Thursday:
This post begins in Bucharest, Romania where I was traveling from. I had first thought that I would take the train both to Moldova and back, but both would have been overnight trains and exhausting, plus I had some bad luck with my last overnight train from Krakow to Poland, so I wasn't excited about traveling overnight on an old soviet sleeper train more times than necessary.
I had grand ambitions to do something/grab breakfast around the hostel, but I didn't. Instead, I just packed up, drank some free tea, stored my bags (in just a room, which was a bit worrying) and then grabbed the bus to the airport. I was only taking a small go bag, and not my big backpack - twas unnecessary. It takes about an hour total to walk to the bus stop and get to the airport. I got there plenty early, which was fine because then I could grab some breakfast from a restaurant at the airport. My flight was slightly delayed, which was no big deal because honestly I didn't have a lot of plans for Chisinau (Kish-ih-now), the capital of the Republic of Moldova, itself.
I arrived after a fairly decent flight on Tarom Airlines (Romania's main carrier), where they even gave us a small sandwich for an HOUR flight. Great service! At first I was worried, because it seems the one ATM in the whole of the airport in Chisinau was out of service and I knew the cabs wouldn't take credit cards, but it ended up working. WHEW. I would have preferred to take the CRAZY cheap (like equivalent to 15 cents) bus, but I didn't know if they would take my bigger bills that I just got out of the ATM. This honestly happens quite often now that I think about it. There were many places while traveling that would give you huge grief about "big bills", yet if you don't take credit card and expect tourists, then I think it's something you have to deal with, IMO. Anywho, I finally saw a shuttle service (basically a taxi). I told him the address, he acted like he knew where he was going, but clearly didn't and proceeded to take me to the wrong place (luckily not too far from my own hostel). I tried a few times to tell him that I could just get out "here", because I could see on my phone (thank goodness for GPS tracking even while having no data) where it was, but he couldn't understand me. It also costed more than I think it should have, but another big OH WELL.
I walked to the Chisinau Chill Hostel in the cold (it was only 40's) and luckily the main worker at this small hostel (basically a house) was SO welcoming and sweet. She spoke excellent English, loved the Vampire Diaries, and offered me some hot tea to warm me up! What a great welcome for me. After chatting with her a bit, I decided I should probably get out and see a bit of the city before it got dark. I walked just a few blocks to the main drag Stefan cel Mare Boulevard that took me past various shops, weirdly lots of small casinos, to their main parks: Cathedral Park and the Monument Park. Can you guess what was in each? In Cathedral Park there was the Catedrala Nasterea Domnului, as well as Moldova's own Arc de Triomphe (Arcul de Triumf in Romanian/Moldovan), and a large chess board. Across the way in Monument Park was the big statue of Stefan Cel Mare, a national hero of Moldova.
Before I go on to describe what I had for dinner, I do need to talk about the elephant in the room and that is that the Republic of Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and it's pretty evident. Not necessarily from the people themselves, they are still dressed nicely and there are some metropolitan-type women, but everything there is dirt cheap and the infrastructure of the buildings and roads/sidewalks looks literally like a war-zone in parts. Many of the residential homes and buildings from the outside look like they should be condemned. Besides the buildings you then have the sidewalks, which sometimes are literally just dirt paths and others, where there used to be sidewalk (either concrete or brick) it's been dug up and left on the side of the roads and such. It looks horrible and haphazard, like they are trying to fix things, but don't have the money or manpower to do anything, which is likely the case.
Anywho, I walked to Caravan, an Uzbek restaurant that I had seen reviewed on one of the very few blogs out there on Moldova. I wanted to check it out because that sounded so fascinating - Uzbek cuisine, and because the reviews were actually really good -plus the decor was beautiful! Lots of great nooks and crannies decked out very colorfully. A number of the things I was interested in, unfortunately were not made for that night, but I still ended up getting pilaf, baklava, Chisinau beer, and traditional Uzbek soup with sour cream and dumplings. It was a relatively fancy meal, but because things are so cheap in Moldova, it was the price of a fairly inexpensive meal in Boston! After my meal, I was back to the hostel to go to sleep as I was getting a pretty bad cold by that point.
Got up early for my tour to the winery! It was still chilly, but a very sunny and pretty day. I forgot to mention that when I first reserved a hostel, it was the Tapok Hostel, the sister one to the Chisinau Chill Hostel that I was staying at. About a month before my stay there, I was contacted and said that I was being switched to the other hostel. I never saw the Tapok hostel, but I'm glad I was in the much smaller one, it felt cozier and there was no one else in my room too! Anywho, I had already booked for my trip to pick me up at the Tapok hostel, so I first got up to get my ticket at the train station, then grabbed some little breakfast snacks and then walked to the Tapok hostel where my tour (aka just a man in a car) was there waiting for me.
