Into the Carpathians – Romania adventure

How do I start reporting on a country that is so different from what I was previously led to believe? How do I explain how it is that I started out plagued by stress and apprehension and returned home so relaxed that not even the German culture of complaining could touch me?

The impressions that this beautiful country has given me are so complex that I can only spotlight a few experiences and encourage you to make your own.

The route

The daily counter showed 5489 km when I parked my car back at home after three and a half weeks on the road. 5489 km through Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania to the Black Sea and back, the last 1200 km in a single day. I love driving and listening to music at times.

On this trip, the music of Hannes Wader (not heard since the 80s!) and Ludovico Einaudi were my favorites. The image of the comfortable road on the edge of the Carpathians, over which my car glides quietly, with the blue outlines of the mountains and the fairytale-like towering clouds, the intense colors will probably return to my memory forever when I listen to the piano music of Ludovico Einaudi. And I experienced many a traffic jam shorter when Hannes Wader sang “Langeweeeeile…” to it.

After spending a few days at Lake Balaton in Hungary, I first went via Timișoara to the campsite at Lacul Surduc, a beautiful swimming lake with a mirror-smooth surface. Mowgli was thrilled to be able to swim in the lake with me. Unfortunately, there was little shade there and it was hot, so we moved on.

If you’re in the area, don’t miss the famous Transfăgărășan pass road, which has a reputation for being the most beautiful in Europe. In any case, it is popular with motorcyclists, and rightly so. It is called DN 7C. On the E 68 heading east, turn right after Scoreiu and head south to Curtea de Argeș. They say that the reverse direction from south to north is more attractive, but that wasn’t on my route and I can’t complain about the lack of interesting sights. About halfway there is a small, very basic campsite without showers where we spent the night.

Then I went via Bucharest to Constanța on the Black Sea. I had booked a room here for two nights with the intention of looking for a pitch or campsite somewhere by the sea afterwards. Unfortunately, I realized that this was the wrong time to stay by the sea; the area was simply completely overcrowded. No matter where you went, crowds of people with rubber animals under their arms were streaming through the streets to get to the beach or return from there to their vacation homes. The daytime temperature was also approaching 40 degrees. After a few hours of patiently weaving my way through the congested streets, I abandoned my plan and headed back into the mountains. My destination was the Bucegi Mountains, where I wanted to stay for a while.

After a stopover with an overnight stay at a picnic area in the mountains, I found a family campsite southwest of Brașov, between Bran and Rucăr, where Mowgli and I felt very comfortable. We stayed there for a whole week.

My original plan was to drive from there to Bușteni to visit the famous Sphinx of Bucegi, but there was a change of plans, so after two nights at a well-kept, camera-monitored campsite with a strange atmosphere and a visit to a car repair shop, I drove to Sibiu. I would have liked to explore this city, also known by its German name Hermannstadt, in more detail if the air hadn’t been thick with the grunts and growls of a heavy metal concert in the city center. Definitely not my kind of music and Mowgli doesn’t like it either.

I decided to head north and drove via Cluj-Napoca to Baia Mare. A completely different landscape and atmosphere awaited me here. A quiet little campsite with a hospitable, German-speaking owner is tucked away nearby. From there, the next day I crossed the border at Satu Mare and then, after two more nights at a garden-sized campsite near the Hungarian-Austrian border, I returned home in a single day.

Impressions and experiences

When I open my travel diary, many images and experiences come to life in my mind’s eye:

On the way to a village east of Timișoara, the road leads past fields for a long time. Partridges and hares can be seen here. Birds play happily in the summer air and I feel like I’ve been transported back at least 40 years. Everything feels more joyful and free.

A street dog has raised a front paw and is limping towards me on three legs. It stands in front of my car and prevents me from driving on. If I want to swerve, he is already there, blocking my way. There are several people at the side of the road, including a couple getting out of a fancy limousine. I don’t understand the situation, don’t know whether the dog has been hit and needs help, wonder why people aren’t looking after it, and am glad when the dog finally gives way and I can drive on (with a twinge of conscience).

