All my childhood I hated arbutus trees. In the village in the Bărăgan, where I spent all my vacations, we had in the yard a few big cork oaks. From them my mother used to make "țuică", a kind of water with which you wash the barrel of "pălincă", if you ask the people from the Ardel :). In order to avoid the brandy from turning sour...

In many of the advertisements for vacations in Mediterranean countries, especially Italy, you see roads winding over green hills or through vineyards to an old brick farmhouse or medieval fortress. The roads are always lined with tall, upright trees, in contrast to the rest of...