A. Pushkin sites

About Tour

The great Russian poet A. Pushkin was exiled to Bessarabia in 1820-1823. The excerpt from the poem "A Ovid" by the Russian poet is engraved on the monument of A. Pushkin in the public park of Chisinau. Exactly from here we will begin your journey to the places where the poet lived and was inspired. These places deserve to be visited not only because the great Pushkin made them famous, but also because in themselves, these sites are unique and deserve your attention.

1 st Day

Discovering Pushkin places in Chisinau

Included highlights:

  • City Tour of Chisinau
    • “The Nativity” Cathedral,
    • Arch of Triumph,
    • City House,
    • Organ Hall,
    • St. Panteleimon Church,
    • The monument of Steven the Great,
    • A. Pushkin bust, and A. Pushkin Hill.
    • Small houses dating from the least 100 years ago,
    • Pushkin House, a unique construction. In the world there are only two such extant houses where the poet lived - in Chisinau, Moldova and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Included meals:

No included meals.

2 nd Day

Discovering the Dolna village and Rally Arbore House

Included highlights:

Today we’ll visit Dolna village located in 55 km from Chisinau. This picturesque place was especially loved and often visited by the Great Russian poet. Here A. Pushkin got acquainted with the culture and traditions of the Moldovan people, and became friends with the family Rally Arbore, being a guest of this family. History says that in this village A. Pushkin met a young and pretty Rom lady Zemfira - the future prototype for the poem “The Roma”. You’ll visit the House and the picturesque meadow of Zemfira.

Included meals:

No meals included.

3 rd Day

Departure

Included highlights:

  • Check-out. Transfer to the airport.

Included meals:

No meals included.

What People Say

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What a wonderful holiday. Everything was well organised and went well.

The guide, Cristina, was excellent, good English and very knowledgeable and keen that we should see every cultural and characteristic aspect of Moldova.

The visit to the Roma "family" was fascinating-not a "family" visit but a meeting with the Roma head of family in his huge house ornate and wealthy and we had a delicious home make cherry juice and had a question and answer session with him. He,Robert, is a relative of the Roma king; This was very informative as I am very interested in everyone and everything but tourists need to be interested in the Roma people and way of life otherwise input wouldn't be so fascinating!!

The visit to the "old believers" village was just great-tea from a samovar and cakes and a very pleasant woman the librarian and museum custodian.

In Gaugazia we met the Museum curator and again a fascinating insight into Gaugazian history.

Much of our enjoyment and insights was enhances by Cristina who translated everything so well.

The visits to the wineries were an eye opener and the wine tasting too. I recommend tourists who go to the Cricova winery to to wear warm clothes and a scarf as we go deep down into the underground "city" to see the stored wine.

We loved the food (and all the wine).

Have you ever wanted to go on a culture-wine-food tour? In California? France? Italy? Please, have some imagination! Be a little adventurous and go on one in Romania and Moldova. 

It was my good luck to participate in a tour organized by Ways Travel, during which i checked out the many wonders of Romania and Moldova. 

Our group on the bus was an international gang of nine – a Belgian, a German, a Norwegian, an Australian, a few Americans of interesting ethnic alloys and me, dual Dutch and American citizen. What can I say, it was an experience just sitting on a bus with these people and hear their war stories and get initiated into the workings of the behind-the-scenes travel industry. 

Leader of our tribe was the fabulous tour guide Victoria, who speaks four languages, English, German, Russian, Romanian, one of those people who makes a simple bilingual person such as myself feel humble and uneducated. 

The trip was a symphony of history, food, drink, music and dance. Dancing with the Gypsies no less. I tell you, it was fabulous, it was intoxicating. We got history – a dizzying whirl of wars and battles and bloody strife. Of conquests and annexations, of armies rampaging through the countryside, raping, pillaging and impaling. We heard colorful tales about Dacian tribes, the Roman Empire, the Red Horde, the Saxons, the Ottoman Empire, the communist era under Ceausescu. And let’s not forget to mention good old Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, who hailed from Transylvania. Really, we deserved every drop of hootch we got along the way to recover from all the tragedies we vicariously suffered through. 

In Romania we loved the beautiful towns of Sibiu and Sighisoara. In Sighisoara we missed seeing the house where Dracula was born because a movie was being filmed and they’d closed it off for visitors. Fortunately, we had a liqueur and brandy tasting to cheer us up. We hadn’t had lunch yet and our stomachs were empty, which helped raise the mood quickly. 

A highlight was our visit to the home of a Roma family in Transylvania and learning more about their culture and lifestyle. (You can read a story about this on my blog here.) Not all Gypsies are beggars living in the streets of large cities. It’s always a good thing to be disabused of your prejudices and preconceived notions. 

We stayed in excellent hotels and lodges, as well as in a humble hostel run by a monastery. We ate fancy restaurant food as well as simple village fare. We saw exquisite as well as cheery architecture, visited opulent cathedrals as well as the modest underground monastery chapel in Orhei Vechi, not far from Chisinau. The vino flowing across the miles was a charming mix of the good, the bad and the holy. The holy being the wine we tasted in a monastery, blessed by the priests. Unfortunately, the blessing did not transform it into nectar of the gods, but the dinner there was quite gourmet, all prepared from food grown by the monks without chemical assistance. 

We also visited Transnistria, which is a rather unique place, as most of you will already know. It is also home to the famous Kvint brandy factory and would you believe, we went there for a brandy dégustation – seven varieties of brandy. It was very informative, interesting and intoxicating. It was also lunch time, but fortunately there was food. We eventually struggled out of there, back on the bus, across the border that is not a border, and traveled down to the Purcari wineries in the south of Moldova where we were treated to . . . you guessed it . . . a wine tasting. Of ten types of wine. Not just any old village plonk, either. No, we got to sip the wine of kings, queens and tsars. Our livers got a workout that day. 

I’m going to stop here. There was more, much more, but I don’t want to give away everything, because what you should do, really, is check out Ways Travel’s website at www.ways.md .

Dear Victoria, thank you so much for making my trip to Moldova memorable. Your knowledge, charm and beauty are incomparable. How lucky of me to get the best guide in Moldova for my visit.