Recently, I had the opportunity to make it to one of these places that I can certainly say it comes with a unique thing in Romania, especially when Vikings and Romania have nothing in common.
Although I am close to the age where I should rather look for chill and relaxing places, far from kids or too many people around, I'd lie by saying that I don't enjoy themed parks because they have always been my guilty pleasure. And no doubt this thing will always stay, no matter what the age number will be.
Hence why, at the middle of June, right after I visited Transfăgărășan and Bâlea Lake that took us through Avrig on the way there, I thought that it was about time to stop by the Viking Village Panoramic Park that I heard about when it was first announced at the local news, as well as see it becoming more and more popular on social media for building such a different world in the middle of Romania.
By the time I visited the themed park I was not aware that this place was actually known for a Dino Themed Park, but which, after a couple of years with not a lot of success since a way bigger and more interesting Dino Park is located in a different part of Romania, so the competition was real, the people owning the park thought about re-building a whole new one, based on what they previously had beyond the large gates.
I found it both cool and inspiring not to give up on the dream of owning such a place and offering it to the tourists by reinventing it with something completely unique in Romania.
The schedule for visiting the park is between 10 AM and 6 PM during weekdays, and between 10 AM and 7 PM during the weekend.
The prices for visiting the park are 35 RON for adults (~7 EUR) and 30 RON (~6 EUR) for kids under 16 years old. Quite expensive if you ask me, especially that it used to cost half of this when operating as a Dino Park and about 25 RON for adults just a few weeks ago. But the simple explanation I get for changing the prices so quickly is that the owners really wanted to take advantage of all the popularity they gained on social media lately to cover the investment costs as fast as possible.
The rest of the information from the panel is that you can visit all the houses you'll find on the themed park, but still be needed to pay a new price if you want to enjoy a race with the ATV while dragging a Viking boat, shooting with a gun, or shooting with a bow. Either way, all these can be purchased only when you reach the allocated areas, and not from the ticket office.
The ticket office is located on the right, yet the first thing you see when you pass the large gates.
Just next to the ticket office, there are the first stairs that lead to the fortress wall, which sadly only surrounds the front side of the themed park and not all around.
However, this is just a place from where you can observe the mountains in the distance or what the park has to offer before proceeding to explore it further.
The Viking-themed houses are actually in the distance, while these you can see nearby are shops and existed since the Dino Themed Park, but only changed their appearance slightly, being recently painted to match the rest of the park's theme.
|
The first house it was some sort of creative workshop, but we couldn't find anyone within. It seemed like an activity for kids anyway, so perhaps that's why the staff was missing since no kids were around.
The other house, though, was a gift shop with a few Viking-themed toys made of wood for kids. They had reasonable prices, but I wish I could see more themed souvenirs instead of the classic ones you get to see no matter the side of Romania you explore.
Along the fortress wall, there were a couple of resting places that were perfectly arranged so you could take a break from the sun's rays, since there are no trees around to make the walk a bit more enjoyable during the hot days of the summer.
Still in the same area but closer to the walking path, there were some very interesting swings that can only be used by people under 60kg. None of us weighed under 60 kg, so we stayed away from trying them, but I still remained curious about what would happen if you were over 60 kg. Perhaps you will end up falling since there are no weights attached to the catapult to counterbalance.
As we walked further, we reached a very lovely-looking terrace, which was part of a restaurant that looked really cool as well. We had a thought about returning here to eat or drink something before going home after we finished checking out the park, but since we've spent a lot more time around than planned, we gave up on this thought.
However, after reaching home and reading some of the reviews about the Viking Village Panoramic Park, I noticed a lot of people complaining about the prices here, as well as the food, which, in most cases, the food served is frozen ready-to-cook type, and there is no actual chef behind to cook fresh food. Again, this is what I've read in reviews, so I don't know for sure, but I did notice no one was around inside the restaurant, so the rumours might be true.
Just across the restaurant, there was a full playground for kids, which seemed quite detailed if you ask me, as well as a full area arranged for ATV rides.
And speaking of ATVs, you can either rent an entire one to drive it in the allocated area, or have one of the Viking-themed rides with the boats I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I am not sure about the prices as I couldn't find them listed anywhere, but I was happy to see someone enjoy one of these during our walk in the park.
|
Still in the same part of the park, which was at the very back of the yard, I found some mirrors that were distorting reality and which we had a lot of fun taking pictures in.
