Three children each plan to bring an extraordinary event from their vacation. Their adventures are not necessarily extraordinary, but the children have something to learn from them and they will be left with fond memories.
A local Romanian chieftain in 16th century Transylvania discovers a great treasure of Decebalus. He decides to send it for safekeeping in Moldavia, but he has to evade the Transylvanian prince and the king of Hungary, who get wind of it and want it for themselves.
In the early 19th century the Romanian Theodor Diamant was inspired by the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier and established one of Fourier's "phalansteries" in Rumania. The film dramatizes the origins and demise of this effort, called the "Scaieni Phalanstery (the term is derived from "phalanx" and "monastery"). Among the socio-political commentary that is conveyed throughout, there is an important collusion between the army and the wealthy landowners of the time, and as the film points out in its own way, neither of these groups has ever been convicted of socialist/utopian tendencies.
Petre Orsa, a young peasant gets a job at the Hunedoara Steel Mill with the dream of becoming a top-notch steel-man, having Mihai Solca - a sort of communist industrial hero- as his role model. He starts low moving dirt around with a shovel but he soon gets into the team of an old steel man, foreman Tudor Baci.