My curiosity about Moldova was whetted by an article in the Financial Times by Mike Carter (‘The perfect place to escape other tourists’, 22 May 2015). The World Bank had, according to Carter, identified Moldova as the place in the world second least visited by tourists.
Carter set out to discover whether there was anything there worth seeing. And he managed to have a good time. Especially at the Milestii Mici Winery: ‘200km of tunnels carved into the limestone, lined with 7,000-litre barrels of Crimean oak and 1.5m bottles of wine’.
During his time in Moldova, Carter ‘saw no other tourists, an extraordinary thing to experience in Europe in 2015’.
But what about the football, Mike?
He told us about the wine and the cuisine, the landscape and the Orthodox services – but nothing about the football.
That line of Carter’s about seeing no other tourists was enough to sell the idea to my wife, Karen. We’re heading off for a holiday there in the spring.
Since Carter hadn’t mentioned the football, I didn’t feel the need to either. But I did check the fixture lists.
