Drum Bun across the Carpathians

Pedalling out of every village in Romania we were sent on our way with a cheery Drum Bun … bon voyage, safe journey, happy trails, good road.

It became the drum beat of our journey through Transylvania … calling out Drum Bun to each other as soon as we saw the sign, backwards and forwards, loud and joyous.

We even wished startled Romanians Drum Bun, occasionally greeting people who were simply sitting outside their house. It’s easier to say than most Romanian phrases.

And sitting on a bench outside your house watching the world go by is something older Romanians do a lot.

It’s part of the rustic charm of Transylvania, together with the conical haystacks, the horse and carts, the honey trucks, the Saxon villages.

At times it seemed we were pedalling through a living history museum.

Before coming to Romania, we have to admit that we thought Transylvania was a range of mountains. We were also a bit vague about the Carpathians … maybe they were further East?

We learnt that Transylvania is one of four historical regions, together with Wallachia to the south, Moldavia to the East and Dobruja by the Black Sea. The Carpathians are the mountain range, sweeping through Transylvania like a fish hook.

Transylvanian Saxons were first invited to colonise this area in the 12th century. Initially they came from the Low Countries, especially Luxembourg, whose language is the most similar, then later from across modern Germany.

These people created the unique appeal of Transylvania but have now almost entirely disappeared, driven away by the deprivations of the communist era to Austria or Bavaria.

Having learnt about the ‘tragedy’ of the Trianon Treaty to Hungarians it was interesting to hear a different point of view. Transylvania voted to join Romania (not Hungary) on 1st December 1918 two full years before Trianon, with the date still commemorated as a national holiday, Great Union Day.

History is all about perspective.

As well as plenty of rural rustic charm, we pedalled through some delightful Saxon towns, notably Sighișoara with its narrow, colourful winding streets and Făgăraș with its stunning renovated castle and Orthodox Church.

Any google search for independent travel in Romania throws up many a dire warning. Don’t rent a car, the roads are terrible, the drivers suicidal. 

We beg to differ.

Of course we went on quite a few rough roads, including our fair share of gravel tracks but surprisingly we found ourselves cycling on brand new tarmac a lot of the time. 

Recognising that the legacy of a creaking infrastructure from the Ceausescu era is holding the country back, the government are half way through a €17bn investment  programme to build new roads and improve existing ones, much of the money coming from the EU.

It shows … and some of it is even being spent on small country roads.

But it wouldn’t be a Clare and Andy bike tour if we didn’t find ourselves in some scrapes when the tarmac runs out.

One day we pedalled down a series of small roads through a chain of villages. The road became gravel, then a farm track, before reaching a narrow suspended footbridge.

There were some serious warning signs …

Andy went to investigate … the wooden boards did seem a bit rotten in the middle. Probably not worth the risk.

But maybe, just maybe, could it be ok?

As he was pondering, Andy gradually became aware of some loud shrieking noises behind him. It was Clare explaining just what she thought of the whole situation …

“NO WAY am I going across that bridge!”

“You are TOTALLY CRAZY. I would rather go ONE HUNDRED kilometres to get round!!”

“It says PERIL OF ACCIDENT … STRICTLY ANT-TER-DEE!!!”

So we did go round … not 100km but about thirty, back to the main road we’d been trying to avoid, back to the white van drivers late for their last delivery and worst of all back to huge swarms of flying ants that had come out to enjoy the evening sunshine.

As well as the roads, the drivers in Romania have been better than advertised.

Romania might have its fair share of boy racers and impatient white van drivers but most people have been pretty good. In fact, we’d put Romania in a solid mid-table position in our Clare & Andy Driver Courtesy League (Holland at the top, Argentina at the bottom) which positions Romania above the UK … who are flirting with relegation!

The other thing we were warned about in Romania were packs of dogs.

It’s common for villagers in Transylvania to let their dogs roam free, especially late in the afternoon. They get together with their mates and there is nothing they like more than chasing unsuspecting touring cyclists … rushing out to bark and yap at us, maybe worse.

Our natural instinct is to speed up and try to outrun them … but we’d read this is exactly the wrong thing to do. It triggers their chase instinct and they can easily out-pace and out-last us.

