Wines of Moldova and Romania Group Tour

About Tour

Wine is part of this nation’s culture and if someone came to Romania and would not taste our wines, it would be like looking at a church from the outside and not going inside! During this tour you will meet, feel and taste the wines of the most famous wine regions in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, which was split in two parts after World War II, one is the Romanian region of Moldova, the other one being the Old Bessarabia, nowadays known as the Republic of Moldova. But both regions are linked through their famous and good wines! We will start this adventure with a Moldovan wines tasting.

1 st Day

Arrival in Bucharest

September 27 st , 2021

Included highlights:

  • a short City Tour
  • dinner accompanied by a tasting of Romanian wines and presentation about vineyards
  • the chance to talk to a professional sommelier

Included meals:
  • Welcome dinner
2 nd Day

Discovering Carpathians

September 28 nd , 2021

Included highlights:

  • Peles Castle in Sinaia (the summer residence of the Romanian kings, at the foot of the high Carpathians).
  • Lunch and sparkling-wines tasting in the Rhein & Azuga Cellars, recognized between the two World Wars as “The Supplier of the Royal Court of Romania”.
  • Dracula’s Castle in Bran
  • Brasov and accommodation at a 4* hotel located in the downtown

Included meals:
  • Lunch and sparkling-wines tasting
3 rd Day

Discovering Sighisoara

September 29 rd , 2021

Included highlights:

  • Fagaras fortress,
  • Cincusor, Cincu and Agnita Fortified Churches,
  • Special lunch in Fagaras, where we will taste Romanian dishes made after old traditional recipes,
  • city tour of Sighisoara (the Clock Tower built in the XIV century, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) House, the Wooden Covered Staircase, the Hill Church, etc),
  • Accommodation at Hotel Cavalerul 4*.

4 th Day

Discovering Eastern Carpathian Mountains

September 30 th , 2021

Included highlights:

  • the impressive sheer limestone walls of the Bicaz Gorges
  • City tour of Iasi and visit of the the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Culture Palace, the Golia Monastery, the Trei Ierarhi Church, etc.

5 th Day

Departure to Republic of Moldova

October 01 th , 2021

Included highlights:

  • Soroca town known for its sizable Roma minority,
  • Soroca Fortress built in the Middle Ages
  • Roma’ district of Soroca, famous for its “posh” palaces,
  • visit a local family in order to get familiarized with the Roma way of life,
  • Japca Monastery, known as the only monastery in Moldova that was not closed during the Soviet Period.
  • Tipova monastery, one of the most visited sites located on a rocky bank of the Dniester River

6 th Day

Enjoying Wine Festival

October 02 th , 2021

Included highlights:

  • Branesti Winery, visit the wine complex and have a wine tasting,
  • special lunch in a peasant house
  • visit to Old Orhei – a museum complex that presents the remains of different civilizations
  • an Orthodox cave monastery
  • visit and taste the wines of one of the biggest underground wine cities in Europe – “Cricova”
  • city tour of Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, during which we will also enjoy the Wine Festival.
  • special dinner in “Carpe Diem”, the best wine restaurant in Moldova.
  • accommodation in 4* Hotel Flowers in downtown Chisinau

Optional highlights:

  • Chisinau by hight

Included meals:
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
7 th Day

Wine Festival at Asconi, Chateau Purcari and Et Cetera Winery

October 03 th , 2021

Included highlights:

  • Wine Festival at Asconi Winery
  • Purcari Winery
  • Et Cetera Winery
  • Special wine tasting, dinner and accommodation at Et Cetera.

Included meals:
  • Breakfast
  • Special wine tasting and dinner
8 th Day

Discovering Transnistria

October 04 th , 2021

Included highlights:

  • City tour of Tiraspol (the capital of Transnistria),
  • excursion and tasting different types of caviar in a local sturgeon complex
  • transfer to airport/Bucharest and departure home

Optional highlights:

  • if time allows, we will visit the museum dedicated to the Transnistrian conflict.

Included meals:
  • breakfast

What People Say

More reviews ›

Dear Victoria!

There are not enough adjectives in the world to describe adeguately the experience of doing a visit with you! You certainly have enhanced my appreciation of your country. I learnt a lot from you on many different levels. Your organizational skills are extraordinary and Explore will definitely receive extremely positive feedback. We were very lucky to have you with us during this short trip.

Thank you once again for all you did so beautifully with grace, humor and smile. I wish you all and only the very best for now and for the future. 

Hello Victoria! You are a great guide and the Republic of Moldova is a great country. 

Your knowledge, enthusiasm and thoroughness were very impressive; for anyone planning a holiday to Moldova, or neighbouring Romania & Ukraine (all very interesting countries) this is the tour guide to go with.

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 .