Sometimes it's not all about sightseeing attractions and those places where you can meet lots of other tourists, but also about details that can be found in the architecture of the buildings, in monuments, or even in trees.

It all starts with an idea, a short check on the map, a stop to add gasoline to the tank or at the train station to buy some tickets, a backpack completed faster than usual due to the excitement which hits new records, and lots of smiles being ready to let ourselves be conquered by more locations Romania has to offer that never hesitates to make us proud of our homecountry.
For some, it might not be perfect, and if you are looking at the numbers you will notice that (unfortunately) it occupies lots of leading places on tops like the most corrupted countries in the world, the countries with the most car accidents and deaths, the most human abuses, the youngest mothers, the most people who give up on studies, and the list can continue a lot... but it also occupies places like the most beautiful waterfall in Europe, the purest potable water in the world, the most unique canyon, salt mine, rock formations, and more.
Of course we are not talking about being on all from the above on the exact same position but you can see Romania on the first few positions from many tops out there, even if some are bad and some not.

But as the part with corruption and all the things that are going on really bad in Romania is not subject of today's post, I'd like to let you know that I always loved my country and I can say it loud and clear that after so many locations visited along all these years, I know that no matter what direction I follow when I hit the road again, I'm pretty sure I'll fall in love with my country over and over again.

And yes, Sighisoara makes no exception when it comes to visit this part of Transylvania.

Today's post is actually sort of the ending of a beautiful journey I, my boyfriend and my sister had back in November which was the first time travelling after I was sick of COVID but also the first time traveling in this form, so everything was extremely exciting even before jumping in the train and wait for it to bring us to the destination.

A destination that turned in more destinations exploring no less than 20 things you can see in Sighisoara, so there is no doubt we made sure to spend every minute out there as well as possible.

But as every beginning also comes with an ending, today I'll share some of the places we've seen on our way to the train station, the church from above being called Sfânta Treime (The Holy Trinity) that is placed on the northern bank of the river Târnava Mare which is 221 km long and gets through some important cities in Romania.

Biserica Sfânta Treime is a more modern religious place that was built between 1934-1937 and not somewhere in the 14-16th centuries as most of the other religious places were created in Sighisoara, but it still looks very imposing and interesting to see when you take a walk into the city.

Click on the images to see them in full resolution

As we walked further we met a 3 meters high monument that caught our attention, especially when we noticed the communist symbol on it.

From the inscription you can see on the white monument, we found out that it's a Bolshevik one dedicated to the Soviet military which is a pretty controversial monument because the historical documents show that there was no war on these lands and the single contribution the Soviet military had in Sighisoara was with robberies, rapes and crimes against residents.

As much as I wrote and deleted and wrote again on this subject, I decided that there wouldn't be enough words to express myself and that perhaps the paragraph from above says everything, the personal opinions being less important right now because the whole thing leaves you speechless before being able to express yourself.

But I think every country has this kind of past more or less and all we can do these days is to appreciate more every day from our lives and fight to turn everything into a better place for everyone, not only for us.

Click on the images to see them in full resolution

Anyway, as we continued our walk, we finally got on the last hundred of meters before taking the train back home, but where we had a surprise right in front of the train station.

Now maybe you'll ask yourself how come we haven't seen these things when we arrived in Sighisoara, which is pretty fair, but when we started our journey we reached Sighisoara somewhere around 9 PM when it was already dark outside and all we could do is to follow the GPS as the lack of light didn't help us too much to take any landmarks, but when we were going to the train station we followed the same route and managed to explore a few more things before following the way back home. 😃

But as I decided to name this travel post after this last stop we had, I'd like to share a few more words on our ultimate discovery because I'm always fascinated when I get to see secular trees or to simply explore species that usually you don't see growing up in Romania or even in Europe.
Perhaps you already found out the name of the tree from the attached pictures, which is Ginkgo Biloba but it's also known as The 40-plate shaft, The tree of the 40 coats of arms, The tree of God, The tree of life, or The sacred tree and it's a pretty common tree in Japan or other Asian countries.
However, The Ginkgo Biloba Tree began being imported on the whole globe starting with Southern America and other countries from the United States, but it also reached Europe somewhere in 1710 and Romania made no exception to the list with the countries that have a tree like this on their lands.
When we think about the ancient times and dinosaurs we all categorize that to the fossils and remains we found being part of those times, but the exact same thing we can consider about The Ginkgo Biloba Tree that it represents the last survivor of its family being the oldest tree known to mankind, so it's sort of a living fossil, lol.

This species of tree can live up to 1000 years and perhaps you are familiar with the Ginkgo Biloba name because its leaves are used for both cooking and creating medicine pills for over 4000 years now.

If there are any Chinese hivers reading this, maybe they can affirm or deny the information I found on the internet that some of the Chinese doctors are still using the leaves of this tree to treat brain disorders, bronchitis or asthma! How cool is that?

Being such an important tree for many areas of activity, there are a lot of interesting aspects about this one and perhaps I should write an entire article dedicated to it, but for now, I'll stop here with a big smile on my face that I finally managed to see a Ginkgo Biloba Tree in real life and especially during a journey that was so important for me. 😊

... and this is how it ends a journey which even though it seemed like living in Sighisoara for a few good weeks considering that I started writing about the places explored here a few months ago, in reality, it has been only a weekend trip together with my boyfriend and my sister which was full of things to see and I really hope we will get to taste this feeling more often because we had a blast those days! 😍

Down below I'll leave a full list with things we've seen while being in Sighisoara, following that next week to create a short video where to present all of these in a closer form than the pictures and articles shared so far:

• Towers of Sighisoara [Part 1]
• The Covered Stairway
• The Church on the Hill
• The Evangelical Graveyard
• Towers of Sighisoara [Part 2]
• St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church
• Sighișoara Clock Tower and the History Museum
• Sighișoara Fortress
• The Guild House, Sighisoara
• The Medieval Weapons Collection from Sighisoara
• The Ginkgo Biloba Tree from Sighisoara

You can reach Sighisoara by following the European road E60 which is the fastest route, but you can also do it from almost any part of the country with a train ticket as we also did. 🚄

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT TRIP! 🗾

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