickly 'another destionation' turned into 'a place we will return one day', because we explored it quite in a rush and didn't get to fully enjoy the vibe or sit around for too long.

The park is not too large, but it's definitely well taken care of, where I absolutely loved how the green grass looked like, still wondering if it's allowed to have a picnic around Romania's flag that was absolutely huge. That's would be pretty could, isn't it?

And if you are wondering what the thing from the first image is, it's called Via Transilvania Sculpture and it's a series of over 1,400 hand-carved andesite stone milestones placed every kilometer on a 1,400-kilometer long distance which is meant to guide people towards hiking, biking, and riding trails in Romania. The one we spotted was somehow in the middle of this whole trail, representing number 727.

As we walked further, we ended up meeting two informative plates along the way which represented in short what means the monument we were about to see. Of course, also in this case I felt a huge excitement to take picture of a Worldmappin sticker in front of a destination that weights so much for everyone who knows a bit of history.

Sadly, I couldn't stick it anywhere since the park had surveillance cameras, as well as not being able to see any place destinated to this kind of purposes, but this type of stickers are never missing from my pockets and can't wait to stick more of them soon.

Campia Libertatii din Blaj or The Liberty Field of Blaj is actually known under the name of "Gloria" which means "glory" in English, dating since 1977 when it was raised with the occassion of celebrating the centenary of Romania’s independence. The total surface of the park is of around 55,000 square meters and every single part of this park was once trampled by the feet of over 40,000 Romanians who shouted in unison that they want to unite with Romania.

As mentioned previously, Romania did not look as it is in the 21st century, being mostly split in three different regions, and when this meetup took place in 1848 it was one of the historical moments when people tried to show their desire to see being created the final form of Romania.

Sadly, it took around 70 years for this to happen, when in 1919 the Great Union between Tara Romaneasca, Moldova and Transylvania took place, yet a thing that most likely wasn't seen by many of those from the crowd.

The total height of the monument is of 18 meters and the three statues with women placed right in front of it, represent the three teritories I mentioned earlier, Moldova, Transylvania and Tara Romaneasca.

Along with the "Glory" monument, there are also 13 bronze busts on each side of the monument, representing scholars and revolutionaries from the Romanian Principalities, where each of them brought their contribution to Romania in one way or another.

On the list with some important figures that visited this place on its inauguration it's also Papa Francisc, who's visit took place in 2019 and an entire event was organised for the locals and not only.

Campia Libertatii din Blaj (The Liberty Field of Blaj) is located in Blaj and can be easily reached either by foot, with public transport or even by driving the car. However, the monument is placed in between neightbourhoods and schools, most of the parking lots requiring a parking ticket that can be purchased online. There is no fee for visiting and both the park and monument can be visited any time of the day, 24/7.

^{Gabriela Travels is a Curator for Worldmappin and Hive Gaming communities, but also the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (350+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game and book reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 850+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 46.17344 lat 23.92749 long The place where over 40,000 people asked for having Romania formed d3scr))