Romania
Dragons' Garden
Gradina Zmeilor (The Dragons’ Garden) is an ensemble of bizarre shaped rocks (towers, mushrooms, needles, steeps) which became mythical characters in local legends.
Some state they are the result of a battle between the forces of evil and the forces of good.
Others talk about dragons that stole the Sun and a young man that fought them. When he restored the Sun on the sky, the dragons were dazed by the shining and turned into stone.
Another legend is about an evil woman who disagreed with the love between her daughter and a soldier. She cursed their love, turning them into stone.
The folk imagination gave the rocks interesting names: “The Soldier’s Girl”, “the Dragon and the Lady Dragon”, “the Old man”, “the Monks”, “the Captain”, “the Soldiers”, “Eve”, “The Infantry Man”, “the Little Finger”, “the Sphinx”.
The landscape changes its shape and height year by year.
The dragons are actually structures of conglomerates and sandstone whose appearance is due to continuous corrosion of water, wind and gravitational processes.
