There is a moment at the Costin gallery that I wait for every time. About five minutes in, a guest stops listening to me, halts in front of a display case and starts counting the objects. Then they move to the next case and count again. Hurrying anyone at that point is pointless, so I wait by the door and let guests take their time in that room.
I built this whole day around one word: collection. In the morning we look at what one man gathered over a lifetime and put under one roof in Ialoveni. Around midday we reach Hincesti and an estate that was pieced back together part by part, a palace and a hunting castle. And at the end we go down to the biggest collection of the day, more than 1.7 million bottles lying underground at Milestii Mici. It comes to about a hundred kilometres with no long drives, and before evening you are back home or at your hotel. Exactly when depends on the programme you choose at Milestii Mici.
First of all, people who love odd museums. Every country has rooms full of labels and dates, but here, behind every case, you can see the man who dreamed it all up. If the first thing you look for in a new city is a museum of something completely useless, we will get on just fine.
Next, people visiting on a rainy day. Almost the whole programme is indoors, so the weather hardly matters, and the short walk to the hunting castle works under an umbrella too.
And finally, people who are tired of sitting in a car. The gallery is only twelve kilometres from Chișinău, and the other places are close together, so you spend more time looking than driving, which is rare for a day trip here. It is most often chosen by guests who have done the classics and want something they will describe back home while still not quite believing it themselves.
We reach Ialoveni early, and usually nobody else is in the gallery yet. It was founded by the collector Petru Costin, and the word “museum” doesn't quite fit. More precisely, it houses over twenty-five themed collections assembled by one man under one roof, “themed” meaning each is devoted to a single thing. And sometimes that thing is hard to believe until you see the whole case.
I won't list what exactly is collected there, because the list is long, and half the fun is walking into the next room and guessing what he decided to collect next. Some collections make sense from the doorway, while in front of others you stop and wonder why anyone needed this at all. I have asked myself that more than once, and the only answer I have found is: because he could.
I talk less here than anywhere else on my routes. I'll tell you about the collector later, in the car to Hincesti, and in the gallery I would rather walk beside you and translate the labels when you ask. Guests drift slowly from case to case, as if through a shop where nothing is for sale, and the hour flies by. If you read every label, I'll be honest: an hour won't be enough, and I'm happy to stay longer if you don't mind moving the rest of the schedule back.
On the way out I ask which collection stuck with you most. The answers rarely match, and to my mind that is the best thing you can say about a museum.
Half an hour's drive and we are in Hincesti. The Manuc Bey mansion is a 19th-century palace complex in the French neoclassical style. The word “complex” matters more to me here than “palace”, because this is not one building but a whole ensemble: the palace with its halls, and the hunting castle. The estate is named after Manuc Bey, an Armenian merchant and diplomat, and it grew gradually, building by building, much like Costin's collections. That is usually what I talk about as we walk from one to the other.
The estate has been restored, and the halls are open, bright and echoing. Either I show you around myself, or a local guide does, if they speak your language. The hunting castle stands apart, and we walk there on foot, even if the group is already glancing at their watches.
We spend about an hour at the estate. If the group is keen to get to the wine, we move faster, and if it's the other way round, I don't hurry anyone and always find a spare ten minutes.
By now two collections put together by people are behind you, and the third was put together by a whole country. Milestii Mici is the largest wine collection in the world: more than 1.7 million bottles lie in tunnels cut into the limestone, and the passages add up to hundreds of kilometres. You will see only a small part of them, which is enough to grasp the scale.
I won't describe this cellar in detail here, since I have a separate day built around it. On this route it comes last, which is exactly where it belongs. After Costin's cases and the halls of Manuc Bey you go underground, where the temperature drops at once and sounds become muffled, and then you hear a number that's hard to picture: more than 1.7 million. In the morning the cases held hundreds of objects, and down here it is a similar collection on a national scale.
You choose the cellar programme yourself, with or without a tasting, and pay for it on site. If you want to take a bottle home, I'll tell you which wine to choose, and that is paid on site as well. You can have lunch right there at the winery if you like, or skip it and eat back in town: Chișinău is twenty-two kilometres away.
Wear comfortable shoes, but hiking boots aren't needed: there are no rocks or climbs today, just halls and a short walk to the hunting castle. Above all, I ask you to bring something warm for the cellar. It is cool underground in any month, and in July you really notice it, when it's over thirty outside and down below you want to zip up. A jumper or jacket can wait in the car until lunchtime, and I'll remind you before we go down. When you come back up, the air outside feels warm, even in November.
The tour price covers the car with fuel, me as your driver, the tour in your language (English, German, Russian or Romanian), pick-up and drop-off anywhere in Chișinău, and water in the car, a bottle each. If you would rather have Italian, Spanish or Turkish, a guide from my team who speaks it will come with you. On site you pay separately for four things:
The winery and the Manuc Bey mansion take cards, but for the Costin gallery I'd bring a little cash, just in case.
Children usually find this day easier than monasteries and fortresses: the drives are short, almost everything is indoors, and the gallery has plenty to look at without a grown-up explaining. I fit a child seat for children from nine months on request, and it is included in the price, so just tell me the child's age. The tasting is for adults only, of course, but otherwise the route suits children well. If they get bored in the halls of the mansion, I take that into account and keep the visit short.
The route runs all year round. In summer the order of the day works out well by itself: you spend the hottest hours in the cool underground. In winter nothing changes, except that you're already wearing warm clothes. Rain barely gets in the way of this day, so if the forecast has spoiled your other plans, pick this route. If someone in your party finds walking hard, or you have a pushchair, write to me in advance: I'll check the conditions at each place and rearrange the day, so we don't have to sort it all out once we're there.
I love this route because it looks nothing like a postcard. Nobody comes to Moldova for a gallery of collections in Ialoveni, yet back home that is exactly what people talk about, as I've heard more than once. The palace and the cellar complete the trip: first the display cases, then the halls, then the tunnels, each place bigger than the one before.
Up to four people travel with me in a Toyota Prius+, five or six in an Opel Vivaro, and for larger groups there is a Mercedes Sprinter. I pick you up at your hotel or any address in Chișinău and bring you back there. If I'm already booked on your date, a guide from my team takes the same route, but I'm still the one responsible for how it goes. If you've already seen Milestii Mici, tell me in advance, and we'll work out together what to put in its place at the end. And if on the road you want to skip something or stay longer somewhere, just say so, and I'll rearrange the day as we go.
What's included in the price and what costs extra are listed on the tour page: Costin Collections Gallery, Manuc Bey and Milestii Mici. There is a booking form there too, or you can message me directly on WhatsApp.
Message me on WhatsApp with the date you have in mind and how many of you there are: if the day is free, I'll shape it around your group, and if it isn't, I'll suggest another.
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