Wines, Walks, Warm Welcomes

It was over filter coffee at our favourite corner café in Bangalore that the idea of Moldova first came up. Vinod was scrolling through an old travel blog on lesser-known European countries when he paused and said, “How about our next trip to Moldova?” Something struck me about the name itself—soft, mysterious, and so unfamiliar—called to both of us. A few months later, after wrangling with Schengen visa alternatives, sifting through forums, and booking the quirkiest flight route—Bangalore to Istanbul, and then to Chișinău—we landed in Moldova’s capital with woollen jackets under our arms and minds wide open.

Chișinău, pronounced “Kee-shee-now”, greeted us with a surprising blend of stark Soviet blocks, tree-lined boulevards, and the aroma of freshly baked plăcintă (Moldovan pies) wafting from street kiosks. Our Airbnb host, Irina, met us at the door with a warm smile and a plate of homemade walnut cookies. “Welcome to the quiet heart of Europe,” she said. Our first walk around the city was on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon. There was a gentle melancholy to Chișinău—a slowness we grew to love. Locals strolled past us in thick coats, couples sat quietly on benches in Stefan Cel Mare Park, and trolleybuses clanked along wires overhead. We paused by the Triumph Arch, a modest but proud symbol, and laughed over how it could comfortably fit inside one of Bangalore’s malls. We had read that Moldova was a wine country, but we weren’t prepared for just how deeply wine is woven into its soul. On our second day, Irina arranged for us to visit a small village called Mileștii Mici, home to the world’s largest underground wine cellar—over 200 km of tunnels! But our real wine story began not in those grand halls, but in the home of Gheorghe, a farmer Irina knew from her childhood. We drove out with him in a rickety Lada to his vineyard. The land was bare and golden, and the vines clipped back for winter, but Gheorghe’s stories made everything bloom. Over a lunch of mămăligă (cornmeal porridge), pickles, and pork stew, he poured us wine he’d made in his basement. It was fruity, warm, and slightly wild—much like Moldova itself.

Gheorghe told us how every family in the countryside makes its own wine, bottling it in old Coca-Cola bottles. “Here,” he said, tapping his chest, “wine is not a drink. It is memory.” We left that afternoon with pink cheeks, two plastic bottles of vin de casă, and an invitation to return in autumn for the grape harvest.

A day trip to Orheiul Vechi took us an hour north of the capital. This is Moldova’s most iconic landscape—a limestone ridge curving along the Răut River, with caves carved into its cliffs by monks centuries ago.

As we entered the cave monastery, a solitary monk in a grey robe was sweeping the floor. He had a long beard and piercing eyes—and, amusingly, a bright blue Nokia 1100 clipped to his sash. He spoke little English, but when Vinod pointed at the cave ceiling—blackened with candle soot—the monk said simply, “Many prayers.” Then he handed us a candle and motioned for silence. We sat for a while in the cool stone silence, the only sounds being the wind outside and our own breath. Later, the monk smiled and showed us a tiny window looking down at the river. “God’s TV,” he said, chuckling.

Back in Chișinău, we explored the bustling Piata Centrala, the central market where everything from garlic to carpets is sold. There, we tried our hand at haggling—with mixed results. Vinod tried to buy a woollen hat and ended up with three, thanks to an elderly woman who insisted he “looked like her grandson”. I, meanwhile, got locked inside a public toilet near the market for ten minutes and had to shout until a teenage girl rescued her with a hairpin. The girl, Alina, ended up walking us back to our apartment, chatting in a mix of Russian and Romanian. We exchanged Instagram handles and selfies near a graffiti wall that read “Nu uita să zâmbești” — Don’t forget to smile.

No visit to Moldova feels complete without stepping into the time-warped world of Transnistria, the breakaway region that still thinks the USSR exists. A day trip to Tiraspol was both surreal and sobering. Crossing the border, we had to go through a checkpoint, get a slip of paper (not a stamp), and promise not to photograph any government buildings. The city itself felt like a movie set—Lenin statues, tank memorials, and street names like “Karl Marx” and “Sovetskaya.” We visited a local café where the server looked confused when we asked for a menu. “Just food,” she shrugged and brought us borscht, black bread, and a sweet cherry compote. It was delicious. At another shop, we bought Soviet pins and accidentally triggered a five-minute discussion in Russian on “how times used to be better”. By sunset, we were ready to leave the nostalgia behind. Moldova’s quiet charm felt more alive than Transnistria’s frozen past.