4-Xtremes – Part 30: Transylvania sends its regards

People like to describe travel destinations as “colourful”. Romania outdoes this term by far. What we have experienced over the last two weeks, has been extraordinary – even for us.

Hungary had a lot to offer as far as driving is concerned, but Romania takes it to another level. Even if you stay on the main roads, you experience a lot. We passed through villages in which virtually every architectural style can be seen; from wooden huts to elaborately decorated, multi-storey villas. We were also surprised to see that horse-drawn carts are still common on the roads.

The second mountain trip took us to the Transfagarasan pass with its endless serpentine bends. The Axor managed the journey to the top effortlessly: we just selected the reduction gear and rolled forward, nice and slowly. On the way back down to the valley, Mike had to take care that the brakes didn’t overheat, as we don’t have a retarder. But everything went well.

But back to the journey up to the top: coming from the South you pass a reservoir on the Transfagarasan road – the ideal place for us to have a lunch break. We let Aimée out, opened the doors as always when the weather is good and began to cook. And we discussed the warnings about bears along the route. Never in a million years would we have thought of seeing bears along this busy road. We thought wrong. Shortly afterwards – luckily Aimée was inside again – we looked out of the door and couldn’t believe our eyes. Directly behind the Axor there was a mother bear and two cubs! We caught our breath. Then it was time to just close the doors quickly and pack the food away as the last thing we wanted was to attract this furry family.

With our hearts beating fast we took a few photos. And where was the pepper spray? Reports of bears breaking into camper vans provided for vivid scenes in our heads. However the mother bear and her young left us alone and we drove on quickly.

Once we reached the summit of the pass, we rubbed our eyes: obviously we weren’t the only ones seeking refuge from the heat in the mountains. Many cars were parked on the road and people were walking back and forth across it. Right at the top there was a tunnel which was marked as having a clearance height of 3.60 metres. Our Axor is 3.70 metres high. It was a good job that we had done some research beforehand and knew that higher vehicles have been through it. All the same, we still had to be careful as the rounded tunnel was quite dark and every now and again reinforcing iron bars protruded down from the ceiling.

On the run from a storm.

But we had to leave this rather exposed place before we went to bed. Just before 10 p.m. a severe storm with a lot of lightning started to rage. A plateau as a parking place wouldn’t have been a good decision in this case. So we drove into a dip so that we weren’t the highest metallic point and in danger of being struck by lightning.

In the past few weeks we have seen so many unbelievable things in Romania. We’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of the country has to offer.

Photos: 4-Xtremes