Let's travel together #300 - Grădina Zmeilor (The Garden of Kites)

I've been dreaming of this legendary post that represents the no. 300 of my travel discoveries since I was at around 260-270 such posts. And not only that I felt this would never come, but I got lots of mixed feelings thinking about which of my discoveries would serve well with this purpose since it definitely deserves something more unique from what I usually share here.

And I actually had a list with possible posts that kept getting lower and lower with the time passing, thinking that I knew for sure which location would have the honour to become part of my 300th travel post... until today. When I changed my mind again.

The one I thought I'll focus on is not less impressive, but more suitable for a different period of the year since it comes with some mystery and creepy stories. Based on these last moment conclusions, I picked The Garden of Kites to make it up on my blog!

The first time I heard about The Garden of Kites which is locally known as Grădina Zmeilor, happened around 5 years ago (when time flew so fast?!) when I was getting into libraries in search of postcards to send to my friends from abroad with the desire to make them visit Romania soon.
One of these postcards included the Garden of Kites which came as a surprise being the single one from the collage I did not know about, nor visited it before.
Hence why it seemed like a pretty good excuse to have it added to my bucket list too, with the promise to discover this place with my own eyes one day, since it was quite far from where I was living to do it sooner. But as life brought many challenges and changes in my life, so it happened when I and my sister moved to a different city than where we lived during our college, which took us more in the middle of the country, also revealing more possibilities to reach parts of Romania we haven't explored before.

Sadly, the pandemic came, then our yearly roadtrip in Romania was also interrupted, and the wait to meet Grădina Zmeilor turned out longer and longer, until last year when we got back on our yearly amount of time spent on the road and exploring less known parts of Romania, Grădina Zmeilor being finally part of it.

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So, after a long drive of a few hours, we reached our destination, seeing only two more cars in the parking lot which made us realize how underrated Grădina Zmeilor is, even more years after I first heard about it.

Still in the parking lot, there is also an improvised amphitheatre that hosts some sort of festival during the summer, but everything was empty back in October when our trip happened.

We decided to visit it late in autumn since if you do it in the summer you won't be able to admire the rock formations too well due to all the leaves of the trees, but if you take a trip in the autumn or early in the spring, that should work better.

Once we got all our equipment for taking pictures and recording footage as this is going to be part of the Romania Roadtrip 2023 once I finished writing about all the places discovered back then, we started walking around.
There is not much to be seen from the parking lot so in case you haven't seen pictures of the Garden of Kites before, then it's hard to realize what is going to come up next, which is even more exciting since surprises from nature are always the best kind of surprises.
We were at the opposite pole, both I and my sister already knowing what to expect, but we walked in silence not to break the surprise for our parents whom we were travelling with.
Plus, the grumpy weather played its role too, making us not be in the best mood until we got some more reasons to smile.
There are two paths to follow, one on the right that will take you on a viewpoint from where you can see the rock formations from above one of these, and one path on the left taking you through the heart of the formations. However, I think both paths are worth being checked out so the best way to start this adventure is by first following the one to the right, as we also did.

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Still on the viewpoint, there is a little cabin where people can take a break and eat something or simply spend time surrounded by all the beauty nature was generous to offer in this part of the world.

We would most likely stop by to eat a sandwich if we had these with us, but as we expected it to not be a way too long adventure, we left our backpack at the car thinking that we would eat once we were back from Grădina Zmeilor.

We spotted a few rock formations even from our walk to the viewpoint, the first one being called "Degetelul" which means "The Little Finger" and seemed adorable enough to take a suggestive picture of this one, even if it turned pretty silly, lol.

The next two ones were dedicated to "Capitanul & Soldatii" meaning "The Captain & The Soldiers" and then "Eva" which, well, I guess everyone heard of "Adam and Eve".

However, all these are just the "intro" to the actual rock formations, the most spectacular ones being spotted once you follow the path to the left that will take you between these. Most of the rock formations have a little panel with their name that makes more or less sense once you see them, but as you go further, you will notice that not every single one has a name yet.

Perhaps, the people placing those names couldn't figure out what other names would work for the others, but either way, I would have loved to read a short story written under each of these panels even if it was a fictive one. It would have created a lot more memories for the people crossing by, but the freedom of creativity is also something interesting to take into consideration since the stories are missing.

