Trip to Romania July 23rd to August 1st 2024
Tuesday 23rd July
Not too badly organised…a few loose ends to tie up. Car in local garage having AC recharged after 9 years. Waiting for a new printer to arrive as old one….probably 15 years old… gave up the ghost and started jamming. Old friend called by out of the blue and then it was pack and go. On my own motorbike to Heathrow and parked it in Terminal 2 motorbike park. Then bus to Premier Inn. Back on bus tomorrow to Terminal 2. This seemed the best way round…could then pack motorbike kit and be ready for horrible early start. Weather was warm and dry….wow!
Wednesday 24th July
It began early….4.15am. Up and catch bus to Heathrow. This goes smoothly. Enter Terminal 2. Queue to get to self check in machine. This requires passport. Get label for luggage. I am already checked on computer at home. Queue again a few yards on. Show passport again and boarding pass. Few more yards and new lady wants passport again. Bag goes off. Now security…more queue fighting ones way through where everyone gets their liquids sorted. Why can’t they do this before? Show boarding pass again. Proceed to real security. They had opened up another area and I got lucky with queue. Usual frisking…..I had a piece of paper ( ticket info) in my pocket….not allowed! Finally a cup of tea. This flight is to Munich where I change for Cluj Napoca.
Flight a wee bit late but that 20 mins out of the 50 mins connection time available meant that I , running, made it to the next flight but the baggage did not. I was met by Claudia who took me to my hotel in Turda…a 40 minute drive from Cluj Napoca …the airport. Lufthansa were very energetic with their messages about the baggage but nothing has appeared yet. I was told it would be on another flight coming in at 5.30pm.
Cluj centre
Eat 3 large Tacos in hotel restaurant with excellent Romanian sauvignon blanc wine.
Thursday 25th July
I am going to be joined at about 11am by the other two brits who spent the night in Cluj. Latest on bag is it is arriving at about 1pm. We are to be acquainted with bikes today and take short ride to Salt mine just outside town. I take a back street walk and men are here when I get back. Rupert and Peter.
In borrowed jacket, boots and gloves we are off. I am on a BMW 750 gs. Salina Turda is a few kilometers outside town. It is huge and amazing. There is a whole games complex in the bottom and a lake with rowing boats. Old bits of machinery from mining days. It was begun with machinery in 1780 but thought that Romans used it too. Definitely mentioned in medieval times. Over 100m Bell mine. The striations in the salt were beautiful. Look it up on Wikipedia!
Old salt mine gear from 1881…horses “powered” it.
Then to my surprise we are off to the Sunshine mts. Alex, the guide suddenly speeds up and tests our skills. He is surprised I hang in there, I am complimented !!. I thought we were going dangerously fast. Cafe stop and hill top stop after a rough road section….to see our skills again. Peter is very keen and keeps right up with Alex. He owns about 7 bikes. We do not slow down for villages . There does not seem to be any speed limits and overtaking on double lines seems acceptable. Hope we do not go this quick tomorrow. I am going to be riding in between Peter and Rupert who is happy at the back. Peter happier up Alex’s backside.!
Out in evening to restaurant in town with Claudia and Alex. They are husband and wife running this tour company .
Friday 26th July
Off we go. High speed Alex. Too fast in places but I am going to have enough to cope. Peter is quite a bike nerd and rides right behind Alex. We see lots of old medieval houses and villages in a varied countryside. Nice casual coffee/tea stops. Walk round a fortified church and then lunch at its base. We do about 200 miles and end up in Sighisoara. This town has a large medieval centre inside old walls. Along the old walls are towers which in the old days housed a trade…ie one was a blacksmith , one a clothes maker , one made saucepans etc. Cobbled streets and full of people as it is the first night of a festival. Many people dressed in medieval clothing etc. Singers on stage and every restaurant full but Alex knows the boss of one and we sit outside in a back courtyard all by ourselves. I have a glass of very delicious sauvignon blanc wine. This Romanian wine is very good. Back to our smart Mercure hotel. Weather is warm!
This cattle shed is still being used for milking !
Tower house.
This is the little bed in the writing above.
Saturday 27th July
Speed off at 9am! Main road at first then turn off to a village called Viscri. The area is poorer..however this is a village where King Charles owns a house. Apparently he owns 11 properties in Romania. His great great aunt was Romanian. Further up through the village (cobbled road) was a fortified church . We climbed up through the tower. Very narrow staircase or two up. Lovely view of their lovely roofs. We enjoyed this spot. Back to Charles’s house and whizzed round there. Its all for making money to do up other old buildings. Now he is King he himself does not come…
Making Chimney cake
Wasps VERY keen on the sugar.
Fortified church..probably Lutheran.
Up the tower of the church. Peter, Rupert and Alex the guide.
View of roofs. I think they were lovely.
Sampling mini fresh pears from the tree.
On we go, some main road, some lovely side roads. We end up visiting Bran Castle. I have been before in 2006. Today it was infested with people and we shuffled round in a queue. It is a pretty castle and I rather like it. Brasov for the night. It’s one of Romania’s biggest cities. It was buzzing in the evening..restaurants all over the pedestrianised streets, huge ‘black’ church towering over. Black because it has caught fire several times. Biggest church in Romania.
Peter continues to amuse Rupert and myself. He rides very fast but was not keen on the off road bits…
Sunday 28th July
We stay in this hotel again tonight so today is a bit of a circular route. Off first to the castle Peles. Its more of a Romanian Versailles. Full of very dark wood. Very ornate.
