Troutworthy's Travel Blog: Old Orhei (With My Feet On The Ground)

Moldova is one of those countries with only one real city. Wikipedia tells me that Bǎlți municipality, the next largest after Chişinǎu, has fewer than 100,000 people, which is barely bigger than Konstanz. This makes it understandable that minibuses – the marshrutkas that are omnipresent in post-Soviet states – are the main means of public transport around here. And indeed, after picking up some lei (Moldovan, not Romanian), my next stop is a marshrutka.

Landscape at Old Orhei.

The first part of my trip takes me out into the country, to Orheiul Vechi ("Old Orhei"). To do that, I need to get a marshrutka from Chişinǎu's massive, confusing central market, which doubles as a central bus station. There's nothing resembling a departures board, and the internet says "ask around", so I do, though this is linguistically tricky: I hear more Slavic around the place than Romanian/Moldovan. After some hand gestures and a friendly man grabbing my rucksack to get my attention, I'm pointed to the marshrutka to Butuceni. This gets quite full, but nothing like the standing-only nightmares I've read about. Shortly after we've left Chişinau proper, the marshrutka stops at a roadside shop, apparently to buy a job lot of glass jars. I don't need to worry about overly anal punctuality here, it seems.

The couple opposite me on the bus are speaking German; probably tourists like me. The urban sprawl soon gives way to rolling hills and deciduous woodland, the same sort I sleepily spotted out of the train window when waking up, but gradually getting hillier. Eventually the marshrutka emerges onto a spur of land with striking views on each side, and rolls down the hill through a tree-lined avenue into the village of Trebujeni.

Old Orhei is situated on a double meander of the river Raut, making for striking limestone cliffs and valleys reminding me a little of my native Peak District. Downstream, the Raut flows into the Dniester, on the other side of which is the rather sad failed breakaway state of Transnistria, but I'm not going there (today, or on this trip). I just head to my guesthouse, where, after an enormous late lunch along with local wine, I repair to my room and conk out. I'm so tired that I sleep straight through dinner and all through the night.

Moldovan lunch.

Vila Roz is named after the roses that fill its enormous garden. The hostess, Liuba, an adorable woman with strong grandmother energy, upbraids me the next morning at breakfast for missing dinner and "going to sleep hungry" – using Google Translate, as she doesn't speak English and I don't speak Romanian or Russian. I apologize and, after another hearty meal, head out to explore the area. It's just gone nine o'clock, but it's already searingly hot, with not a cloud in the sky. I trudge slowly over the hill towards Old Orhei.

The garden at Vila Roz.

We're in the heart of Gimbutas's Old Europe here, and it's fun to imagine pre-Indo-European speakers doing what people do here now: farming, growing grapes, and just generally chilling out. Later it was in Dacia, and never systematically part of the Roman Empire. But the history of Old Orhei really gets interesting with the thirteenth-century Mongol invasions. At this time there arose here a major settlement of the Mongol Golden Horde called Şehr al-Jedid. Mosques, caravanserais, and public baths have survived from this period – the latter just outside Trebujeni on the road leading up the hill. At the top of the hill there's a fort that was built during the slightly later, and much longer-lasting, Kingdom of Moldavia. The touristic centre of Old Orhei is on the other side of this spur of land, where a fourteenth-century Orthodox monastery sits atop another rocky ridge, a network of monastery caves stretching beneath it.

It's still early. With the choice of the archaeological museum or the monastery before me, I decide to walk up to the monastery before it gets even hotter. It's a peaceful, remote place. The caves are even more remote: I tried to reach them, but after some inadvisable scrambling about on a scree slope I decided that my scrambling about on a scree slope was inadvisable and that I should head back to the main path. (Can't say that these guys weren't good at isolationism.)

Old Orhei monastery church.

Down the hill is the sleepy village of Butuceni, where I have a very cheap and tasty lunch of aubergine and meatballs at the only restaurant I can find before following the valley back round to the archaeological museum. This, unfortunately, is disappointing: just one room full of potsherds and bones with terse descriptors ("pot, 14th cent."). Time for the slog back over the hill to Trebujeni, now in the full heat of the afternoon sun. I detour to a promising-looking cafe at the top of the hill for some refreshment, but, despite the opening hours stated both on Google and on its front door, it's closed. Still, there's a viewpoint nearby, so the trek didn't go completely unrewarded.

View over the Butuceni meander from the viewpoint.

Back at Vila Roz, I glug a 1.5-litre bottle of water and prepare myself for some less energetic activities.