While these are free of charge, I can't say the same about the shooting area where you could use a bow or a gun to shoot targets, the lady from there saying that they have these activities on sale from 15 RON (~ 3EUR) to 10 RON (~ 2 EUR) back then.
To be honest, I don't believe that these were actually on sale, but rather set the prices based on how many people they have around, because, along with us visiting it, a few more couples and a bus full of kids, the park was pretty empty. And we visited it at the weekend at an hour that should be the peak for tourists. Perhaps the expensive visiting tickets or the thing that they request money for every single activity you can have in the park, could make them lose tourists.
There was also another corner with "basketball" activities in order to win a teddy bear, but where you would get to throw balloons instead of basketballs, so zero chance to win any of these. In fact, all the teddy bears were very dirty and seemed like they had been there since forever, none of them actually being able to be won by those who spend some money trying their luck. And yeah, the "basketballs" were hidden before you would pay to get these. Once my sister's bf paid for the game, he got the balloons, but wasn't able to see them before. Quite a scam if you are asking me.
As soon as we finished checking out all the other activities you can have while visiting the park, we proceeded to the actual Viking themed side, being welcomed by one of the famous boats you could see in the series or games with Vikings, where I was pleasantly surprised to be able to actually climb and enter it.
Everything on the inside looked like a genuine boat, with 10 seats (5 on each side) from where you could row the oar.
The first house we met after leaving the ship behind was also the main attraction of the park, known as the Official Vikings House.
It wouldn't be hard to guess that the whole fun is around this house because it seemed like the largest and most decorated one, where a lady was waiting outside to welcome us and encourage us to go check it on the inside too.
|
|
I'd lie by saying that this didn't feel like stepping into a whole new world that ended a long time ago.
All details here, from statues to the large table used for the famous Vikings’ ceremonies, all the inscriptions, decorations on the walls, as well as the bed that was entirely covered by real fur coats, created a great atmosphere to feel what this park is actually all about.
The lady who welcomed us asked if we had any questions about the place, but we were truly mesmerised to get any questions into our heads. What would have been nice, though, would be to actually get information about the place without asking for it, because it's kind of obvious you won't really know what to ask about it since it's a unique project in Romania.
But from my experience as a gamer, I felt a lot of inspiration from the Assassin's Creed Valhalla video game, which was set during the Viking times. And I am not speaking about the decoration, which is normal to seem like being part of those times, but more about some of the statues that reminded me very clearly of some of the main characters of the game.
Right next to the Viking House, we found the next house we could explore, which was that of the Blacksmith.
Since Romania has a couple of cities where the medieval influences are still very strong, I can say that I couldn't really feel the Viking thing in this house because it looked pretty much like any Blacksmith house one could find. The single details that made the difference were the shield and the text on the back wall.
Similar thoughts I had also with the next house visited, which was The Weaving Factory.
While the previous one still had a few details to make you think about Vikings, this one was entirely lacking, with everything exposed being part of the Romanian national costume, as well as the tools used back then to create them.
Some of these are still used in some parts of the country to create traditional costumes. So big minus on this one. I would have really loved to see some actual Viking clothes or even get to wear some armour to take pictures with.
Two more houses that could be visited but we decided not to, were The Drakkar of Stories and The Workshop House, both of which mostly focus on activities with kids.
While at The Workshop House, this was pretty obvious, for The Drakkar of Stories, we only found out when approaching it and reading the warning panel that we need to take the shoes off before entering the house, where cartoons are being broadcast for the little ones.
We finished our journey by walking down the alley, which was surrounded by massive fangs creating a very cool effect, almost asking for pictures from anyone passing by, then made it back to the car which we left in front of the themed park, where it's not an actual parking lot but more like a lot of space on the open field where the other people visiting the park left their cars as well.
In conclusion, I absolutely loved the experience of visiting The Viking Village Panoramic Park and although it still seems quite expensive for what it has to offer, based on the thing that only one house is actually Viking themed, we had a good time walking around, and it surely reached our expectations for being transposed in a different age, at least for a couple of minutes.
The Viking Village Panoramic Park is located in Avrig, just 25 km away from Sibiu. Once you make it to Avrig, you will soon follow a road that somehow keeps you away from the crowded streets of the city, ending up on an unpaved path known as Valea Avrigului, which also leads to some other points of interest nearby. Just before making on this path, you will find a few road signs already leading the way to the Viking Village Panoramic Park.
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.
~ @GabrielaTravels ~
[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 45.71114 lat 24.43256 long One of the most beautiful themed parks in Romania d3scr))
