Abrud  The Land of Daffodils

The Land of DaffodilsLand of Daffodils!

Abrud is a town in western County Alba in the Transilvania Region.  It's a sleepy little town, with the houses huddled along the roads which wend along the small river valleys of the Cerniţa and Abrud rivers, about 70km into the Apuşeni mountains from Alba Iulia.

The surrounding area, featuring the villages around Bucium Meadows and it's spectacular display of daffodils each spring, is a beautiful landscape of villages, farms, and stunning mountain views.

With a population in 2006 of just under 6,000, Abrud is a small regional centre serving the few dozen villages surrounding it, complete with quite a few churches and services. 

Gold in Them Thar' Hills!

The region around Abrud was mined for gold as far back as 200BC during the Dacian period and the gold mines were a prime reason the Romans moved in to Dacia Superior as they named their province. 

The Romans removed a surprisingly large amount of gold from the region during their few hundred years of influence in the area, enough to supposedly pave a road from Romania to Rome.

The despot Ceausescu rather savagely exploited the region for it's riches, effectively levelling the Cetate plateau with open-pit mining operations. 

Alot of the activity in Abrud is through traffic and services for the gold mining operations, and Abrud's prominence is due to swell slightly as the old houses of Roşia Montană are dismantled and moved to make way for yet more effective mining of the region. 

In addition to some great hiking and climbing opportunities (including some great rock formations), the Abrud and Roşia Montană area offers a touch of Dacian and Roman history from the mining activities, so don't miss the mining museum and more (see our Activities section below)

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Old Abrud Town

Some great old baroque period architecture can be found amongst the older homes in Abrud and in Roşia Montană (if it's still there when you read this).  

Many of the Abrud houses use old stones taken from Roman ruins, not particularly unique, but interesting enough.  The main central square, Heroes' Square (Piaţa Eroilor), has all the main services from banking to transportation.  Maxitaxis and busses leave from the Abrud bus station for Câmpeni, Roşia Montană and Bucium, check locally for times and fares (quite cheap, more info below).

Trails North and East

Take the 7 km trail (marked by ) leading up the mountain from Abrud to the gold mining region at Roşia Montană for some fresh views on the region.

Another trail leads to the west for about 90 minutes from Roşia Montană to the meadows at Bucium (Bucium Poieni), where a red line trail leads to the Detunatele,  two old trachyte plugs or blasts (columns of rock) towering above the landscape (see Maps and about the blasts below).

The Blasts of Bucium Meadows

A conglomeration of several small villages, the Bucium Meadows area has several drawcards, the most striking being the twin towers of the Detunatele, two rather striking basalt towers, remnants of old volcanic vents.  

Each Detunata (roughly, a "blast") is named, one being called Bare Blast and the other Spiky Blast, referring the lack of and the abundance of spruce fir trees respectively, with Bare Blast just under and Spiky just over 1200 metres tall.  

The tall rock formations are surprisingly uniform, giving the effect of the long pipes of an old pipe organ, in some spots.

Just a kilometre apart, ranging between the two peaks makes for a marvellous morning or afternoon, with great views of the surrounding area in between.  Certainly worth taking the camera for views across to Chook Peak (Gaină mountain), Black Peak (Negrileasa), Big Mountains (Muntele Mare), and Vulcan.  Take a lunch with you to marvel at their grandeur! 

 Check out a great map of the Bucium area here,
showing trails and great sites to see!

Nature's Bounty Around Abrud

Where you have mountains and trails, you have the opportunity to enjoy some of  nature's wonders, and around Abrud, that means habitat for the mountain wildcat, the Carpathin lynx, as well as the Carpathian Bear and more!

In the deep forests around Abrud and Bucium, you can harvest black currents, strawberries, bilberries, huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries -- a delicious summer pasttime!

Roşia Montană

 If you're not on a trail to get to this mining centre, a taxi from Abrud will work just fine. 

There is an interesting little mining museum just outside the now-closed entrance to the mine, containing all the usual suspects a mining museum might have, from old picks and extraction techniques, big wooden stamps used to crush orr, mine carts, lamps, and other paraphernalia.

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