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Zabola Estate blog

Transylvania was made famous by Bram Stoker but the region’s real history and medieval villages are much more interesting than Dracula. Machine House Romania. Blood red … Machine House, Transylvania. The full moon draws lines of silver around the gloomy power stations on the plains outside Bucharest. Over the Carpathian mountains, the road twists alarmingly…

A castle in the Carpathian mountains with a turbulent history has been restored by the original family owners. The Zabola Estate’s wrought-iron gates swing open and an avenue of chestnut trees stretches before me. Beyond them lies a serene Transylvanian landscape of rolling hills lakes and gardens surrounding a grand yellow-ochre castle…

In a Europe that is becoming increasingly homogeneous, the mountains, forests and villages of Transylvania in Romania remain the last outpost of a more ancient era. Romanians, Saxons and Hungarians live in a patchwork of simple farming villages, drawing water from wells, living by near-subsistence agriculture and artisanal work.

As my little car laboured around a bend in the snowy Carpathian logging road, a brown furry figure jumped out of the forest on all fours and made off in front of the car. It was, perhaps, a sign that I had been too long in the city that I identified it as a man in a bear outfit. But as we pursued the lolloping creature, I realised my mistake: this was the real thing, a bear!