Another day in Romania a country we are falling in love with. The scenery is magnificent, the villages so different from the UK with a mixture of poverty and affluence side by side. The people are very open and welcoming, nothing like the stereotypical impression we had before we arrived and it’s something that several of them have been keen to tell us.”People think we are gypsies, Romanians are not gypsies” It’s obviously a relatively poor country though, and we see many examples of this from poorly dressed workers riding around on horse and very medieval looking carts; bicycles from the 1960s and houses that look like old barns and seemingly hundreds of wild dogs, but we love it.
Today we’ll be travelling East towards Brasov, paralleling the Carpathian mountains (I think) which later in the day we will have to cross to get to our final destination Buzau.
The weather again is very changeable as we ride to Brasov in extremely heavy rain. This makes travelling fast difficult. The road surfaces show signs of diesel spillage which is always worrying, but then you have the added complications of spray from vehicles, extremely slippy manhole covers and white line markings in the road which have zero grip. Full waterproofs was the order of the day.
The skill of Romanian drivers is measured on their ability to overtake, when it clearly says no overtaking, whilst holding a coffee in one hand, a fag in the other, and still being able to wave to us as they pass! Many times as Romanian drivers overtake, the overtaking vehicle stays on the opposite lane until the very last minute before pulling in to narrowly avoid hitting the oncoming traffic.
The headset communications have performed much better today, which makes a massive difference to us. It not only allows us to discuss route directions but we can also warn each other of any potential hazards. Good job as this morning as we’re driving along over the intercom I shouted “Andy, watch out, dogs in the road ….. and geese”
As we travel to Brasov we see people foraging in the fields alongside the roads. We think it must be truffles they are searching for as we see some roadside stalls selling them.
We arrive at Brasov at a little over 11am, park as close to the centre as we can and look for somewhere to have coffee and brunch. Brasov is in the heart of Transylvania with forested mountains close by. We’ve come here because of its Hollywood styled sign which is visible from where we park the bikes.
After eating and a quick look around we set off on the 30 minute journey to Bran castle, which was the inspiration to Bram Stokers Dracula novels. The castle was the home to Rumanian royalty and Vlad the Impaler and dates from the 13th century but is still in excellent condition.
We follow a stream of tourists around the castle learning more snippets of information about the castle and its significance to the stories of Dracula.
When we emerge the weather has improved which is good as we now have to ride over the mountains to Buzau. The road is very busy and as it climbs there are many hairpin bends which allow us opportunity to overtake as we accelerate out of the bends. As we descend south out of the mountains it’s noticeable that the weather is much warmer here and we start feeling that perhaps we’ve left the bad weather behind.
The accommodation in Buzau was booked using the booking.com website. It had a great rating and was only £29 for the night. The owner has to be woken when we arrive and it is clear that he speaks about as much English as we do Romanian. We discover there’s a problem but before he tells us what it is he insists on pouring us both pints of wine. After about 30 minutes of confusing and often hilarious miss understandings due to the language barrier we resolve the booking problem and learn that he used to be Romanian international rugby player, followed by a career as a rugby referee and is now the president of his local club. He pours us another pint of wine each and using google translate tells us about himself and his career. He is extremly hospitable. We break away for a couple of hours to find food in Buzau but on returning we find him waiting for us with more pints of wine and more stories. He was a civil engineer who because of his skills only served a short time conscripted into the Army. He tells us about his family and what life was like growing up in Moldova parts of which later became Romania and how Romania a country he is so proud of has changed and the problems they face. He then confides in us that the wine we are drinking helped him sire an illigitimate son at the age of 64. Furtively looking around to check no one is in earshot and telling us to whisper he shows us pics of his secret girlfriend and son. We eventually crawl up to bed, very drunk but happy that we got to talk to this extremely interesting character.
