We wanted to get a good vantage point of the mountains in Retezat National Park, and after our unsuccessful hike the day before, we took the southerly route into the park. The road led through a beautiful valley, it would’ve been a lovely drive, had it not been for the grotty area. One town led…
Category: Romania
Stray dog security guards
A small brown dog scurried towards my window as soon as we pulled up at a rest-area for the night. It had the most impassive face I’ve ever seen, it was as if he’d found a rubbish bag outside a clinic and accidentally jabbed himself with used Botox injections. Then another two dogs appeared, one…
A unique look inside a Gypsy Mansion
As we approached the end of town we spotted the tell tale silver roofs of the Gypsy mansions we’d seen a couple weeks back in Western Romania. Then there was another and another. All painted bright colours, with three stories, Chinese style tiered roofing and aluminium decorations. This time we took our time and stopped…
Diving through snow in Tranylvania
We wanted to make the most of the Carpathians so decided to drive the Transfagarasan route which is the 2nd highest mountain road in Romania and plies through the Fagaras Mountains. It started off really dramatic, we could see our road ahead of us curving around a sheer wall. It was like being back in…
Dracula’s Castle and a drive through the countryside
Driving around Zarnesti was a nightmare, it was Sunday market day, music was blasting out a speaker and men in matching hats were wasted by 11am in the pop up pubs. I loved it though, it reminded me of the markets in Central America, bustling with colour and culture. But, it meant certain roads were…
The Bear Necessities in Romania
We’re well and truly in bear country now. Romania has 40% of Europe’s wild bears, if we don’t see one here, our chances elsewhere are pretty slim. We drove south of Brasov to the Southern Carpathian’s where the ski village of Poiana Brasov sits at 1030m. Finally we got a piece of tranquility compared to…
Tantalising Transylvania
Transylvania conjures up the thought of mythical creatures, misty mountains and creepy castles. It’s somewhere I’ve ways wanted to go, a bit like Timbuktu, it has such a nice ring to it and sounds like a place that doesn’t actually exist. But indeed they both do and now it’s time to explore the land of…
Raving about Romania
What a great start to Romania, every person we’ve spoken to has had a big welcoming smile and it makes all the difference. Plus, the English seems remarkably better than in the neighbouring countries. One worker even started conversation with us telling us nice places to visit and how apparently England wrote in its papers…