To the Kurtzes, I can comment on your trip also. Timisoara is a wonderful town to visit! This past year, I worked with a researcher (Sorin Fortiu) in Timisoara and when we planned our four days in Romania in September, I arranged for him to be our guide and translator. I specifically wanted to go to my father's birthplace, Pietroase Mare (then Vechehaza and in Romanian Wetschenhausen) and also find any records for the family name. I had been in Lugos in 1965 and wanted to revisit and also see if anything was there in the church. We stayed in Timisoara and spent a day and a half on our own in town seeing the sites and then traveling. In my father's town we scoured the cemetery, but came up with nothing; likewise in Darova, a neighboring town where my grandmother had married her first husband. That cemetery was huge and while we looked carefully, it was overgrown and hard to determine if anything was there. We think not. But the churches there were wonderful and we met several people who were so nice to meet us and show us a bit. Just being in those villages was so meaningful. The best part was indeed the planning ahead. But not everything goes as planned. The first day in Lugos we got to the church and it was closed. The next day as we traveled through Lugos we decided to stop again at the church. This time, the clerk had posted a note that her grandmother had a stomach ache and she had gone home! However, due to the luck of having someone who spoke Romanian (Sorin) and the fact that a caretaker at the church had a key, we were able to go in and look at the church record book for 1901 and found the record of my aunt's birth. If we'd had longer and I'd had more figured out about what I wanted to know, we could have spent more time on research. But I had decided early on that I didn't want to spend my time in archives that I couldn't read, but that I did want to see the countryside and visit my dad's town (he was born in 1897) and get a feel of the place. I was not disappointed. Now when I do research I have such a wonderful picture in my mind of the villages, the churches, the people. Have a wonderful time. Best wishes for your trip. Sharon Aller Seattle PS In Timisoara, the first night, it was dark and we walked into town from our hotel. The only restaurant we could identify that was open was the KFC! We had dinner and the young cashier was delighted to practice her English. I found many people in Timisoara who spoke English with us. And there's a McDonald's on the corner in the plaza also. Apparently, you're never far from home! ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, January 31, 2014 12:01:32 AM Subject: BANAT Digest, Vol 9, Issue 28 Today's Topics: 1. Re: Timisoara visit spring 2014 (Charlie Tiller) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:46:07 -0600 From: Charlie Tiller <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [BANAT-L] Timisoara visit spring 2014 To: Listserve Banat <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear Kurtzes, In September 2013, my wife and I took a one-day road trip in nearly the opposite direction from Novi Sad to Zrenjanin to the Serb-Romanian border villages to Timisoara and back. We thoroughly enoyed our experience and will have life-long memories of visiting my ancestral homeland. That said, it is vitally important that you do some research ahead of time and plan your trip so that you don't wind up stranded somewhere in the Romanian countryside twiddling your thumbs. [Do bring a wireless phone that will work in the area; signal strength seemed reliable throughout.] My biggest caution would be that it was a 14-hour day spent mostly in the car on a table-flat landscape, and yet that really was not enough time to soak it in thoroughly or do many side trips/research. You could see more or go slower by breaking it up over a couple days, but then you'd have to spend the night in a small town. Most of the villages are rather nondescript farming hamlets which hold more value for ancestral nostalgia than for sightseeing. Perhaps your best bet for an overnight accomodation would be Jimbolia (quaint) or Zrenjanin (less appealing to us). In my opinion, it is important that you know where you want to visit instead of playing it by ear. In my experience, nostalgia can best be found in the places your ancestors actually set foot, and the more histroically intact the better. Try to identify those targets before leaving the USA; the Banat towns have changed enough over the years so that it appears the on-the-ground research value is rather limited. The cemeteries are in quite good shape, but good luck finding your ancestors' gravestones in a short visit. Many old Catholic churches still stand in some stage of decay, but you will need to identify the local who holds the door key. Looking at cities: Timisoara is an attractive and interesting city well worth more than the few hours we could offer to it. Novi Sad has a solid touristy zone, but is otherwise somewhat gritty. Belgrade gets a bad rap maybe for good reason, but the pedestrian promenade and the fortress overlooking the Danube are well worth an afternoon and a sleepover. The biggest takeaway: It really helped to be with a local guide to deal with driving, directions, the border crossing (seemed intimidating), and the steep language barrier. We hired Stasa Cvetkovic of Novi Sad who I highly recommend [Stasa is on the Banat list]. Whoever you travel with, be sure to let them know ahead of time the places you wish to see, how badly, and what you hope to see there. Local eyes can help you fine tune the itinerary for the best outcomes. Expect to have a terrific journey. Happy travels! Charlie Tiller St. Paul, MN [Tiller, Kovacs, Kampf, Fechter and others in Deutsch-Zerne, Hatzfeld and surroundings] > From: [email protected] > Subject: BANAT Digest, Vol 9, Issue 27 > To: [email protected] > Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 01:01:09 -0700 > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 20:10:09 +0000 > From: <[email protected]> > Subject: [BANAT-L] Timisoara visit spring 2014 > To: " [email protected] " <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > Should my husband and I have any concerns about a one day car trip from Timisoara > > to Jimbolia to Zrenjanin, Serbia to Banatski Despotovac then back to Timisoara, Romania. > > This is our first trip to Europe. We have booked four days in the Banat before a Danube river cruise. Thanks for your help. > > > > M and C Kurtz > ************************************ ------------------------------ To contact the BANAT list administrator, send an email to [email protected] To post a message to the BANAT mailing list, send an email to [email protected] __________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body of the email with no additional text. End of BANAT Digest, Vol 9, Issue 28 ************************************