We discovered this for real when this little dog peeled off from his pack and chased us for over six kilometres, sometimes overtaking just to show us that he could. 

He was completely harmless, only wanting to run alongside us for a bit of fun. It was only when we reached the rival dogs at the next village that he gave up and returned to his friends.

To be honest, most of the dogs we’ve seen on the street have been equally harmless, lazily raising an eyebrow as we passed by or politely crossing the road to let us through. Most of the barkers and yappers have been behind a fence with the real devil dogs properly chained up.

The one time we came across a more aggressive pack we did what the experts suggest (even though it’s completely counterintuitive). Slow down, stop, get off your bike, place it between you and the dogs, make a commanding noise and raise your arm as if you have a stone.

The only problem is it takes Andy a very, very … very long time to get off his bike. So long that Clare has likened him to a floundering elephant. Enough time for a snarling dog to take a piece out of him.

But adrenaline kicked in.

He leapt off, shouted “Oi! Oi!”, stood tall behind his bike and put his arm in the air. It worked … the snarls stopped and the dogs slunk away to a safe distance.

Andy had made himself Top Dog!

Vlad Dracula is another a ubiquitous presence in Transylvania.

He was a real 15th century Wallachian prince, engaged in endless battles with the Ottomans, but is also said to have inspired Bram Stokers famous fictional character, Count Dracula.

His signature was not fang marks on a victim’s neck but to have his enemies, including many Transylvanian Saxons, impaled on stakes so they endured a slow, painful death. Much more bloody!

Thus he became known as Vlad the Impaler.

To some Vlad is a hero for standing up for Wallachia and keeping the Ottamans at bay. To others he is a villain for his extreme cruelty.

He is certainly a hero to the Romanian tourist industry … he’s everywhere, either as his historical self or as a fictional vampire.

Before we started Andy had tried to persuade Clare to include the famous Transfăgărășan pass on our ride through Romania, a highway that no less an authority than Jeremy Clarkson has described as “the best road in the world!”

She was not at all keen.

Maybe it was the 1600m of climbing that put her off? Maybe it was the stray dogs?

No … it was the bears!

29% of Romania is still forested, especially in the Carpathian Mountains, providing the perfect habitat for Eurasian brown bears. There are over 6000 roaming the woody slopes.

After a beautiful day of cycling through the rolling hills from Sighişoara to Făgăraş, Andy thought the Transfagarasan was worth one last try. 

Would she like to go to Brasov, visit the famous Blad Castle and enjoy/endure more Vlad Dracula memorabilia? Or would she like to ride over that pass he’d mentioned?

This time Clare was extremely enthusiastic. That’s a proper cycle touring experience, she said, of course we should go!

“But what about the bears?”

“No probs … now you’re Top Dog, you can easily fend off a bear!”

Andy wasn’t sure it was quite the same thing.

The road is unquestionably beautiful but it also has a dark history. Built during Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship in the 1970’s as a military escape route in case of a Czechoslovakia style invasion by the Soviet Union, it was dynamited out of the bedrock by untrained soldiers. There were many casualties, officially 40 deaths but unofficially it was in the hundreds.

Staying overnight at the bottom of the climb we had the first bit of range anxiety we’d had for ages, as this was our first high mountain pass on our e-bikes. 

How much will a 1600m climb take out of our batteries? Even with a long descent, will we make it to or our hotel 110km away? Will we run out of juice just as we meet a large bear?

Setting off bright and early, we wound our way up this extraordinary road enjoying the mountain air. Clare is now much faster than Andy at riding uphill on e-bikes as the power-to-weight ratio has moved in her favour.

Long time readers will be pleased to hear that Clare is now clipping in on both sides so that’s also increasing her uphill pace. She first tried the technique racing along the Danube, inevitably falling off the first time she stopped but she’s now adapted well and is enjoying the extra power.

Andy just has to watch her zoom up the climbs, disappearing from view.

To stay anywhere near her, he normally switches to purple (level 3 support) or even to red (level 4 turbo). But this time we made a pledge to stay in blue (level 2) to save our batteries, which made it quite hard work. Clare was kind, easing off to avoid wearing Andy out too much.

