Archaic Romanian chișla (source of water) and nouă (new)

Another new country in my list! 83 so far in total, and 46th out of 50 that form the European continent at the time of writing this guide. It’s always very exciting coming to places never been before especially if these are a different country, another culture to explore and looking forward to something new. Europe is getting too small and believe it or not, we are starting to run out of destinations. For sure on the main destinations there is pretty much nothing left not visited, but thankfully there are still way many other places… although again, with so many hundreds been, this is slowly becoming a challenge to find a flight or plan a reasonable route to reach these places.

Chisinau, the capital of Moldova is definitely by all means not the usual holiday destination to anyone. The country is one of these “forgotten” for the average traveller, one of the less visited with few venturing coming to discover. To us, however, it was a must in our list for quite some time now, yet not easy to reach until now with more flights available and more flexibility in the times. In any case, talking about flying times… we took off from London minutes before midnight to land in Chisinau right after 05.00am local time the following day, but well, not everything is going to be as easy as a cup of tea.

The country, to the surprise of anyone, is full with beautiful villages, medieval castles, monasteries and amazing nature. It might be small but it offers everything to whoever comes to visit, and won’t disappoint. But before I continue in here, let me tell you that this trip was not just for the sake of reaching its capital city and nothing else, but to also include 2 of the country’s highlights: the world’s largest wine cellar, Mileștii Mici; and the largest cave monastery in Eastern Europe, Tipova. Now with all this in mind, your trip will definitely be truly worth it!. (more…)