tymes tours
travel agent & tour operator in Timişoara, Romania
sightseeing tours, cultural trips, nature tours and active travel
Our team
professionals of working
for and with the guests
The team of Tymes Tours is small, but dedicated.
Yes, today many official qualifications for the tourism field are required. But nothing can replace the rich past experiences and the pleasure of working with the people.
During the eight years of our existence we have been helped by many, many wise people to develop and improve our tours. In some cases, these people were specialists in some narrow fields – by example, special mention goes to Mihai Călin, Ph.D. in Arts History, also other academics helped us on certain issues.
In the end, Tymes Tours is not just the result the work of the three people bellow, but also the result of countless interactions, discussions and advices. We take (a lot of) time to talk to people which are much wiser than us. Naming them all would be merely impossible, but this is the right place to show our gratitude for the good ideas which came along.
So: we are glad if you share your thoughts with us!
(and, for staying in touch, the page of Tymes Tours on FaceBook is very valuable and easy to use!)
City tour in Sibiu: on the "Liars' Bridge".
Sibiu is a charming city in southern Transylvania, famous for its medieval heritage; it was European Capital of Culture 2007, hence it came in the focus of international tourism. Many groups of bus travellers visit the city, most of them hear romantic (but false) stories of the bridge. Nevertheless, there are more than enough spectacular facts about the city's monuments even without such "touristy" stories.
For a guide, it's quite easy to fall in the trap of the stories made "extra" for the tourists. On the other hand, a guide is only human, and the his hard-disk storage is limited. The guide can not be a "walking encyclopedia", but it his duty to disseminate decent and accurate information. Which is, even for travel professionals, not always easy to find. The Internet, by example, is filled with false, legend-like information on many sites of interests.
Tours in the mountains, tours in the city
tours in summer, tours in winter
Some of our team (Cristian Stanciu and Lulu), during the midday break of a hiking day – both focused on a sandwich. Well, some more focused than the other... The picture is taken during a hiking tour with guests from Austria, through the karst region of the Cerna Valley National Park.
A city tour under icy conditions: for the anniversary of 20 years since the Revolution in December 1989, Timişoara received many foreign guests. We were asked by the city hall to organize a city tour for official guests (in the picture: guests from the UK embassy in Bucharest, and guide Cristian Bădoiu). It was bitter cold that day, which is not so usual in our city; during Timişoara's "week of fire" in December 1989, we had between 15 and 20 degrees (plus) each day.
Quotes on Romania & Romanian tourism...
photo:
The Independent
"Yet it's a pity that Romania's tourist authorities play so relentlessly on the Dracula cult to the virtual exclusion of all else, for it totally overshadows the more accessible and no less interesting Saxon history of southern Transylvania."
Marcus Tanner, "The Independent" (UK)
source: The Independent
Marcus Tanner is a British journalist and writer, specialised in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe. He came to Transylvania tracking the famous Renaissance King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus (which came from an old Transylvanian noblemen family). Soon he discovered that the region offered much more than the outworn story of Dracula. This was 2009. In the meantime, it seems that the Romanian tourism authorities understood this facts and left the whole kitsch aside. But it takes long till such thoughts from high-positioned ministries reach the "real life" of the tour operators and the rest of the travel industry. So, there is still no shortage of Dracula T-shirts at some tourism hotspots. And some people still think that Dracula is Romania's entry ticket into the world of the mass-tourism. But, once in Romania, the travellers soon discover that there's much more here to be seen and enjoyed, and the tourism of the type "Disney show" does more harm than good.
Cristian Bădoiu, Manager
I established Tymes Tours in the year 2004, and it was a dream come true. My special interest is the niche tourism, in small groups and with in-depth visits. I like interacting with people, so I also work as a guide for our guests. Mass tourism ("industrial tourism") is not my thing – the face of a happy visitor tells me more than short-term statistics. I love the mountains, but also our city, Timişoara. Private interests: hiking, history, architecture and European wild orchids. And Lulu.
Raluca Bârzu, Managing Partner
I helped creating Tymes Tours and also supported its development in the first years. I live in Bucharest, so my activity with Tymes Tours, whose headquarter is almost 600 km away in Timişoara, is less noticeable from the outside. Still, I use my skills of building useful connections in Romania's capital city. I am very pleased to see how Tymes Tours nicely developed into a long-term activity aimed primarily at "producing happy faces" instead of a pure short-term business.
Cristian Stanciu, Guide
I started hiking the mountains of Banat and Transylvania in my childhood, and I am happy to see that most of our mountains still belong to the category of "insider tips". I work with Tymes Tours only during summer, taking care together with "the other Cristian" (C.B.) that our tours in Retezat National Park, Cerna Valley and Danube's Gorge (Iron Gates) evolve under the best circumstances. Five years ago, I left the city and moved into a small village, in a bucolic countryside – so now I had to give up some of the mountaineering, because taking care of a huge garden and fruit orchard takes a lot of time. Main private interest: cycling / bicycle, above all.
Lulu, Labrador
I'm responsible for the good mood with the Tymes Tours – in the office, when sometimes Cristian studies Excel-sheets for hours, as well as in many trips. I'm almost always "in" within the hiking tours – I've even learned the German language with Viennese accent, in exchange for a sandwich from the tourists. My favourite spot: Danube Gorge, since I like to swim a lot; coming out swimming from the Ponicova Cave belongs to my best moments of the year. As Cristian says about me: "This dog [ i.e: me ] has seen more real tourism than many tour operators which never leave the office."
tymes tours is owned by SC Tymes Globetrotter SRL
Str. Lisabona nr. 7/1A, Timisoara, RO 300603, info@tymestours.ro
Tourism licence no. 3196/2004