Let's travel together #353 - Óriáspince Hill (Big Cellar Hill from Moacșa)

^{Featured image made in Canva}

I can't believe it's been nearly 3 months since I last wrote a travel post, especially since so many things changed in this time. I know back then I promised I will dedicate separate posts for what I and my boyfriend have visited during our little escapade with the occassion of celebrating 7 years together, but being a person with so many passions who got used to only post once, makes it really hard to keep up with everything especially that so many things happen in a single week that could quickly turn into another post idea.

The good thing is that having such a long break between that "trip" and the last one that took place nearly 3 years before, makes this still feel so fresh in my head, especially since I don't get to travel so much accompanied by my boyfriend, but actually with family members when that even happens.

That's because the job of my boyfriend makes him be 6/7 days per week in different parts of the country, and when he gets a full weekend at home, he would rather spend it relaxing or just being the two of us than being on the road again to God knows where.

Anyway, on the last day of our little escapade together, while we were on the way home, we thought we would have another stop before reaching home, which was at the Óriáspince Hill.

Despite being anything but a Romanian name, this place is still located on the territory of Romania, but being part of the Covasna county that is mostly populated with Hungarian people, the name he's more famous for, is the Hungarian one, although you can find it also under the name of "Dealul Pivnițele Mari", which is in Romanian.

There are no road signs or any kind of indications on how to reach it other than searching for it on your GPS and simply following the way to it, which makes it quite hidden from the curious eyes, unless you are a true adventure seeker and make your way towards it no matter what.

This is actually the kind of places I always wanted to see during my trips, where, not a few times, my family and I ended up in locations that were barely known by the locals, only becoming a bit more popular and promoted on TV years after our visit. This was always giving us some sort of satisfaction of getting to see some places when they were still not for everyone, and that we could create memories there without having a bunch of people in front of us while taking a picture.

It's the little things that always make the difference, even if, in fact, some locations don't change much after they become popular anyway.

However, when you get into such adventures, there are a lot of risks one should assume before proceeding further, such as possibly getting lost, running out of signal on your phone, or some other dangers that always occur on the hills, when you could quickly run into a sheepfold where the dogs protecting it are not the friendliest ones. This was, actually, the biggest fear we had back then, because we knew there is most likely to meet one and don't see any other people around that could protect us somehow, so despite seeking for a little journey out there where we could walk down the path for at least one hour as we both are missing sport activities, we decided to drive with the car as much as we could, so we can stay safe.

Luckily, the path takes you right next to the destination, so we could make our whole way to it by driving the car, but at the same time, the sheepfold we expected to see was quite close to this one, just around 100 meters of driving further on the same path.

That resulted in a quite rushed journey, where I was the only one actually enjoying this place and making my way through all the wooden gates, while my boyfriend was sitting in a higher location to have a better overview in case the dogs were approaching.

Although the actual dates since this place was created are not clear, it was first announced in a public way in 2007 when it was used by all communities of Hungarians who met on this hill to celebrate and turn it into a tradition that takes place yearly. Still, yearly, there is another event that takes place on this hill, which is called the Szekler Gallop, representing the preliminary stage of the Hungarian National Gallop.

There is a total of 12 gates one has to go through in order to call this experience an authentic one, where the improvised threshold is made of stone, and there are some dates written on it, which would most likely not make lots of sense if you are not speaking the Hungarian language.

Either way, each gate had on the wooden part of it a QR code which could be scanned, but which I didn't do because of the pressure of time. I am assuming that one would pretty much explain what's the story of each gate or at least translate what's written on the stones.

But as a person who's very curious about the stories hidden by each place I visit and which I only search to read about when the journey ends, so I did with this place as soon as I was back at the car and that's how I found out that the 12 gates are recalling the 12 turbulent centuries of this area where some of the most important events that took place in history are commemorated through these gates.

Once you finish up exploring the stage with the gates, there is one more step before making it to the dome, which, in my opinion is the one catching the most attention, being represented by dozens of other stones that look like tiny monuments and which are surrounding the whole area.

While they are often presented as talking stones that kind of remind me of those I wrote about in a different post, I don't really feel like they actually have much in common, especially based on the shape that is obviously different.

However, a closer interpretation would be that these stones speak in terms of history due to being little parts of history where each one comes with a list of names and years, facing the direction of the county's areas that suffered during the historical events mentioned on the gates.

I know that hearing about talking stones might sound interesting and stir a lot more curiosity, but frankly speaking, when you get to see genuine parts of history, they will always speak louder than anything else out there.

^{Source of the image: visitcovasna.com}

Each of these tiny monuments is linked through the symbol of a flower, where the center is represented by the dome placed in the middle of the hill. This symbol is meant to represent the strong roots of the Hungarians who, even if they might be living in different parts of both Romania and other countries, they would still reconnect yearly on this hill.

The actual place that caught my attention the most, even from the start of the journey, was represented by this dome/arch, which seemed to dominate the whole view despite being surrounded by so many details and parts of history.

In the middle of it, there is some sort of stand made of stone where occasional fires and torches are lit, especially during the meetings of the Hungarian communities, but to be honest, I felt it a lot differently, almost feeling like I stepped into some sort of place very loaded with mystery and legends.

That's how, right after the journey ended and I opened up the internet to read more about it, I realized that my thoughts were not wrong, because there are actually some legends about Óriáspince Hill which are stating that a while ago there were more giants living on this part of Romania who dug their treasure just under this arch right before being chased away by the people who lived in this region.

Later on, there have been made plenty of diggings but nothing has been found. Even if it did, they claimed that the treasure would most likely date back to the Dacian people, so there isn't any further story with the giants. But even so, I always find these legends very interesting and they make a great job stirring even more curiosity about a place, especially since you get a whole new perspective to look at.

---

Óriáspince Hill is located on Str. Principala, Moacșa, right after you cross the Padureni Lake that is overflowing in this direction. The hill is not marked with road signs, but it is halfway between the train station and the town hall. You can reach it either by following the forest path on foot, which would take you around 30 minutes of walking, or by driving on the same path until you reach the monument.

Either way, the place shares a calmness apart that makes you recharge with lots of fresh energy no matter the weather outside.

^{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 (300+ 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 750+ 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.}

~ @GabrielaTravels ~