When we talk about art, I'm sure everyone has its own way of seeing this field as it often comes in many forms and shapes, but what about art discovered outdoors? Because that's possible in Romania.

After our first stop from Romania Tour 2021 hiking the mountains and reaching new realms in the Bucegi Mountains of our beloved country, we decided to spend the night at Zanoaga Camping which is exactly the place I told you about in my previous post that you should consider an important landmark if you are interested in chasing the route we followed in our little adventure.
Anyway, after an impressive effort made on our end with a little over 20 km made by either walking or hiking mountains, valleys and forests, we decided that the next day we should take everything a little bit easier to avoid ending up exhausted before seeing all we had in plan for the summer of 2021.

For the new followers and people reading my blog, I'll mention it again that every year I and my family take a road trip around Romania which often lasts around 2 weeks where each day we are in a new place exploring 3 or more places with every passing day, so it's a pretty intense tradition we created more than 6 years ago when everything started.

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While every year comes with a specific region in Romania where most of the journeys are taken, in 2021 we decided to focus our attention on Buzau county that we wanted to visit for a while now but for some reason we always postponed this journey.

We actually have in plan to see every single part of our home country and hence why we always end up zooming in and out various parts of the map to make sure we are not missing something, where, as cool and nice it sounds, we often end up on routes that lead to nowhere, on unmarked trails, on places that 90% of the time there is no signal for either GPS or calling someone in case of emergency, and many other such things, but this is how we create stories that make us remember about them with both tears in the eyes or a smile on the face when are shared further.

Anyway, what we are going to discover in today's post is less scary and risky than other journeys because we are talking about a Carving Camp from Măgura that is a tiny village from Buzău County which I do believe is way too little promoted for what it has to offer.
As I sort of (sadly) got used with discovering unique and outstanding locations in Romania that are barely known even by the locals, with every single post I add to my blog I attach another piece of hope that, perhaps, one day, everything will look a lot different and someone will focus more on the tourism of Romania.
Tabăra de Sculptură Măgura dates since the Communist period being organized between 1970-1985 by a Romanian carver named Gheorghe Coman with the main purpose of celebrating the 16 centuries since the first documentary attestation of Buzau city.
The whole project involved that for a period of 16 years, every year to come with 16 new sculptors from the previous year which would work for two months (August and September) on a statue.

Every participant was receiving a stone block by drawing lots that could be either bigger or smaller, and after this step, they could decide what theme they wanted to follow with their creation.

But if you think that we are talking about professional sculptors, keep in mind that every participant was either student (some of them were not even adults) or recent graduates of the Bucharest Academy of Architecture.

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I remember that during the high school, there was some sort of similar competition that was yearly held between all the high schools from my hometown where the arts were not statues but graffiti.

That's how, with each passing year there were gathered tens of new works covering hundreds of meters long of painted walls that I miss seeing these days. Perhaps I should write an article about that, one day. 😃

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If you ever get on this side of Romania, you'll notice that it's almost impossible to see all the statues because no matter which way you look, there are, literally, endless of new works you will detect 10, 100, or even 1000 meters away from the place you are staying.

So for a proper experience is really important to have a good plan on the side you are starting your journey to make sure you are not missing something because the works are exposed on both of the sides of the main road which start a few tens of meters before reaching the panel which is supposed to be the main gate of access to the Carving Camp from Magura.

To give a better explanation of how big this place is, keep in mind that it covers a surface of 21 hectares where there are 256 works that have been realized by 163 different sculptors because some of these loved the project so much that they kept coming up with a new work more years in a row.
Being a project that no one thought it would gain so much interest during the 16 years when there were added new works yearly, some of the statues weren't marked with the name of the sculptor and the title of their work which is kind of sad.
Though, it's still a pretty good exercise for your brain because you can give free rein to your imagination while looking at sculptures that could come with as many meanings as how many people look at it, which is pretty amazing, to be honest!
For example there was this statue that I'll attach down below, which some of us was seeing like a mother holding her children while from a different angle seemed like someone crying and keeping his head down, or even an empty embrace given to her own person.

In my opinion this kind of statues are the best exercise for mind which can find a thousand different meanings depending on your current mood or the angle you are looking from to a piece of rock which says so many things without being able to speak.

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Happily there was someone who did think about having a place where the names of all these artists will remain with the passage of years and which can be remembered by those who are exploring the Carving Camp of Magura, so from time to time you will meet a bigger panel which mentions the edition, year and the names of those who contributed on adding some more sculptures to this beautiful project as well as the titles of the works.

Every single work is numbered with a number that you can also find on the bottom of each work to make it possible to find out the name and author of a specific statue if you are interested in doing so.

Recently I found out that there is another carving camp still in Buzau county but which we didn't know about when we visited the one from Magura, so perhaps we will have to hit the road again on that direction one day to see the other place too. 🙂

But until then, keep in mind that the one from Magura is the biggest one from Romania and also a unique open-air museum in Europe so it's definitely worth being seeing by more people!

Additionally, while some of the statues might seem like coming to life or with a message that they would like to share with you, it's important to mention that all the 256 sculptures are inspired from folk art and some of the objects presented in form of huge stone blocks might look a little bit unfamiliar for those who are not aware of the culture from Romania but which is a nice way to stir your curiosity to find out more. 😃

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Since most of the people heard of Peleș Castle from Sinaia, no matter if we are talking about Romanian tourists or those from other countries, there is a legend that says that the castle was supposed to be placed on this valley because of how beautiful and peaceful everything looked like, but there are rumours saying that at the entrance to the Ciolanu Monastery which is right next to the carving camp, the horse of Carol I who was the King of Romania between 1881-1914, broke his leg which was considered a divine sign to give up on the idea and look out for a better location where to build the castle.

Anyway, I think we can all agree that nobody really knows how real are those legends every place comes with but that it's a plus to be even more interested in seeing a location with the possibility of finding more connections with what's written in history books. 🙂

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Tabăra de Sculptură Măgura can be visited any time of the year being an open-air museum with no gates as an entrance or any visiting fees that you should pay, but I think the best period to see them is in all seasons except during the winter when it will be really hard to see the works while they will be covered by snow.

We visited The Carving Camp from Magura during the summer which was a great way to put on pause the whole world while getting lost on hundreds of meters covered by sculptures that are far from the traffic noise or any voices other than these from your head when you check out the statues. 😇

Tabăra de Sculptură Măgura is located 20-30 km away from Buzau city, and can be found on the GPS with the name of this blog post, or with the following coordinates 45.238 N, 26.544 E. A good landmark is also Manastirea Ciolanu which is right next to the carving camp.

Depending where you are coming from you can follow one of the following two routes:

• drive on the national road DN10 between Buzau - Magura until you reach Magura and then get on the county road DJ203G until Manastirea Ciolanu/Tabăra de Sculptură Măgura;
• drive on the national road DN1B between Ploiesti - Buzau until you reach Ulmeni and then get on the county road DJ203G that will take you through Merei and Sarata-Monteoru being followed by Manastirea Ciolanu/Tabăra de Sculptură Măgura.

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT TRIP! 🗾

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