For decades, Charles has periodically returned to Romanian villages lost in time, where cattle clog the streets and horse-drawn carts still march the roads. This is the king’s preferred pace.
The king’s chamber is surprisingly simple: there is no WiFi, no television, but there is a 17th-century wood-burning stove, a wooden box bed, and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II looking from the wall – like a mother checking if you’ve tidied up your room. But when you step out, the decor starts to make sense, writes Washington Post about the house Charles owns in the village of Valea Zălanului, in Covasna County.
To understand King Charles III — who last week marked the third anniversary of his ascension to the throne and this week will meet with President Donald Trump — forget Buckingham Palace.
Instead, follow a five-kilometer dirt road in Romania, through meadows with wildflowers and pastel-painted houses, to house number 1, on the edge of this Transylvanian hamlet, where a villager greeted recent visitors with a warning: a bear and her cub were seen nearby.
This is Charles's preferred pace. For a quarter of a century, he has periodically returned to Romanian villages "lost in time," where cattle clog the streets and horse-drawn carts still march the roads.
"Romania is part of his life," said Count Tibor Kálnoky, a distant relative and friend of the king, in an interview.
"He finds many of the things he has experienced (…) all his beliefs that he tries to convey and fight for, he finds them here," the count said. "The fact that he has been coming for over 25 years speaks for itself."
What Romania Has and England Has Lost
Charles has been in the spotlight this year, participating in the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Sandringham, and opening Parliament in Canada.
But while these moments show the monarch fulfilling predictable formal duties on the world stage, Romania reveals something about the man behind the crown.
Charles likes to joke that he carries a part of Romania within him — he is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's "Dracula."
But his true attraction to Romania runs deeper.
Biographers say that rural Romania offers the king both a refuge and a living laboratory for his long-standing concerns about land, agriculture, and biodiversity. Here, small-scale agriculture is a way of life, and the landscape is rich in plants and animals that are lost or rare in Northern Europe.
Bears, wolves, and lynx - long gone from Britain due to hunting, deforestation, and habitat loss - still roam here. An information panel at one of his properties mentions that there are 1,200 species of higher plants just in this corner of Transylvania. Another quotes the king, stating that there are "over 200 species of butterflies in Romania, compared to just 40 in the United Kingdom."
In a 2014 speech at the University of Bucharest, Charles warned against modernization, mentioning that Britain made the "horrible mistake" of damaging its own rural heritage and biodiversity.
What the Municipality Should Have Done, Charles Did
Once ridiculed in his country, being labeled as a quirky prince who talks to plants; now many of Charles's views have become mainstream. While his carbon footprint has drawn criticism, he continues to express his passion for what he calls - with a capital N - Nature.
"I have come to love Romania," said Charles during a visit in 2023 - his first trip abroad after being crowned. "Romania has preserved in its ancient forests the untouched rural landscape and, through some remarkable examples of sustainable agriculture, an incomparable wealth of nature," he explained then.
Critics warn that his vision may romanticize the hardships of rural life. Romania's economy is nearing the EU average, but poverty in rural areas, while improving, remains among the highest in the EU bloc. And traditions are fading as tractors replace scythes and young people move to cities.
Supporters argue that the king's presence helps. Royal bustle attracts curious tourists, who then linger for the landscapes and traditions. Charles's various charitable organizations support people teaching rural skills, repair monuments, and fund projects like an ecological sewage system.
Charlesine Fernolend, president of the Mihai Eminescu Trust in Romania - a charitable organization dedicated to the conservation and regeneration of rural villages - and a lifelong resident of Viscri, whose family has lived there since 1142, credits Charles with raising the local standard of living in her village.
Through his patronage of the organization, he funded a large part of a 400,000 euro ecological wastewater treatment plant that uses gravity, reeds, and organic bacteria.
"It was the first ecological sewage system in Romania," she noted about the installation opened in 2011, in Charles's presence. "Normally, local authorities should do this." Her organization offered Charles a country house in 2006, but he chose to buy it for around 30,000 euros.
The Place the King Dreamed Of
The end of May and the beginning of June are Charles's favorite season here, when wildflowers spill over the hills.
He stays at his seven-bedroom guesthouse in Valea Zălanului, which closes to visitors and fills with his security staff.
At other times, rooms are rented for around $200 per night, with a supplement for activities like bear watching, horse-drawn cart rides, or baking a traditional dessert in the oven. Meals are usually communal.
A "wildlife journal" from the guesthouse recalls animal sightings. Charles spends hours walking through meadows with wildflowers where the only sounds are crickets and the swoosh of a stork.
On his last trip here in 2023, Charles invited the entire village - about 100 people - to a picnic. Families brought bread, cheese, and plum brandy. Charles, being British, showed up with jars of Marmite, a charming or puzzling move, depending on taste.
Kalnoky was the one who helped Charles find this place. He already owned another property in Romania, in the village of Viscri, but it was in the town center and, as Kalnoky put it, "was already becoming quite touristy and certainly wouldn't have had peace there."
So when Charles described, in detail, the cottage he desired - a stream, access to wildflowers, and a rural setting but not in its center, Kalnoky led him on a five-hour walk to a group of 17th-century cottages, near a flowing stream. His ancestor had built them centuries earlier to shelter glassmakers; the factory had long disappeared, and the buildings were in ruins.
"I asked him: 'Well, would this be suitable?'" Kalnoky recalls. "And he said, 'Exactly what I was dreaming of.' Charles bought the property in 2008.
Charles's Influence Beyond Valea Zălanului and Viscri
Charles first visited Romania in 1998, a difficult year after Princess Diana's death, and has returned almost every year since. Locals awaited him this year, but he departed for Canada.
His property in Viscri was renamed "The King's House" and reopened in 2022 as a museum and exhibition space. Profits support local initiatives, from planting apple trees to a new playground.
Viscri, with a population under 500, is probably the most famous village in Transylvania, hosting a UNESCO-listed fortified church, a restaurant featured by HBO, and, thanks to Charles, a certain royal prestige.
The King's House, located in the village center, sells local honey and ceramics and hosts a student-tended organic garden. Over 35,000 people visited it last year.
Popularity also has its disadvantages. House prices in the area are rising, and cars are restricted on the main dirt road, where cattle are still herded daily. Some guesthouses serve milk and cheese from local herds.
Charles's influence extends beyond the Zălan and Viscri Valleys. Eugen Vaida, who leads Ecologic Transylvania, the company that owns Charles's two properties in Romania, says the king's idea of "sustainable villages" has spread to other Saxon communities and UNESCO heritage sites. It has also attracted young urban professionals, people eager to restore old houses while leaving their structures intact.
"In Romania, unlike in the UK, he does not face opposition and is highly appreciated for what he does," notes biographer Catherine Mayer in her book, "Charles: The Heart of a King."
This appreciation is visible in the daily practices that Charles admires: beans and pumpkins planted among corn to suppress weeds without chemicals; hay cut with scythes to promote biodiversity; countryside houses painted in bright blue to repel insects.
Not all members of the royal family make the same impression here. Prince Harry visited once in 2012 and is recalled by some locals for riding motorcycles and drinking plum brandy - a livelier scene than Charles's walks in the meadow, as noted by the American newspaper.
Queen Camilla and Prince William have not yet traveled here, although Prince George already has a meadow with wildflowers - a piece of his grandfather's slower world - given to him at birth.
T.D.