Evening at Lacul Surduc: the moon is reflected in the tranquil lake, wooded hills on the horizon, the air smells of herbs and meadows and everything is bathed in a soft, peaceful light. Frogs croak and crickets chirp. Mowgli is content and I think: it doesn’t take much to be happy.

Fields of sunflowers as far as the eye can see. Small stalls selling melons, sausages, cheese, preserves and pastries pop up along the roadside from time to time.

Suddenly the road is closed and I have to turn back and take a different route. I wanted to get to the Black Sea and now had to take the detour towards Brașov. However, after Avrig, the road turns right onto the Transfăgărășan and I take the opportunity to tackle 137 km of hairpin bends. The route is easy to drive and full of impressive views.

Constanța. The name of the port city on the Black Sea sounds like music. Perhaps because Constanze was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But the city is somehow ugly and smells sweetly of rotten fish. It’s hot and the seagulls seem to be laughing at us. Dogs bark furiously behind high gates. In the neighborhood where I live, the sidewalks are crumbling, the houses are connected by a complicated tangle of overhead power lines and the people don’t exactly seem cheerful. Again and again I see two or three older men standing together, looking curiously in our direction. Older women often appear haggard. One of them scolds us because she was frightened when we walked past her gate. At that time, when the dictatorial communist system in Romania came to an end, I was very concerned about the fate of the people of this country. I remember that now. The bloodbath in Timisoara, the execution of the Ceaușescu couple…

In the evening, there is hardly anyone left at the beach bar. But it’s not even late yet. I sit down on one of the wooden benches with a soda and take in the lights in the distance and the brightly lit Ferris wheel against the twilight sky, while the tension of the long drive, of which the rush hour in Bucharest was the most exhausting part, gradually fades.

The next day, however, the beach is full of families. Nobody complains about Mowgli, not even when he paddles around with me in the warm water and lets out his funny grunt. On the contrary – he’s more of a source of amusement.

After two days, I leave Constanța and drive along the coast towards Vama Veche in the south, hoping to find a quiet pitch or campsite near the beach. What a naive idea at this time of year! I struggle through traffic jams and crowds of people equipped with flip-flops, beach mats and rubber animals, eventually giving up and driving in the opposite direction. In doing so, I take on dirt roads and gravel tracks that eventually lead me to a really strange place. There are some ancient caravans from the 70s, equipped with solar panels, on an area of prickly undergrowth on a steep coast with no access to the beach. As if this wasn’t strange enough, I then realize that none of the people living here peacefully are wearing clothes. Apparently I’ve stumbled into a nudist dropout camp. I feel like an intruder and flee.

I finally give up my plan to spend the night somewhere by the sea and head west again, towards Brașov, towards the Bucegi Mountains. I drive, drive, drive. It’s cooler in the car with the air conditioning than outside, where you’re bludgeoned by a sweltering 37 degrees. Mowgli doesn’t cope well with the heat and also has a bladder problem. But he seems very relaxed in the car. I readjust my destination several times to find a place to sleep. That feeling when the sun sinks lower and you still don’t have a place to spend the night! Driving on endlessly long roads becomes increasingly difficult as I am dazzled by the golden light of the setting sun. The sat nav shows another half hour on the way to a picnic or barbecue area and I start to feel queasy. When I finally arrive at the place after a tour through the villages, where old people sit on the benches in front of their houses and let the day fade away, night is already falling.

There are still a few families here, who finally finish their Sunday picnic and drive off. People are watching us and I feel uncomfortable, especially when two more vehicles finally arrive in the dark, one of them a smart sports car that is doing provocative laps of the square. But then I see a family with a small child getting out of the other vehicle and I calm down. It is not illegal to park here overnight. There is obviously someone else on the other side of the road, because I can hear music. Eventually the vehicles disappear, the music from the other side stops and it is so quiet that I can hear my blood rushing in my ears. Mowgli is allowed to explore the square a little while I cook dinner.

We get a good night’s sleep and wake up at half past five. When the sun comes over the mountain at 8 o’clock, it warms up quickly. I hear gunshots and suspect hunters in the forest. Time to set off!

