A Day Doing What We Do

Many of my friends ask me what I do exactly, how I create or manage a trip for our guests. Do I stay at the office, do I accompany them on tours, do I check the places personally? The answer to the first two questions depends on many things, but the last one is always yes.

So I start giving them examples. As I’m about to give you.

I’ve just returned from Bukovina, and my memories are still fresh, so this should be easy. It was the second time I’ve been there in the last 6 months, so this was no regular research trip. It was about setting all the details for an out-of-the-ordinary tour we’ll have in May, with requests so special we have to discuss everything in person with our partners in the region, and then do it again in a couple of months. You wonder what could be so special? Well, everything that involves the airport arrival procedures, ground transportation, lunches, monastery visits… It all needs to go smoothly, like a Swiss clock. So, after my colleague Raluca already met everyone, I went there to meet them as well, from the airport manager to the restaurant chef. And we’ll go again just before the tour starts.

As you may know, our main office is in Timisoara, the Western part of Romania, so from here to Bukovina there’s quite a drive, almost 10 hours.  So I flew to Bucharest, made a stop at my favourite restaurant, took the company car and drove the rest of the way to Suceava, for about 6 hours. But you just can’t do this job if driving is not your thing, and I must confess – I love it! I could drive for days, I just need my map and my music.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ2hV1fBsZv/?taken-by=beyonddracula

Of course it wasn’t all work and no fun, as it never is. What I enjoyed most was the food and the people (as it’s always the case), even if now, after I got back home, I need to go on a diet to fit in my skinny jeans again. And the people? The people in Bukovina are so hospitable and accommodating, I would have liked to get adopted by the restaurant owner and ask the bus driver to be my next best friend.

I’m not going to tell you about the famous painted monasteries there, all on the UNESCO World Heritage list (I wrote a more thorough report here, last summer). I visited some of them again, just because I wanted to see how the sky above them looks in winter, how it changes the colours of the frescoes. And it was worth it, my Instagram photos were a success.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ0IRtAhKgd/?taken-by=beyonddracula

Joke aside, Bukovina is a place that always manages to surprise me, and I would go back there over and over, be it summer or winter or spring. For you, I would recommend summer, though…

This is just a glimpse into my work life, although it’s not so much work when you love what you do. If you’d like to know more, hit the Comment button at the bottom of the page, I’d be more than happy to share.