For our 1st of May extended weekend, we went to Rimetea and spent 3 days in the village and around it. The area is becoming more and more popular thanks to he fact that the village is included in the Unesco World Heritage List, but also because, besides the village itself you have mountains and all sorts of outdoor activities.

Rimetea on the UNESCO World Heritage List

According to the UNESCO website, Rimetea is an exceptional example of a deliberately preserved traditional human settlement representative of a culture that has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change. Rimetea, who developed mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries, is a living example of rural life before the agricultural revolution of the 20th century.

The architectural heritage of Rimetea constitutes the largest vernacular architectural heritage of the region formed of about 201 traditional buildings (out of the existing 315 properties), 170 of which are historic buildings with individual architectural and ethnographic value.

The buildings placed on a historically valuable street pattern – divided to social neighborhoods – are grouped around squares and in rows of houses forming homogeneous ensembles surrounded by a natural landscape of an exceptional beauty.

What to do when in Rimetea?

Rimetea offers a lot if you want to spend here a few days. You can start with having a walk in the village and admire the beautiful houses and their architecture. There is plenty to see and there are info signs all over the place. There is also an Etnographic Museum in the center of the village, closed on Mondays (and which we didn’t get the chance to visit, unfortunately).

For those in the mood for outdoors activities, you can try some hiking to the Székely Stone or more adventurous sports like rock climbing, paragliding or jumping with a parachute.

The Szekely Stone (Piatra Secuiului)

For the day we spent in Rimetea, we chose to go hiking up on the Székely Stone. The Székely Stone is part of the Trascău Mountains and it reaches 1128 meters high. You can see this stone from all over the village and its also a part of what makes the area extremely beautiful.

The hiking trip starts from the center of the village, need the Unitarian church,  following the blue cross path. It took us about 2 hours to go up and another 1 hour and a half to go down. It was exactly what we needed for the afternoon and to get tired enough to have a good sleep at night.

Hiking up the Szekely Stone gives you the chance to see the village from up above.

You can also see in the far distance the ruins of the Colțești Fortress (which we visited the next day).

For those who prefer to sleep in a tent, just outside the village is a perfect place for camping and enough room for everyone. During the 1st of May weekend there was also the Rimetea Cimbing Open and the SpiritFest festival going on, with parties during the night and all sorts of sports contests during the day.

One thing to mention is that Rimetea is mostly inhabited by Hungarians. There is also a story around the Székely Stone and the monument on top of it. Hungarian people always paint the monument in the colors of the Hungarian flag and then Romanian people go up and paint it in the colors of the Romanian flag. When we went there it was the Hungarian flag, but there are some chances the next time we go up, we find the Romanian flag.

Complete photo gallery of the trip :