A memory of hot summer days in my childhood comes to life. I smell the sun and feel the bliss of a summer’s day that is promising to come. Maybe we’re going on an outing or to the outdoor pool. On such days, our mother prepared tea and provisions for us to take with us…

But now we really get into the Carpathians. Serpentines and hairpin bends without end. I keep stopping on the right to let the queue of tailgaters with local number plates pass. The first campsite we head for is quite high up and is called “Heaven”. It really does look like paradise. But before we can check in, I see the cat… And Mowgli sees it too and tells me immediately. So we drive on, through Bran, which is very popular with tourists, past Dracula Castle, for another hour and a half until we finally put down roots at a small, family campsite with extremely friendly owners. It’s called “Panorama” and really does offer a great view of the valley. All the campsites I’ve come across in Romania are clean. But this one beats them all. You can see that it is lovingly run, also from the design with lots of self-made details such as round benches, a fireplace, a covered seating area, fairy lights on the trees… There is no washing machine, which I would have actually needed, but washing bed linen by hand is also an interesting experience.

Mowgli immediately feels at home here. He is mostly allowed to run free like the owner’s dogs, who incidentally speaks good German. Although the chemistry between Mowgli and the larger of the two dogs is not right and one of the cats is immediately chased up the tree when she dares to say hello, it somehow works and everyone more or less comes to terms. There is an atmosphere of peace and acceptance here. We stay for a week and relax after all the movement. Sometimes we are all alone on the campsite. Then again we experience a lively coming and going: Bikers on their way to Transfăgărășan, hikers staying for a night, Germans in expensive-looking camper vans who don’t think the place is good enough and disappear again after a brief inspection, a Romanian couple with a luxury car and tent who create something of a smouldering fire while barbecuing, a very friendly and sociable Polish family, two minibuses full of children accompanied by their teachers, who set up their colorful little tents in no time at all and fill the site with cheerful life like a swarm of bees… It’s like watching a movie in a 3D cinema.

My food supplies are gradually dwindling and it’s time to buy fruit, vegetables and bread in particular. I don’t want to live on pastries, preserves, honey with peanuts and the ultra-sweet rose jam from the stall by the road alone. But for that we have to walk into the village, where there are exactly two small stores. One has coffee, packaged bread and snacks, but nothing fresh. There is one a street away and we can only find it because a helpful woman leads us there and calls the shopkeeper out of her house by her name. In the corridor leading to the small salesroom is an old couch and a row of baskets full of apparently home-grown fruit and vegetables. Not everything looks intact and fresh, wasps are buzzing around, but I find everything I need and also have pasta filled from a large plastic bag and two loaves of white bread packed. I manage to communicate with the cordial woman even without knowing the language and then I lug my large ALDI bag up the hill to the campsite with Mowgli on a lead. We both come close to circulatory collapse a few times because it’s hot that day and I’ve completely underestimated the exertion. I leave my last sip of water to the dog, who only follows me at a snail’s pace. Eventually we reach home. I lie down straight away and Mowgli pounces on the water bowl and recovers with a wet towel on his head. Over the next few days, however, I divide up my hard-earned treasures and literally count the tomatoes instead of drawing from the plentiful supply, as I am used to doing. But the tomatoes really do taste like tomatoes.

There are days when dark clouds roll in. Especially at night, heavy rain pelts down on the car and tent, which at some point can no longer withstand it. In dry hours, I try to light a fire while Mowgli bites the sticks into small pieces. But the wood is too damp and the fire keeps going out. Nevertheless, someone manages to get a nice big campfire going. I would have liked to know the trick…

It’s funny to communicate with Romanians who don’t understand English, because I don’t speak a word of Romanian either. The DeepL app is particularly useful in this case. But sometimes I am also spoken to in Romanian. Although I signal that I don’t understand anything, my counterpart relies on repetition and crescendo – in the hope that the penny will drop at some point. But it doesn’t help and so at some point my conversation partner waves me off with a laugh and moves on. In one case, I suspect that my baggy trousers were the source of the amusement.

