2 days: An interesting tour Old Orhei&Cricova &Transnistria

Chisinau, Chisinau, Chisinau District - Welcome to Moldova= meet at the airport

40 minutes, Admission is free

Cricova Winery, Cricova, Moldova - After breakfast at the hotel, your guide will meet you at 8 am for a trip to the “underground town” of Cricova, where some of the tunnels date back to the 15th century. Visit Moldova’s second-largest wine cellar and enjoy a wine tasting.

The winery visit includes

the underground streets

the wine maturation section

the sparkling wine production section

the National collection and “Tasting Rooms”

the underground cinema

The winery tour is followed by a wine tasting that includes 4 types of wines and aperitives like nuts and biscuits.

Orhei, Moldova - The Orheiul Vechi Cultural-Natural Reserve (known as “Old Orhei”) developed as a result of a harmonious collaboration between man and nature from prehistoric times to the present day, with archeological findings as early as the Late Paleolithic era (ca, 30-20,000 BC). Due to its strategic position close to the Dniester River, a major trading route connecting the Carpathians and the Black Sea Basin, and its geology forming a natural fortification, it has been inhabited almost continuously for thousands of years across the different civilizations and cultures who have called this place home. This has made the cultural heritage and landscape of Old Orhei a marker of national and universal culture.

The Reserve is a component part of the Orhei National Park - Old Orhei includes the historical and cultural heritage assets (archaeological sites, rock complexes, vernacular architecture complexes, ethnographic objectives), traditional settlements (Trebujeni, Butuceni, Morovaia villages), natural heritage assets (geological and landscape ensembles, flora and fauna), land and water areas where the regulated exploitation of natural resources, agricultural, industrial and tourist activities are carried out.

The Monasteries and Churches of Old Orhei - Orheiul Vechi is a very unique place with its cave churches and monasteries carved into the natural limestone ridge and cliffs above the Raut River. The Old Orhei cave monasteries provided a safe place for monks to worship and live for hundreds of years.

The Monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary - This Monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary is located in Butuceni village and dates back to the 15th- and 16th centuries when there was a little church made from wood at the site of the current building. The work of the monastery is closely linked to that of the Peștera (the Cave) hermitage. Over the course of the next three centuries, there is no evidence of the activity of the hermitages in the area.

By the end of the 19th century. the monastic life in the region began to be revived. In 1905 the Monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary was sanctified and reopened. However, after the establishment of the Soviet regime, the Monastery of the Birth of Virgin Mary, including the hermitage of the cave, was converted into an open air museum.

Day: Transnistria back to USSR - Day: Transnistria back to USSR

Tiraspol, the second-largest city in Moldova. Visit Tighina Fortress. Near the oldest Nistru gorge, in the third century B.C., there was a human settlement in Tighina. Later there appeared the first palisade and earthwork fortification. The first documentary mention of “Tighina Fortress” was in 1408. In the reign of Petru Rares the fortress was rebuilt in stone. Its walls have survived to the present and offer an example of classic Moldavian defensive construction. In 1538 Tighina was conquered by the Turkish Empire and re-named Bender. Lunch in Tiraspol, restaurant “Kumanek”. City Tour Tiraspol.

The Bendery fortress - The Bendery fortress is one of the oldest structures in our region. Back in the 13th century, Genoese ships sailed here from the Black Sea from the Akkerman fortress along the Dniester River. Seafarers and merchants, on the high right bank of the river, build a fortress-factory to protect themselves and their goods, and most importantly, the existing crossing.

HISTORICAL MUSEUM - HISTORICAL MUSEUM

On the territory of the citadel in the building of the old Turkish powder magazine (the only Turkish building preserved in the citadel), a museum of the Bendery Fortress has been created and operates. The huge space over 200 sq. m., like the fortress itself, has its own secrets.

Museum of Instruments of Torture - The Museum of Medieval European Instruments of Torture was created in the northeastern (octagonal) tower of the citadel in its lower tier in 2012. It is especially popular with tourists. It presents samples of the most common instruments of torture that were used in medieval Europe. These instruments of torture were actively used by the Inquisition.