pilgrim

Estel Farrell-Roig travelled to Romania with Intrepid to take on a section of the Transilvanica Trail, a 1,400 kilometer long route that crosses Romania diagonally from Putna to Drobeta Turnu Severin

It’s not every year you turn 32. It’s also not every year you celebrate it by hiking around Romania.

Transilvanica Trail was sold to me as Romania’s answer to the Camino de Santiago, a walking route that stretches across northern Spain, which is enjoying a huge surge in popularity.

In its totality, the Via Transilvanica, or “the road that unites”, is a 1,400 kilometer long route that crosses Romania diagonally from Putna to Drobeta Turnu Severin.

As fun as that sounds, my journey was a little shorter. Guided by Intrepid, I was taking on five days of the route, managing around 10km a day. That might not sound like a lot, the idea of that much hiking made me nervous.

I needn’t have been.

What unfolded was a trip like no other, which left me desperate to go back for more.

Day 1

My alarm went off at 4.30am, ending a night at a Stansted Airport hotel. While this certainly felt brutal, the prospect of being on a flight without a three-year-old still seemed like a luxury to me. Compared to my usual journeys filled with Paw Patrol, drawing, toys and snacks, this was such an easy, smooth ride. I just slept.

Landed in Cluj-Napoca, trip leader Raluca bundled me into a minibus and we headed north.

Before setting off, we are fed (something the Romanians are very good at, as I will quickly learn). I loved the delicious pepper and mushroom soup with sour cream, while the roast chicken with potatoes was so full of flavour too. Little did I expect what a culinary journey I was about to embark on.

Day 2

Up at 8.30am after a good night’s sleep, I enjoyed a typical Romanian breakfast at the family-owned Pension Elegance at Guru Humorului.

The hotel itself is not pretentious – and not what we would probably class as a 4* hotel in the UK – but it is comfortable and homely. My room had a small balcony overlooking the gorgeous countryside. What else could I ask for?

First stop was the UNESCO-listed Sucevița Monastery. The painted monastery is home to 80 nuns and is gorgeous. Even having grown up in a country of Catholic churches, it was unlike anything I had seen before.

Afterwards, it was time to start hiking. The weather was a bit misty, but thankfully not rainy. Our hike started at Palma Pass checkpoint and led us through spruce forests. I found the hike on the first day rewarding and exciting; I felt pleased with myself for comfortably managing the 10km walk.

I was definitely ready for lunch by the time we stopped at Popas la Cosma, one of the guesthouses along the trail, famous for its authentic local dairy products made by shepherds. They could not have been more welcoming, showing us the accommodation and how they prepared the food. As well as the usual beds, there was an option to sleep in the hay barn.

We were served a delicious selection of meats and cheeses, as well as a yummy salad, but I am so glad I left room for dessert because the pancakes, filled with sweet cheese and blueberries, were incredibly moreish.

Day 3

A 45-minute drive away, we transferred to Sadova trailhead via Vatra Moldoviței. The second day of hiking – around 11km – was definitely the most challenging one of the three, most likely because the sunny, warm weather made the journey feel completely different from the previous day.

The process of walking through the woods, placing one foot in front of another, helped clear my head. By the end of our second day of trekking, I felt calmer and clearer-minded than I had in months.

The lunch stop at La Moara Bucovina restaurant was the best meal I had in Romania, without a doubt. Not only was the location breathtaking and the hosts incredibly warm and friendly, but the food was also excellent from start to finish. The highlight was a sarmale, a traditional Romanian dish consisting of stuffed cabbage rolls with rice and mince.

Our room for the night was at Hotel Dorna in Vatra Dornei, a ski resort town. Excited to be in a bit of a livelier place for the first time, I explored the beautiful, but quiet town before dinner.

Day 4

On our third day of hiking, we drove to the Mestecăni trailhead, where there is a small, ridiculously cheap souvenir shop. I bought two mugs, three painted eggs and a jigsaw puzzle for £10.