Interior of castle Peles.
Silly motorcyclists taking photo of mirror!
At Peles, Nina, Rupert and Peter.
I prefer Bran Castle. We plodded round. Pretty hot today. Then off we go to end up filtering…when Alex got into gear…past a very long traffic queue. Sheer volume of traffic. But we get along and finally up our Transbucegi road. We end up at 1930m high. Vaguely above the tree line. Lots of people taking a walk up here. Its cool and open. We retrace our way back down and head for Borat’s village which Rupert really wanted to see. Young group of lads enjoy our visit as does Rupert.
Retrace steps again…more traffic jams to filter past but we manage. It gets hot today 33c. In the evening we are joined by 4th rider. Young in experienced guy called Jonathan . He is 22 and never ridden a bike bigger than 125cc until today. Lovely young German brass band playing nearby…excellent. All is very sophisticated and casual. The city is buzzing…
Monday 29th July
The Transfagarasan highway at last. Not too busy, not as full of bikes as I might have thought. There were plenty but it was fine. Essentially the highway is a pass like any in the Alps. Clouds buzzing around like any pass summit. We ate at the top. The bends were ceaseless. Coming down the road surface was quite bumpy and we came across a number of caravans going dead slow with a fair number of cars crawling along behind. We all met and ate together at the top. After that we became fairly separated depending on our speed round the bends. Peter dangerous in my opinion. Alex filmed with his go pro and hopefully got a photo of some brown bears we saw. We did not stop but cars were pausing. There was one bear with her two cubs. They are European brown bears. Jonathan did well, got going fine once we told him he could overtake anywhere ie double lines were ignored….!!
They still have some horses and carts.
View from top of Transfagarasan.
At the top.
Watch carefully. Just past the white parked car there is a mother bear with her two cubs.
Staying in an hotel beside the road. …nearly at the end. Pretty tired out with bends! The top was just over 2000m. Not so hot today as mostly high up. The top was positively cold. We walked down to a dam nearby. It was very high. Built in Ceausescu times…
Tuesday 30th July
We begin by seeing a brown bear who had his front legs over a concrete block and was looking like he was laughing at us lot travelling the road. Failed to take a photo again ! We travel various roads, saw an orthodox/ moorish/ byzantine church in Arges. It had wonderful decor and was elegant from the outside. After that we ate at a trout farm and I rode through a river crossing that the men would not go through. I might not be the speediest on the bends but I was amazed the men were so pathetic…even young Jonathan.
My diary from 2006 talks about the farmland. There is a fair amount of uncultivated but fertile land. Things do look quite dry but crops of all kinds are grown. There are lots of fruit trees, apples plums etc. Lovely hard wood forests. Walnut trees are protected. Ladies sell fruit by the roadside. Its fertile but underused countryside.
There is a swimming pool here. And I had a lovely swim.
Wednesday 31st July
First Alex plays with his drone. Takes photos of us and of a narrow gorge near us. Then it is off to the Transalpina highway. No way as busy as the Transfagarasan. Road surface good too. It was very scenic …better than the Transfagarasan and even goes higher.
Two locals at the top.
Lovely view from the top.
Peter gets himself lost from us by not obeying instructions. He really is a strange man, tearing along on the bike. We are amused! Anyway we finally make contact and have lunch together. I think he biked miles extra. The end of the day brings a big surprise. …a third world ferry across a river. Its hot as we wait on a kind of rusty flat craft connected to wires across the river. Old man turns up. We have to help this amazing ferry get to the other side. The river is low so we have to move bikes from front to back and some forward again. We help with poles to push the last bit. Pulling on a chain on shore using a pole as lever. Finally close the last meter to the shore and Alex rides all bikes off. Sweet country road follows and then motorway for final ride to Turda.
Road to the ferry.!
The ferry !
Alex assisting to get the ferry to the shore.
We are reunited with Claudia and our original bags. Quick move of belongings from one bag to another and then in cars to Cluj Napoca. I am booked into an apartment in a pretty awful block on the third floor and no lift. Claudia and lug my baggage up. The apartment itself is fine. Meet up with Rupert and Jonathan for drink and food. We do not include Peter! He could have done himself…..
Statue in Cluj.
I liked the flowers.
Thursday 1st August
Again meet up with Rupert after dropping my bag at his hotel…No Peter ! Jonathan is having a massage and staying till Saturday. We wander and then have lunch. Catch taxi to airport about 3.30pm as Rupert has not been able to check in online properly. Uber taxi charges 47 lei which is cheap. ( 6 to the pound). Fairly soon we start getting bad news…plane delayed and then the ultimate…cancelled. This is Lufthansa ! In the end we suspect it is the weather as thunderstorms over Europe have been forecast. Offered a flight on 4th August by Lufthansa ! However we can buy more tickets and go with Whizz air at 8pm to Luton airport. This we do. But Whizz air delayed till 9.30pm. This is getting very late to arrive in UK even though Romania is 2 hours ahead. Flight takes 3 hours so that means 10.30pm arrival in UK.
This is what happens. Then Rupert organizes a taxi with a company he uses. He lives past Heathrow in Sussex. So together to Terminal 2 at Heathrow to drop me off. I have pondered an hotel but due to lovely warm weather and feeling fine I ride home. Setting off at 2.30am Romanian time I arrive home at 5.50am Romanian time ( 3.50am UK time). To bed!!!!
An intensive motorbiking holiday. I have never done so many bends in 6 days. Romania was good