The Famous "Living Stones" Of Romania | Let's travel together #356

With life getting slowly back on track and enjoying a bit more sunny days, I finally went back to my short but full of meaning trips that even if I no longer travel hundreds of km or do a full road trip around Romania (at least for now), I am grateful and honestly enjoying every single new place I get to explore or re-explore nearby.

That's how, two weekends ago, I took this 20-minute drive where I had Trovantii de Sibiu de la Daia set as my destination.

While the place only enjoys a local name on GPS, the trovant stones are not something I haven't spoken about previously, as I already visited two places that had some of these and wrote about them here and here.

Actually, I thought these two locations were the only ones where this kind of stone can be found, but it turned out I had one really close to the place I call home these days, so cool!

However, if I had to make a top of all the places I discovered having trovants on their territory and which are 3 right now, the one from this post, which is in Daia, Sibiu, Romania, would, undoubtedly, take the last place just because it's the only one where I found lots of garbage.

Yep, I know! Many people travel hundreds of kilometres or make it to foreign countries just for the sake of exploring hidden gems offered by nature and even pay a little fortune to do so, while our beloved locals don't give a s!#t to, at least, not pollute it in any way.

It's sad, and it always makes me internally scream as well as when seeing people illegally cut down thousands of trees at any step, but it's real.

Even if in over 8 years since I started writing, I did my best promoting Romania and showing unique places I ended up exploring, and which bring another reason to be so grateful and proud to be born here, the trash pollution and illegal logging remain two of the biggest problems when it comes to human intervention among tourism on this part of the globe.

I always tried to look out for excuses and remain optimistic, but frankly speaking, there is no excuse to make such a mess when you have plenty of trash bins along the road. The single victim here is the natural creation that is placed right next to the street, where most likely many people stop to eat or take a break from a long drive.

But even so, there is no excuse to leave trash behind you. However, I doubt things will ever change, as despite seeing lots of warning panels that polluting nature attracts a fine, I can't really say that I ever heard of having any of these actually sent as a little gift at home to those that left trash in other places than these were trash should end.

Anyway, moving further, I tried my best to keep a smile on my face and still enjoy the place, making abstraction to the little details that were constantly popping in my eye.

That's how I managed to get closer to the walls, which, from a distance they seemed like basalt columns and which would make a really interesting topic since they usually appear around volcanoes.

But it turned out these were just the marks left by the excavation vehicles, which perhaps discovered this location and left it behind with the hope that it would remain untouched.

On a normal day, I would have written down this post from a more objective point of view, but as a person who was forced to stay away from one of her biggest passions (travelling) for a couple of years, it was really sad to face such a situation right from the beginning.

What I know for sure, though, is that, no matter how many situations of this kind I will face from now on, I will never stop exploring and promoting Romania as much as I can. And even with all the garbage that might gather with the passage of time, I still find the trovants and this place in general as a location with a high potential of interest from tourists, as it's not a thing you see every day or anywhere else.

Some of these stones were pretty damaged, which makes me wonder if it's not caused by human intervention again? I won't be surprised.

But even so, there are plenty of intact stones that are so popular for their perfectly round shape and for the name of "Living Stones".

For the people who enjoy legends and a bit of uncommon stories, then there are these sayings that grew with the passage of time, such as the stones are either brought from a different planet and come with a strange energy, making people feel a bit of dizzines while being around them, or that they shelter all kind of spirits which start haunting the surroundings at night, some locals even assuming they felt their presence.

But if we make it to the realistic and scientific explanation, then keep in mind the stones are indeed a not-so-common thing offered by nature, but yet part of nature and not any other weird 3rd parties locations.

Both their shape and size adjust a few millimetres every year, depending on how much rain was along the year. Due to the soil, which is mostly sandy, it makes the stones get more outside the soil and even catch a bit of the sand on their surface, which makes them seem like growing.

Trovantii de Sibiu de la Daia are located a bit further than Daia village, Sibiu county, and they are just 15 km away from Sibiu city. To reach them, you only need to drive on the county road DJ106 passing through Zorabia, Bavaria, Daia Noua and Daia villages before you reach the destination. Once you make it out of Daia Village, you will shortly notice the trovant just next to the main street, and there is plenty of space where you can park your car to enjoy the unique spot offered by nature, at no cost.

^{Gabriela Travels is a Curator for Worldmappin and Hive Gaming communities, but also the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (350+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game and book reviews, lets plays, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 850+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, owning a YouTube channel for each of the two.}

//:# (//:# (!worldmappin 45.79057 lat 24.31491 long A unique place offered by nature but slowly and surely ruined by the locals d3scr))