Where is the Alberobello-style stone-house village in Romania?

A village in Romania, located about 40 kilometers from Cluj, in the Borșa Valley, Transylvania unravels itself as the Romanian Alberobello. The village of Chidea seems to stand “petrified” in time and in place, where everything is made of whitish stone, from one end to the other and roofs are covered in straws.

According to a hundreds years old tradition, locals have continued to extract a kind of limestone (dacitic tuff stone) from the hills surrounding the village, although this volcanic rock is not very easily shaped. The limestone’s Romanian name is tuf dacitic.

So, like 200 hundred years ago, the houses in Chidea arise with the same look, proud of their stone outdoor plastering amidst dusty lanes and lush vegetation (if you come here in spring, summer or autumn).

Travellers will discover in Chidea a natural village museum, where they can admire including the a specific craft of processing dacitic tuff stone. Visitors can also find the village’s wooden church, a former Greek-Catholic place of worship, now Orthodox.

Towards the end of the village, lies the Kölyuk Cave, home to the protected species of bat “Great Horseshoe-nosed Bat”.

Chidea is also famous for its fruit trees. The surrounding hills are richly wooded, giving the village the appearance of a spa resort.