Despite it being our third day of walking, the day’s hike feels easier. Perhaps my legs had gotten stronger. The highlight was the wildlife we saw, including a frog and a couple of snakes.

The lunch spot was another idyllic guest house with staggering, far-reaching views. As well as serving scrumptious food, Gigi Ursu Chalet has a lovely terrace where you can sunbathe on a sunny day. Happily, the rays were shining for our visit, providing a perfect atmosphere for me to meet the two resident puppies and a gorgeous, friendly back cat.

Day 5

Our last day was another travelling day, driving about three and a half hours back to Cluj-Napoca. Having some tasty pasta for lunch in a sunny square, we had a bit of time to explore the city centre before having to head to the airport.

The Via Transilvanica may not yet compete with the Camino de Santiago or Via Francigena, the iconic pilgrimage that links Canterbury and Rome, it has something else. A rawness and a quietness that come from walking through parts of the world far from where most ever tread.

It was sadly time to head back to the UK, but this short trip will stay with me for a long time – and inspire me to go on more hiking holidays.

Book it

Intrepid Travel’s 10-day Hiking in Romania: Via Transilvanica Trail costs from £1,616pp which includes accommodation, ground transport, services of a local leader, guided hikes and some meals and other activities. Book at intrepidtravel.com or call 0808 274 5111.

For years, 64-year-old Najia Abu Lehia dreamed of performing Hajj with her husband. But before they could make the pilgrimage, her husband died during Israel’s war on Gaza. Now, as millions journey to Mecca, thousands like her are stranded in Gaza.

KEY WEST, Fla. — Ruthie Browning dove into the calm, blue water off Key West, Fla., expecting to see “a big, old rock with stuff growing all over it.”

She was on a pilgrimage with other Black divers and community members, visiting sacred sites including one where a British slave ship — the Henrietta Marie — sank 326 years ago.

The vessel had delivered 200 enslaved people from West Africa to Jamaica and was heading back to Britain in 1700 — near the peak of the trans-Atlantic slave trade — when it was swallowed up in the churning waters of New Ground Reef where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Gulf of Mexico.

A concrete marker at the site memorializes the people on that ship.

As Browning and her group prepared to dive in early May, the water was calm. The marker, 20 feet below, was visible from the glassy surface. “I thought I’d look at it, pay my respects and that’ll be that,” she said.

But something unexpected happened. Tears filled her eyes. She gently told herself: If you can be quiet, maybe they will speak.

Staring at the monument, which is now a small living reef covered in corals and sponges, she felt her ancestors’ words: “My daughter, we’re so glad you’re here.”

Overwhelmed, Browning lingered by the marker bearing the words: “Henrietta Marie. In memory and recognition of the courage, pain and suffering on enslaved African people. Speak her name and gently touch the souls of our ancestors.”

She felt submerged in gratitude.

“Without their stamina, their spirit and survival, I wouldn’t be here today. None of us would be here today,” she said.

Pilgrimages aren’t meant to be easy

For the pilgrims in Key West, the gathering was an act of devotion, a quest for connection with their roots and for spiritually nourishing generations to come. They had tried to dive to the marker last summer, but the water was too choppy.

“The ancestors were not smiling down on us then,” said Jay Haigler, master diving instructor with Underwater Adventure Seekers, the world’s oldest Black scuba diving club. “This year was different.”

Such a pilgrimage was never meant to be easy, said Michael Cottman, who has written two books about the Henrietta Marie and was part of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers that installed the marker in 1992.

Cottman believes the site contains “spiritual turbulence.”

“Even if it wasn’t carrying enslaved people, it embodies the oppression of our people,” he said.

The group organized an annual pilgrimage in the 1990s, but it didn’t continue. The latest trip was spurred by an underwater interview project proposed by Stanford University anthropologist Ayana Omilade Flewellen, who serves on the board of Diving With a Purpose, a Black scuba diving nonprofit dedicated to documenting slave shipwrecks.

The submerged interviews also helped her connect as a pilgrim, Flewellen said. “I felt a kind of tenderness in my heart.”

The spiritual experience helped her process a traumatic history rooted in death and suffering.