Emerging from the tree line, we paused to take in the view and pulled over next to a man who was playing with his two young sons.

He broke away from the game and stared hard at our bikes. “Are you thinking to go over the top on those?” he asked.

“Yes”, said Andy “it’s not far to the top, we’re about half way.”

“No, no,” he looked worried, “I don’t mean the climb. There are bears the other side, many bears, many.”

“Where are they?” asked Clare “In the parking areas?”

“Yes, yes. The parking. Also in the street.”

This was NOT what Clare wanted to hear. Much as Andy reminded her that people cycle over the Transfagarasan all the time, she could not get the image of a bear attacking us out of her head. 

And we hadn’t seen anyone else on a bicycle that day. 

And she was no longer feeling quite so sure that Andy’s top dog tactics would work.

Andy explained to the man that it didn’t matter as we’d be going downhill, so we could make a fast getaway. He smiled weakly and got back into the safety of his car.

We carried on climbing, carefully monitoring our battery consumption, admiring the views, watching the cable car, even enjoying a lunch of roasted vegetables at the top.

When we reached the summit, we’d both used 52% of our batteries for 27km distance at an average gradient of 5.1%. A few quick calculations … it should be OK.

Before enjoying the twists and turns of the descent, we first had to pass through 884m of the Bâlea tunnel. Then we swept down the mountain, all the time keeping a watchful eye out for dark brown bear-like silhouettes. By the time we reached Lake Vidrarul we’d only seen two bears, both surrounded by tourists in cars taking photos.

Not a bad result at all we thought.

Lake Vidrarul, formed by a dam at the far end, is a big lake. The road around it runs for 27km up and down through thick forest, which meant using a lot more precious battery power than we’d bargained for.

It also meant our escape speed was limited, should we need it. 

And we did need it … we kept running into bears, one after another just as the man had said, usually with 2-3 cars in attendance. Despite the many warnings, some tourists continue to feed them … which of course is why they’re sitting by the side of the road in the first place.

We managed to slide by unnoticed.

But then we turned a corner to find a large male patrolling our side of the road. We stopped and decided to try the safety technique recommended by local cycling experts … wait for a car, ask them to drive slowly past the bear and keep the car between you and the bear.

We were lucky, the four young people in the next car to come along spoke perfect English, understood exactly why we wanted to do this strange manoeuvre and executed it perfectly.

In total we saw nine bears. In truth, none of them took any notice of us, even this mother protecting her two cubs.

From the dam at the end of the lake it was another 30km ride to Curtea de Arges and our hotel. We both pulled up with just 10% battery left.

Brilliant, thought Clare, that’s a good buffer.

Damn it, thought Andy, I could have used more power on the climb.

After all that excitement we decided to skip Bucharest and get to Bulgaria as quickly as possible.

But when John and Anne told us they were going to be passing through at the same time, we jumped at the chance to see them. It was so lovely to catch up with good friends, talk about normal life, eat and laugh together, explore the city a little.

It seems ironic that the most popular sites in Bucharest are based on the excesses of Ceausescu and his wife and the personality cult they were obsessed with developing.

We joined the tour groups, gawping at the outrageously large Palace of the Parliament, the heaviest, most expensive and most ornate administrative building in the world. It cost over €4 billion at a time when Ceausescu had imposed a crippling austerity programme on the people with food, fuel, energy all rationed and many starving.

Then to their private villa with its famous gold bathroom fittings, swimming pool and nuclear bunker in the basement.

As Anne said, it was weirdly distasteful.

Romania has been truly delightful country for slow bicycle travel. An ever fascinating iMax view from our handlebars and none of the dangers we were warned about becoming real … not the roads, not the drivers, not the dogs, not even the bears!

So come to Romania if you’re looking for an interesting and unusual country to visit. John and Anne advise against the slow, unreliable trains … but take a tour, hire a car … especially rent an e-bike.

And when you come … we can only wish you one thing. Drum Bun!

Clare and Andy

Bath to Budapest

3,407km pedalled (2,117 miles)

17,678m climbed

176 hours in the saddle