Fascinating inside view of modern-day Romania
Searching for Sarmizegetusa - Journeys to the heart of Rural Romania is more than a travel book about Romania, its history, rich culture and beauty. It is a homage to a country that Caroline Juler knows and loves, a lament for the inestimable natural, cultural and historical riches that globalization and 'progress' are steadily destroying. Yet it is also a song of hope and a summons to challenge the irresponsibility of human greed. Famous as a prehistoric Carpathian citadel, for the author of these Romanian travel stories, Sarmizegetusa is also a symbol of Romania's spirited rejection of corruption and bad governance in the 21st century.
To many travellers, writes Jessica Douglas-Home in the foreword to this book, Romania has exerted the most powerful fascination. They have found that this country more than any other has illuminated their inner beliefs with the intensity of a magnifying glass. So it has been for Caroline Juler...
Caroline Juler is a writer and art historian. She is the author of the Blue Guide and the National Geographic Traveler guide to Romania and has travelled all over the country. In the late 1990s, she became involved with the struggle to save the historic site of Ro ia Montana from open pit mining. She has written for the popular radio programme, From Our Own Correspondent, and is currently researching a book about Romanian shepherds' epic journeys to the Caucasus and beyond.