“It’s hard to attach your life with this history,” she said. “The only way I could do that was turn toward what the divers were experiencing on this pilgrimage. That’s where it all bloomed and blossomed.”

Ancient ritual at African refugee cemetery

The pilgrims also gathered on land. At Higgs Beach on the south side of Key West, they visited a memorial and burial ground for 297 African refugees who died in 1860 after being rescued by the U.S. Navy from three slave ships — Wildfire, William and Bogota. Over 1,400 refugees were housed by the government in a compound and provided food and medical care, said Corey Malcom, the Florida Keys History Center’s lead historian.

While many were sent back to Africa, hundreds died due to the horrific conditions on the ships, he said.

Largely forgotten for decades, the grave site was discovered by historians and geologists using ground-penetrating radar. In 2010, a large pit containing 100 more bodies was located at a community dog park across the street. The area is now fenced off, Malcom said.

On Saturday, pilgrims met at the cemetery and held an emotional libation ceremony, a sacred, ancient ritual rooted in Afro-Caribbean spiritual tradition. One by one, group members tearfully thanked their ancestors and poured white rum on the beach. The clear spirit is believed to act as a messenger, inviting ancestral souls for their blessings.

“To honor your ancestors and the road they’ve traveled is very, very important because we’re all connected,” said Addeliar Guy, one of the elders and an avid diver.

Underwater monument represents a living history

Joel Johnson trained for weeks for his first open-water dive at the Henrietta Marie site. Johnson, the president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, said what surprised him as he approached the monument was the vibrancy surrounding it. Fish darted among the corals that swayed with the currents; shells rested on the sandy bottom.

Conservation and protecting these habitats also preserve the history below the waves, Johnson said.

“This was not a place of death, but a place of life,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I was grieving for my ancestors. I felt like I was in the stream of history, recognizing that I’m a part of that. It made me happy.”

While underwater, Michael Philip Davenport, president of Underwater Adventure Seekers, was inspired to create art showing ancestors emerging from the monument.

“Their spirituality is still in that space,” he said. “I was feeling their lives and their tragedy.”

Dr. Melody Garrett, an anesthesiologist, started training with Diving With a Purpose in 2011 and has gone on missions to find the Guerrero, a Spanish pirate ship that wrecked in 1827 while carrying 561 enslaved Africans.

“A pilgrimage like this is so important now more than ever because there is an effort to cover up, rewrite and change history,” she said. She cited the Trump administration’s moves to remove references to slavery and Black history at National Park Service sites and federal museums, labeling it as divisive “anti-American propaganda.”

For Garrett, seeing these pieces of history gives her a strong sense of identity as an American, as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday.

“Black people have been here since before this country’s inception, longer than many other people have,” she said. “This is our country.”

Exhibit displays shackles used in slave trade

Remnants of the Henrietta Marie’s wooden hull are embedded at the site under layers of sand. The shipwreck was discovered in 1972 by treasure hunter Mel Fisher, but it wasn’t until 1983 that hundreds of intact items were recovered. Only a few slave ships were found out of the 35,000 used to transport over 12 million enslaved Africans; most vessels were intentionally destroyed to hide the illicit trade.

The artifacts, which occupy an entire floor of the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West, include over 80 sets of iron shackles, many of them child-size.

When Kory Lamberts first walked over wooden planks in the exhibit, they unexpectedly creaked.

“It was visceral,” he said. “It took me to a place. It also tells me that these were young people — children. These are baby shackles. There’s no sugarcoating it. The truth really hits you.”

While in Key West, Lamberts — who runs a nonprofit to make aquatics more equitable — said he brought back fish from the Henrietta Marie site, which he imagines would have absorbed the DNA of the ancestors. The group ate that fish for dinner the night after the dives — like a sacrament.

“I don’t practice a faith, but isn’t this what people are doing every Sunday at church?” he asked. “I wasn’t just bonded with this site through the experience of being there, but at this molecular level with a full circle moment of connection with myself and my history.”

Bharath writes for the Associated Press.