After two weeks in Romania, all sorts of things finally fall away from me: time stress, worries, boredom, fears – in short: everything that comes with being a working city dweller. Instead, a zest for action and creativity emerge. I start practising a new piece on my roll piano, which I’ve packed this time. The sound is rather poor, but it’s still fun. I also make plans for home.

Special circumstances, including a breakdown, which I will report on later, lead me to abandon my plan to visit the Sphinx of Bucegi and drive via Brașov to Sibiu and then north. I’m drawn home. Mowgli also has a problem. He’s working on a birthmark he found on his right hind leg. Eventually he manages to tear it off. Worried, I plaster the wound with Betaisodona and bandage the leg, which of course also bothers him. He also no longer wants to go to bed in the car in the evening. We are at a cozy little campsite north of Cluj-Napoca (which I unfortunately haven’t seen). It’s already dark when I let him jump into the car. The other sliding door is carelessly left open. “Yippeeh!” thinks Mowgli and jumps out through this door, races across the campsite, scares a few Serbian motorcyclists, teases me by letting me get close and then jumps away. He’s definitely having fun. You can’t see the black dog in the dark either. I change my tactics and retreat into the car. At some point I hear him breathing at the door. He is now lying there innocently and can be collected without resistance.

The next day, we drive through interesting villages in the Maramureș region to Baia Mare. You should take your time for this area, but I don’t have the patience. In Baia Mare, I am impressed by the carillon in the center and the cozy town center itself.

Again, my impatience doesn’t do the place justice. But I still need a place to sleep for the night. There is a beautifully laid out small campsite nearby with a pond in the middle. I receive a friendly welcome in German: “You’re the third woman from Germany to be traveling alone this week. And all with a dog.” I grin, but don’t defend myself. In the evening, the good man comes over with his wife and offers me a plate of food and a glass of Palinka. I have to turn down this unexpected gesture of hospitality because, firstly, I don’t eat meat and, secondly, I don’t drink alcohol. I’m grateful that he doesn’t take offense at my refusal.

At the border crossing near Satu Mare at the Romania-Ukraine-Hungary border triangle, we stand for a long time at 40 degrees outside. Here I say goodbye to this beautiful, enigmatic country full of history and stories and resolve to return.

Contrasts

Romania seems to be particularly caught between the poles of tradition and modernity.

On the well-maintained roads, luxurious cars, for which I would have to save for a long time, speed past horse-drawn carts with almost one horsepower. In the back of the cart are some happy children.

A moment ago I was driving past a village fountain and now I see an industrial estate in front of me.

As simple as a village may look – at its center is a magnificent church with a golden or silver roof. Many of these buildings are true works of art.

These are just a few examples that immediately stand out. I hope that this country does not give up its traditional charm and, in particular, does not lose sight of preserving its rich natural environment.

Of bears and dogs

One of the special features of Romania’s wildlife is its large bear population. Around 8,000 brown bears are said to live in the forests of the Carpathians, particularly in the area around Brașov, but also along the roadside of the Transfăgărășan. They like to beg for food, especially in the southern section of the road, and despite all warnings, there are always people who think the begging bears are cute and feed them. Signs explicitly point out that they are dangerous. A few times a shrill warning sounds on my cell phone because bears have been spotted nearby. I didn’t see any – whether “unfortunately” or “fortunately” I can’t say for sure. It would certainly have made a cool photo (from the safety of the car, of course). But I met someone who told me about an acquaintance who fell victim to a fatal bear attack.

The street dogs that characterize the Romanian streetscape are not always peaceful either. A couple traveling on motorcycles reported a frightening encounter with a pack of dogs that suddenly came out of the forest and surrounded them. However, they managed to get out of the situation unscathed.

In Constanța, one dog approached us rather shyly and submissively. However, Mowgli, a former street dog himself, knows dog etiquette and after an extensive getting-to-know-you ceremony, the other one left peacefully. Later, I saw this dog hurrying along the street in a pack with his furry friends.

Dogs that have an owner often take their job as a sentry behind a more or less high fence very seriously and go on the rampage as soon as you come near the property. I still have the sad image of a poor animal chained to a tree on a leash that was far too short and tugged at it with rage.

Once, when I had to tie Mowgli up in front of a store, an old woman came with a cup of water and gave him a drink.