Grădina Zmeilor represents a natural reservation of high interest and protection for Romania, that involves unique geological formations and sceneries and it covers a total surface of around 5 hectares.
The unique and complex aspect of the rock formations makes it unique not only for Romania but for the whole world, which makes me twice proud of having such a masterpiece rest in my home country.
The Garden of Kites represents a natural disaster that was formed from the enormous collapses and destructive erosion, which formed the famous sandstone of the area.
The quality of the sandstone is quite poor presenting gravel and conglomerate intercalations but the story behind them and that they originate from such formations that can't be found anywhere else in the world makes them more interesting for the buyers.
The formations were born after some large blocks and parts of sandstones broke off the massif of the area which was 376 meters in height and which can be admired once you cross the natural monuments that own a name these days.

When the panels with the names of the formations were missing, this whole place had a banal name based on how the valley was known and it was often associated with a chaos in the middle of nature since not many were creative enough to understand that all the formations can mean something and they are unique in the world.

There is a total of 10+ such formations that have (Fata Cătanii, Zmeul and Zmeoaica, Moșu, Călugării, Căpitanul and Soldații, Eva, Dorobanțul, Degețelul, Sfinxul, Horea, Closca and Crisan, Acul Cleopatrei) that more or less make sense.

Every single rock formation comes with a unique and bizarre form such as towers, mushrooms, steepy shapes, needles or blades, whose shape was more defined after different weather conditions but also because of the gravitational processes of collapses.

Since most of the interesting places offered by nature also come with a legend, The Garden of Kites couldn't have one missing. Hence why there is the saying that a while ago a young girl was in love with a soldier but the stepmother of the girl did not agree with their relationship, so she cursed her daughter.

This is how the girl turned into a rock formation which used to be the most interesting one out of the garden but in 2024 this one can't be seen anymore since it was entirely destroyed by the floods of the area in 1973.

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Along with the formations that can enjoy a name and some sort of identity, there are twice more formations which don't have a name just yet, many of these still being formed from one year to another as some parts are still breaking off the valley that was shown a bit earlier in this post.

So along with having a Garden of Kites that keeps getting more and more formations, there is also the risk of having some of these with an identity fall. Such as there is no guarantee we can see the garden twice looking the same.

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You can climb, search for secret paths, or even enjoy the narrow natural tunnels formed inside the stones that build a magic world, almost feeling like Alice in Wonderland when getting inside. Some of these are generous enough so you can cross in between, while some can only be accessed by kids. But definitely not recommended for claustrophobic people.

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Once we finished taking hundreds of pictures of every single rock formation that we spotted trying to figure out which angle created the best scenery, we walked a bit further in search of where all the stones originate from.

That's how we met some wilder parts of nature with unnamed stones, unmarked trails, no people around, but also a cave.

Since my father always loved caves and I mostly got this passion from him, there was no way to return home before checking this one out.

However, being a wild cave without any human contribution, it was hard to observe anything inside. We actually walked for a while and didn't spot any specific formations such as columns, stalactites and stalagmites so we came to the conclusion that we might as well stand in front of a mine entrance. Happily, we were lucky enough to see a bit of this one while I've read on the internet that in most cases the cave is flooded, so I'm happy to have a proper experience in the Garden of Kites.

We visited Grădina Zmeilor at a relaxing pace and it took us close to 3 hours to see all the formations, try out new routes, get inside the stones that offered a secret canyon, as well as head to the cave that was a bit lower on the valley than these. But there are sayings that one hour should be enough for you to see the main formations (those that have a name) and to get to the viewpoint.

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Grădina Zmeilor is located in Jibou which belongs to Salaj county, being located very close to the national road DN1H which makes the connection between Jibou and Zalău.

In order to reach the garden, there are two possibilities:

• from Zalău to Jibou until you make it to the national road DN1H to Tihau, then enter on Gâlgăul Almașului where the garden is on the western side of this one. The total length of the route is of 36km.
• from Cluj-Napoca to Sâmnihaiu Almașului, Hida, Balan and Gâlgăul Almașului following the roads DN1F - E81 - DN1G. This one is the one we also opted for and it sums a total length of 75km.

Other articles from my Romania Tour 2023:

• The Blue Lagoon of Cluj (Laguna Albastră)
• Ciucaș Waterfall... or beer? (Cascada Ciucaș)
• The Sequoia Tree from Romania
• Șapte culori ale Pământului (The 7 Colors of the Earth, Romania)
• Lacul Tarzan (Tarzan Lake of Romania)
• Gresiile de pe Stânca Dracului (The Devil's Rock)
• Cetatea Trascăului (Trascău Fortress)
• Grădina Zmeilor (The Garden of Kites)

more coming soon...

^{Gabriela Travels is 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 (300+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 650+ 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.}

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