Gasthaus Catona — Hotel in Ilia

It was one of the most pleasent surprise during our nine day trip around Romania. It's an old house, refurbished by a family and transformed in a pension. I don't think they have more than 5 rooms, it is not luxurious, but they preserved the original wooden structure, which is nice. I made the reservation mentioning that I'm vegetarian, so they called and asked me what do I like to eat. I said that I'm ok with something average. What they did really impressed us: the lady prepared Eggplant salad, red pepper salad, zucchini based mini-burgers, zucchini stew, another vegetable based dish made in oven + homemade ice cream. They offered to us their home made wine and blueberry brandy. For breakfast they did something similar: home made eggplant salad, traditional cold home made vegetable + wild mushroom stew (zacusca), cheese, eggs as you want, natural honey, homemade confiture, vegetables from their own garden etc. When we left, they invited us to take some pears from their pear tree. An...

We often passed the Gasthaus and admired the building from outside. We needed to spend one night on a pension in the area and, of course, this was our chance! Will not regret it! ||Great service - we've knocked the door at @ 10 p.m. - and said we're going to come later that night. The owner just waited for us, letting us know that we can take our time. Of course, the evening ended up with a lot of story-telling. ||But the way this family managed to create / recreate this place... AMAZING! The sleeping was comfortable, all clean and very close to the heart - you could stay up all night just discovering all the details in the room - books, paintings, gathered memories from all over the world. ||in the morning - here comes BREAKFAST! In the huge dining area - a couple of large tables, one of them awaiting us - and all around, more and more stories - on the walls, on the floors, on shelves, and then... A PIANO! ||I could say that was one of the best mornings of the last years!||Congrats to...

We stayed only 3 nights, but it was a very pleasant experience. ||The Catona family is special , so nice and helpfull. They made us feel more than welcomed. ||The family childrens are very nice also, from the little one (who theached me german words :) ) to the one that played piano just for us. ||There is also another "member" of the family, a big big and friendly saint-bernard dog:)||The pension it is located in Ilia , a peacefull oasis. ||The food that are made by mr Catona's wife it is so so so so good and the "palinca" it is so tasty :)||And the chat with family it was so pleasant. ||On a scale from 1 to 10...