We left right away and drove out of the city, just about 25 minutes, to Milestii Mici Winery. Very close. We actually got there a little too early, but they still let us in the gates and then I got out to take pictures near the wine fountains and such. It was pretty cool. There were 2 other cars there ready to join an English tour. The tour guide hopped into one of the cars and then we started the tour by going underground! The tour consisted mainly of driving for a bit through this literal underground city with many twists and turns and "street names" with names like Chardonnay and Merlot, and then stopping to hear a little bit about the winery. Something I learned after they showed us a map of the whole underground area is that only a small fraction of it is actually in use with barrels and such, which is crazy, because even that section is pretty large. No wonder they are the largest underground wine cellar in the world!
The second best part of the tour (the best was obviously the tasting in a bit) was when they took us to what they called "heaven", where all of the over 2,000,000 bottles of wine are cellared. Apparently the best years for grapes were from the late 80's and early 90's and so therefore there are MANY bottles that have been aged for 20+ years - so cool! Lots of dust. I also got to see the most expensive bottle there, that I really wish I remembered how much it cost - they took our pictures next to it haha! I think it may have been the oldest too - from the 70's?
Next, was the beautiful tasting room area. There were three different tastings, the most basic just includes a wine or two to taste, and middle option was 3 wines to taste (in big carafes with about 15 minutes to drink as much as you wanted - at 11 am) with a few snacky things on the side, and the 3rd was a full-blown traditional meal and tasting. The middle option was what I picked and pretty perfect since I was paying a bit more for the tour. If I were to do it again, I would do the last option, because it wasn't that much more and you got to sit in this medieval-looking room with musicians playing for you - very cool! The musicians eventually came over to us too, but we were in this weird "afterthought" area. I say "we" because there was a girl on her own tour as well and she was from Chicago! Very cool and crazy to meet another American here :) The wines themselves were really quite good; there was a red, a white, and a dessert wine. I wish I remembered more about which ones we tasted, but I don't. The snacks were good too!
Before I go on to describe my last few hours in Chisinau, I want to recommend that there is no need to organize a tour ahead of time like I did. You will end up spending nearly double. I wanted it for peace of mind, but after I arrived at my hostel on the first day and told Olga that I was going to the winery, she asked me if she needed to set up a car for me there; They would take me there, drive through the tunnels for the tour, and then drive back all for about $25-30. For my tour which I organized through Viator, I believe, was about $50. Again, since I was only going to be there for about 36 hours and it was essentially THE reason I was going to Moldova, I decided to book ahead. But my advice to anyone going to Moldova is to just let your hotel/hostel do it for you!
After we drove back to Chisinau, I was dropped off at my hostel, and quickly ran to the grocery store with Olga, where I grabbed some chips for my "supper" since I wouldn't get one on the train and then another bottle of Moldovan wine since I wanted to bring back two. I ended up with a bottle from Cricova which was the other huge underground wine cellar. Then I rushed back to the hostel to drop my things off and then walk to the restaurant, Las Taifas. I ordered a soup, and we shared a delicious bottle of red wine as well. It was great to be able to hang out with someone and especially someone from America - still shocked that I found another American in Moldova!
I walked back to the main road to the one souvenir shop, which had so much beautiful folk art - exactly what I was looking for in Romania but never really found. I grabbed a magnet and wine chalice fast and then high-tailed it back to the hostel as fast as I could. It happened to be Chisinau City Day, and I'm sad I couldn't explore it a bit more. The main road, Stephen Cel Mare Boulevard, was closed down and full of people and celebrations. I had to rush through to get back to the hostel to grab my things (I should have just brought everything with me), because then I tried to get a cab called, but it was taking too long and so instead I had to run/walk back to the station with all of my stuff. I was pretty sick (bad cough) at this point and so it was HELL. I honestly don't know how I made it because my walk there this morning definitely took much longer. I made it there with about 3 minutes to spare, sweaty and wheezing. Got in to my 2-berth sleeper that I purchased (first class). After the events in the sleeper car from Poland, I decided to splurge on the 2-berth and pray that no one else would be added to mine. Considering this isn't a super popular train, I thought I would be fine. And luckily, no one joined me. I had the whole room to myself!
This was a vintage train from the Communism-era, old and quite charming in a strange way. I listened to music and jammed for a bit in my private room. Then watched the country-side go by a bit. And then it happened. At 7pm, we got to the border of Romania and Moldova and there we stayed for 3 hours, while they changed the wheels of the train. Years ago, the Soviets were super smart and made their train tracks a different size to all of the western ones so enemies couldn't easily invade/enter. Moldova was part of the USSR and Romania, though Communist, was not. In order to do this, they hoist each and every car up into the air and change out the wheels - hence why it takes 3 hours. Though it may seem ridiculous and inconvenient, as it means this normally 10 hour train ride takes about 13 hours, it was the reason I chose to travel by train as I thought this a unique experience!
I ended up not sleeping very well, but part of that was due to me being sick. Oh well, I arrived at Gare Du Nord in Bucharest, where I took the bus back to my hostel in Old Town to pick up my bag, grab a small breakfast, and more free tea at the hostel before heading BACK to the airport for my second to last leg home, a Qatar Airways flight with a long layover in Doha, which I'll talk about in another short post.
And there you have it - my 36 hours in the Republic of Moldova. If you like wine, go and visit this country. If you don't like wine...I can't 100% say your trip would be worth it. But then again, why not?