Tuesday, June 6 – Timisoara (Temeschburg)

Soon after Gyor, we diverted off the main highway to the early German towns in the Schildegeberge. The land had been flat as a pancake (Yes, even flatter than Saskatchewan) since before we entered Hungary. Suddenly there is this narrow band of beautiful green hills running NE-SW. We drove down the western side, then through a pass. We detoured off the main road on not much more than a cart path to the town of Kozma, where Mary Ann hoped to find connections. As we drove up the narrow road, we wondered, “What do people do here?” as there was no agriculture apparent. We soon learned when we ran into a couple of logging trucks.

At Kozma, we hit the jackpot for Mary Ann. We found about 10 stones in her Kindl line. Unfortunately, we got ourselves well behind schedule and had to leave three other villages to catch on the way back.

The land remained as flat as a table top all the rest of the day. We drove across Hungary and into Romania at Kiszombor/Cenad where Helmut paid 50 Euros for a 9 Euro road tax receipt. We were about an hour behind schedule, or so we thought. It turns out that there is a time zone change also, and we were actually two hours late and it was just after 4 pm. Undetered, our guide, Sorin Fortiu stated his determination to complete the planned five hour program. Forgive him for his naivete, for he soon learned that it takes a pack of border collies to keep this crowd on track!

The next town we passed was the old Gross St. Nikolaus. It was very prosperous and booming with new jobs as several international companies are building facilities to be on the doorstep of the EU without having to be inside and follow the detailed rules. This town was not of interest to us, however, so we went on to Tomnatic (Triebswetter), where Jim and Frank both had interests. Once we were off the main highway, the roads were so bad that they make Saskatchewan’s look like they are paved with gold. The villages were very poor and poorly maintained. The houses and streets were all in need of major repair. The main vehicle for transportation and work is still the horse drawn wagon.

We spent quite a while in the Tomnatic cemetery and Jim found a few headstones of interest. He also thought that he had a pretty good handle on the old family home, but we were unable to locate it. Too much had changed.

Here is an example of a Donauschwaben house that Sorin figured might be an original. Note that the door from outside opens onto a covered porch that runs the langth of the house.

We went on through Lovrin and Gottlob to Grabat (Grabatz). We took a few pictures of the church and moved on to Comlosu Mic (Ostern) via Jimbolia (Hatzfeld). Frank had some pretty good luck here and found a few stones of interest. Then we backtracked to Grabatz and scouted their cemetery before moving on to Lenauheim, Bulgarus (Bogarosch), and, finally, Timisoara about 10 p.m. We hadn’t had anything to eat since a junk food snack about 11 a.m., so most of us went to the hotel restaurant and didn’t bed down until close to midnight.

Timisoarsa is a bigger city than I thought. It is about 400,000 people by itself and about 500,000 including the immediately surrounding suburban areas. The hotel was remodeled only a couple of years ago and was quite modern with front desk staff that were fluently bilingual.

On the bus today, Sue told us that it was her birthday and that she couldn’t think of a better way to spend it. Later, the hotel noticed her birthday on her registration and sent up a complimentary bottle of champagne. With the language barrier, she didn’t know what to make of it, but finally accepted it from the insistent hotel employee.

Weather today was pretty decent with some sunny periods and mild temperatures.