Rural tourist attractions

During the Easter holidays, the Giroc locality hosts the „Semantron Festival”. This festival is attended by large numbers of young people from the Banat villages, but also by the monks from the Timișoara Eparchy, thus continuing the Holy Easter traditions and passing them on to future generations. The 33 semantrons used in the Semantron Festival represent the years Jesus spent on this Earth.

Niţchidorf is a village located in the southern part of Timiş County, 30 km from Timişoara. The name of the settlement comes from its founder, Count Kristóf Niczky, the first building here being mentioned in 1784. The village was inhabited by German-speaking and Banat Swabians, who left Romania in the 1980s. Niţchidorf became known throughout the world in 2009: Herta Müller, a German-language writer, born in Niţchidorf on August 17, 1953, won the Nobel Prize for Literature! At the village school, there are kept the school documents of Herta Muller, 1968 graduate. Photo source: https://www.facebook.com/Nițchidorf-Nitzkydorf-844682605582182/

In the village of Sărăzani, Bârna commune, there is preserved the oldest rural city hall in Banat, the monument being dated approximately between 1824 and 1835. The specialists placed the building into the category of rural constructions "with the plan inspired by the type of tricellular dwelling with partial porch". From the beginning, the building had an administrative functionality, as well as the headquarters of the City Hall. The construction was lifted on a short socle of quarry stone, the round oak beams being glued with clay, inside and outside, then painted in white lime. The floor is made of fir planks. The original shingle roof was replaced after World War I with a tile roof. In 1971, the City Hall of Sărăzani was transferred to the Banat Village Museum in Timişoara, where it is still today. Photo source: http://muzeulsatuluibanatean.ro/

The Becicherecu Mic commune is famous in Banat, because in 1775 the priest and teacher Dimitrie Ţichindeal was born here. He is known as a scholar, fabulist and translator, being appreciated by the national poet Mihai Eminescu as "Țichindeal the Golden Mouth" for his poetical talent. Dimitrie Ţichindeal was one of the most prominent representatives of the Enlightenment ideology in Banat, alongside Paul Iorgovici or Constantin Diaconovici Loga, using the writing talent as the main "weapon" for spreading his principles, meant to lead to "the national awakening and the rising of the Romanian nation". In 1812 he founded the first Romanian pedagogical school, which was among the first ones in Europe (the first normal school was founded in 1810 in Strasbourg), a school of Romanian intellectuality, known as Preparandia from Arad. The secondary school in Becicherecu Mic bears the name of Dimitrie Tichindeal, and in the village cemetery there is a funerary monument built in his memory. In addition to the establishment of a memorial museum, local authorities raised a monument in the center of the commune in honor of the great scholar of Banat - Dimitrie Ţichindeal. Text sources: http://ziarullumina.ro/; https://www.pressalert.ro/; http://turismtimis.ro/

The Jupâneşti village, located on the Vădanei valley (tributary of the Bega River), is the only active pottery center in Timiş county. Although only two potters (Velcu Trandafir and Barbos Martin) currently work, the village of Jupâneşti was famous among the Banat pottery centers, by the unglazed pots it produced. In the pottery of Banat, Jupâneşti ceramics have specific features and certain qualities: the fineness of the reddish tint paste, rich in iron oxides, the distinction of the geometric decoration inscribed only in red, the elegance of the shapes. The potters from Jupânești carried their products to the fairs of Făget, Balinţ, Lugoj, Săvârşin, Dobra, Ilia, Mureș valley and Hunedoara. Currently, the craftsmen sell their products at the Făget Fair or participate in the fairs in the country. The Jupâneşti Center is known in the country through the annual pottery fair, organized on a special plateau outside the village, surrounded by a spectacular landscape. The fair - visited by numerous tourists - is accompanied by performances of ”Făgețeana” Folk Ensemble from Făget and the famous "Dubașii" from Brănești.