After almost 3 years since I mostly written from memories and past trips I enjoyed but whose pictures remained in folders for a long while now, I can happily say that life is finally getting back on track, with more occassional journeys that I've been missing so badly and which I couldn't see coming so soon, but which surely are going to remind me how my journey on here started, namely as a storyteller about places less known, but equally with the hope of promoting Romania more.
Hence, along with crazy weather conditions and a bit of confusion created by Google Maps when following my GPS, I managed to have the last Saturday conclude with no less than 4 discoveries during a long drive in the Alba County, each of these stops deserving a full blog article written with this purpose.
The first stop of the day was determined by the Kemény Castle in Ciumbrud, where the same name is more popular for another castle in Romania, but located in a whole different region, which, with a bit of attention when setting up the destination on GPS, you will reach it.
This is actually more like a mansion than a castle, but which most likely gained its new label based on the passage of years and how it slowly turns into ruins being claimed by nature, so a more appropriate name for it would be Conacul Kemény rather than Castelul Kemény in Romanian, or Kemény Mansion rather than Kemény Castle in English.
Reaching it seemed at first more like a trap, since the GPS announced our arrival in front of a school rather than a castle/mansion. So what we did was to drive a few meters further until we managed to park the car next to a stadium, then start walking on foot with the desire to explore more of the area where our GPS route ended.
Obviously, we ended up in the same place, which was in front of a school, but whose gates were widely open, so we could made our way in. And now looking back, I am really happy we entered the area because right on the left of the school, there was another gate that we followed, and that's how we ended up in front of our so chased destination.
Sadly, the view wasn't the most welcoming, with most of the buildings looking in a bad shape, the single exception being made by 2 or 3 houses of the locals placed on the right. I remember seeing some sort of a bar on the left of the mansion with a lot of curious people, but definitely not the friendliest faces one can meet.
We even greeted one of them since he was looking quite insistently, but didn't really receive a response back, which was fine since neither my boyfriend nor I didn't necessarily looked to make new friends but rather discover a genuine part of history represented by the Kemény Castle.
As we approached, we were welcomed by a lot of dust, broken windows, but most importantly, a padlock attached to the front door.
When I did my research before starting the small trip, I've seen a few pictures shared from the inside of the building in some articles written for the local news, but based on the surroundings and definitely not being a popular destination people decide to visit while in Romania, it made sense to keep everything locked with the hope to protect the building from even more damaging that could be caused by thieves or homeless people.
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Though, for the sake of calming my curiosity to see what it looks like on the inside, I managed to snap a picture through one of the broken windows, which I'd lie by saying that it didn't give some shivers going down the spine as for some reason I always expect to see a face looking at me or a random guy doing a 'peek-a-boo' action. I guess I watched too many movies, lol.
But joke aside, I think there are lots of interesting furniture objects that could represent something and tell a better story than one can create only by checking the place from the outside.
The story of the castle begins more than two centuries ago, dating since 1805 when it was raised by the Árpád Kemény Baron, whose name was also used for his mansion.
The baron used to live here until the World War I, where as soon as the war ended he sold both his mansion and the park located nearby to a collegium that promised to have big plans in this region, which was to form the Hungarian farmers from Transylvania. As plans don't always go as intended, forming the Hungarier farmers happened but with the help of a different school that also offers the access to the castle these days, there being rumours that some of their equipment is still placed inside the building, and that's why it is currently closed.
Sadly, despite seeming like life had plans with this mansion, recently it turned out to be left unused for many years in a row which also caused it to be more and more damaged from one year to another. I did find an article written for some local news stating that both the building and the park will be renovated so they will be more welcoming with the tourists that are fewer with each passing year, but since a couple of years had already passed from that article, I am assuming that the plan was abandoned along the way and there are rare chances to see it anytime renovated soon.
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The park, however, seemed to be in a better shape, with fresh cut grass and two curious cats that looked very happy to see people passing by.
We did not venture too much in exploring it since we wanted to see some other places for the rest of the day, but after checking the map more closely, we came to the conclusion that this is somehow linked to the Botanical Garden from Ciumbrud, which can be accessed from a different direction.
Either way, a thing that I think is worth to be mentioned, is that neither in this case did the people stay away from disappointing by polluting the surroundings by throwing away a lot of garbage even in the courtyard of the castle, which was really hard to see. After my latest post, I thought that I would stop sharing only the good parts of exploring a place but share the reality frankly, even if it's about my country, and it always hurts twice to run into places like this.
But along with the situation caused by the local people, who obviously are guilty, I think the town hall shares the same level of guilt for both not taking measures against the people who are causing all this pollution, as well as not organising activities to keep the place at least clean, if not being renovated as well.
The easiest way to reach Kemény Castle is by simply typing on GPS "Castelul Kemény, Ciumbrud" which will make the difference between reaching this mansion and the other castle with the same name but located in a whole different part of Romania, but for some even clearer indications, we reached it by driving on the A1 highway for most of the part, then head on the European roads E68/E81 for a few more minutes, passing through Aiud before entering Ciumbrud.
Gabriela Travels is a Curator for Worldmappin and Hive Gaming communities, but also the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (350+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game and book reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 850+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.
~ @GabrielaTravels ~
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 46.30436 lat 23.76098 long A genuine piece of history forgotten by time and people d3scr))