Transylvania (Bradt Travel Guide) - Softcover

Mallows, Lucinda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841624195 ISBN 13: 9781841624198

Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides, 2013

Synopsis

Transylvania is a wild, wooded, intensely romantic region, filled with mountains, gorges, myths and legends, dragons, bears, wolves and vampires. This new edition of the hugely popular and personal guide to the romantic Transylvania region covers a whole range of attractions from creepy castles to medieval landscapes populated by vampires, bears and wolves. Updated throughout with all the practical information that the independent traveler needs, Transylvania is an invaluable companion for anyone wanting to explore its breathtakingly beautiful nature reserves, forest reservations, and parks as well as its historic castles, medieval towns and preserved folk villages.

 

About this title

About the Author:

Born and educated in the UK, Lucy Mallows worked for 12 years in Budapest as a reporter and editor. She first worked as a 'bilingual reporter' in the Hungarian Parliament, getting the inside scoops from the heart of Hungarian politics, often dealing with Hungary's relations to its neighbours; Romania and Slovakia and the rights of the many ethnic Hungarians living beyond Hungary's modern borders. She then spent seven years exploring the region as the cultural editor at The Budapest Sun, and simultaneously wrote about Hungary and the entire Central European region for Bradt Travel Guides, Rough Guides, Time Out, Zagat restaurant guide and DK Eyewitness. In 2003, she became editor-in-chief at Where Budapest, an international travel magazine and in 2005, she moved to Brussels where she reported from the EU Commission. She is an expert on Central European culture and speaks six foreign languages including Hungarian, Czech & Russian. She also made a valiant attempt at learning Romanian to interview local Transylvanians and get a real understanding of the complex region. Recently, she moved to Brighton where she works as a freelance photojournalist and Hungarian-to-English translator. She first visited Transylvania in 1997, but her links with Romania go back to the late 1980s when she worked as a volunteer for Operation Romanian Villages, and to an early childhood fairytale The Lost Princess, written in 1924 by Queen Marie of Romania. Lucy is a fluent Hungarian speaker and Bradt recognised the usefulness of Hungarian language skills in many parts of Transylvania when they commissioned her to write the very first UK-published guidebook to the enchanting, undiscovered region of Romania. Lucy is also the author of the Bradt guides to Bratislava and Slovakia, both also exciting publishing 'firsts'.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

GIANT HAYSTACKS

Visitors to Transylvania will return home with one abiding image: hayricks and horse and carts covered with enormous piles of hay balancing precariously. The traditional hayrick (capita de fan) is built according to age-old methods and usually by the grandmother in the family. A central wooden pole is fixed on a bed of dry leaves and the cut, drying grass is built up around the pole while granny stands on top packing the layers down. It’s highly skilful work and the shape of the haystack varies throughout Transylvania: sometimes it’s pear-shaped, sometimes quite thin and pointed, sometimes a chunky pyramid, but always with a sloping watertight top layer. The hay gradually dries in the autumn sun and then the ricks are toppled onto carts and transported to barns for the winter livestock fodder.

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1841624195
• ISBN 13: 9781841624198
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 304