Weekend Tour in Moldova

Arriving at the Chisinau International Airport. Here the guide will meet you and tranfer you to the hotel in Chisinau. 

After check-in, we start the tour with the walking tour of the city center: the main street of the capital – Stefan cel Mare, the Central Cathedral, the Parliament building, the alley of the literature classics in the park of Stefan cel Mare, National Concert Hall, Organ Hall, Mihai Eminescu Theater.

Then we drive to Orhei Vechi region. Lunch in the rural agro boarding pension in Trebujeni village – taste the delicious Moldovan cuisine and homemade wine. Enjoy a folk program. 

Explore Orhei Vechi – the remnants of the first human settlements, which are some hundreds of thousands years old, were found in the stone caverns from here. The originality of Orheiul Vechi landscape is due to the defile of the Raut river, dug under the form of a canyon in the limestone layers of the former Sarmatia sea, about 14 million years ago. Local ground is rich in monuments of old civilizations, stone tools and ruins of a middle aged village.

Continue the day by visiting the famous wine cellars – Cricova!

Cricova cellars are truly unequalable in the world. Here the history, archeology and the art of winemaking joined their forces and formed a genuine underground town. Nowadays, the wine town occupies an area of ​​53 hectares, and the underground galleries, transformed into streets, have a total length of 120 kilometers. The labyrinths are located at a depth reaching 80 meters in some places, depending on the relief. Like in a real town, there are streets, traffic lights and road signs. It is just that the paths of the labyrinth have rather unusual names like “Cabernet”, “Dionis”, “Feteasca”, “Aligote”, “Sauvignon”, so that every street matches the name of the wine that is stored in the adjacent niches. The temperature in the underground galleries remains constant all year round, making up appr. + 12 … + 14°C, while the relative humidity of the air is around 97-98%. These natural conditions enable the preservation and ageing of wines of the highest quality, as well as of the classic sparkling wine, and the formation of their authentic character.

Tranfer back to hotel in Chisinau.

Today we will have a long day, we will explore the Gagauzia region. A territory that has become autonomous 1994. Its autonomy is ethnically motivated by the predominance of the Gagauz people, who are primarily Orthodox Turkic-speaking people.

So our first stop will be in the capital city of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia – Comrat. First you will observe that all signs and names of streets are mostly in russian language, this is because Gagauzia has three official languages: Gagauz, Russian and Romanian. The Gagauz language is the native lanuguage for most of the population. Russian is the lingua franca for many residents of autonomy, and especially in cities of the autonomy Russian is actually their native language. The education of children in the autonomy is conducted in Russian. Work in Gagauzia, including in the system of government, is conducted in Russian. The Russian-language media prevail in the territory of autonomy, while the volume of literature published in the Gagauz language is also growing. 

For a better understanding of Gagauz history and culture we will drive to Besalma village, 20min from Comrat, for a visit to “D. Cara-Ciobanu” museum of history and ethnography. Here you can find hundreds of exhibits of artistic and spiritual value from the Gagauzians who lived in Moldova for the last two centuries. The director of the museum, the daughter of D.Cara-Ciobanu, Mrs. Ludmila will meet you and tell you the whole history of the appearance of the gagauzian people in this region

To combine all the historical content of this culture we will drive futher to Vulcanesti town, and visit Karagani family winery. Here we will discover the Gagauz culture by enjoying authentic wines and traditional dishes such as shurpa, geozleme, bulgur and others.

Our morning drive takes us from Chsinau to Transnistria region. Another autonomus region from Moldova, which proclamed its independece in 1991.

The tour starts with Bender town, we will visit the Fortress of Bender – one of the most ancient installations in our region. Its history is unique. Even in XIII century, the Genoese vessels came up to here from the Black Sea, from the Fortress of Akkerman. In 1538,after the conquest of the Crimea, the Ottoman Empire takes the Moldavian Princedom. By the order of the sultan Suleiman I Kanuni, they expanded and rebuilt the Genoese trading post with the help of Italian architects. By 1541, the eight tower castle had already been built here. 

Then we drive to Tiraspol – the capital of Transnistria region. Even after many years after the colapse of USSR here persists the Soviet atmosphere. We will explore the city, and its monument like the statue of Lenin, Ecaterina II, Suvorov, etc. Also we will enjoy a traditional lunch in a local restaurant.

Depending on the flight schedule we will tranfer you to Chisinau Airport.

It was really nice meeting you and we hope to see you soon again, for a new adventure! 😉