Dogs are not allowed on public transport. It seems that the general attitude towards dogs is different from ours. Nevertheless, no one has ever complained about Mowgli, neither on the campsite nor in the outdoor areas of restaurants, on the contrary.

Minor and major mishaps

Car repairs are really not my thing. That’s why I’m afraid of facing a major problem on a trip. There were four problems on this trip, but I was able to solve the three smaller ones on my own.

When I tried to open the gas cap at a gas station, the cover simply fell apart. It looked like this:

It was an old problem, because a few years ago I had run into the open flap once and torn it off. The heat had finally dissolved the adhesive on the duct tape I had used to repair the damage. At least it held for years 🙂 But now my repair tool was used again and in the end everything looked like new:

I got a bigger fright when Mowgli, who I had tied to the metal eyelet of the sliding door at the campsite, jerked the closing contact out of the door while trying to chase the cat. Fortunately, duct tape heals almost everything …

However, I eventually had to give up my awning. One night, as heavy rain pelted down on the roof of the car, we were startled by a loud rumble. Mowgli was panting excitedly. Looking out of the window, I noticed that the tent had collapsed under the masses of water. “It’s nothing serious,” I reassured the somewhat panicked puppy. “Go back to sleep, we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

When I inspected the damage in the morning, I was inclined to throw the tent away immediately. Several poles were broken and a huge puddle had formed on the collapsed tent roof. The entire contents of the tent were buried underneath. But then I plucked up my courage and worked my way back to my things piece by piece, dried everything, repaired the tent poles as best I could and finally put the ruins back up again. The result was now a little crooked, but at least … Inside, I stabilized the whole thing with a telescopic pole. The construction was quite stable. However, the tent poles could no longer be pulled apart when the tent was taken down. I could certainly have solved this problem at home with replacement poles, but it seemed too time-consuming. So I said goodbye to this not particularly expensive awning which, due to its construction, would probably have collapsed again in the next heavy rain.

The most serious breakdown, however, occurred when I rolled down the road from the high campsite: The brake pedal was no longer building up pressure and the car wouldn’t slow down. However, I was able to stop it in time with the handbrake. After pumping it several times, the brakes worked again, but I felt very uneasy when driving down the hairpin bends and had no confidence in the technology.

A call to Renault Assistance provided no useful support. And neither my garage nor my trusted engineer at home could provide a reliable remote diagnosis. The ideas ranged from “air in the pipe” to “rust film on the brake discs” to “loss of brake fluid”.

But real help came from a knowledgeable and local young man, to whom I am particularly grateful. He phoned the garages in the area until he was able to make an appointment at short notice, which is probably not that easy in Romania. He then drove ahead of me early the next morning to this garage, explained my problem in detail and even wanted to pay the bill. When I tried to return the favor by inviting him for coffee, he refused.

The car was thoroughly checked. But the exact cause of the brake problem could not be determined. Nor did it reappear. However, the visit to the workshop reassured me and I often think back to the wonderful help.

Some improvements

As you know, a Kangoo minicamper is not a motorhome. You can put a mattress in it and sleep on it, but you have to accept that the sleeping area is a bit sloping. You can rummage endlessly through your things until you finally find your car keys. And you can get annoyed every time the suction cups on the window cover don’t stick to the windshield and the cover comes off. All this has been bothering me for a long time and my solutions look like this:

I am highly satisfied! 🙂

Foreign and yet familiar

Before I set off on this trip, there were skeptical voices warning me about all sorts of things and advising me, for example, to hold on to my wallet tightly. None of this happened. Instead, I found a country with friendly people and great nature. Many things reminded me of my childhood. But I can’t say exactly what it is. Is it the deep blue summer sky, the cloud formations, the field animals, the joys of swimming in the lake, the scent of the forests and meadows, the Sunday family outings…? I don’t know. Many things still seem simple and original to me. I felt free and safe there.

Although I have criss-crossed the country, I have only scratched the surface. So many treasures remained hidden, not to mention the historical heritage left behind by the Romans, for example.

I’m sure there’s still a lot to discover.