Day 15 to 17 Train...a proper steam one....slow road south to Transalvaynia and its fortified towns

Day 15      Logging steam train into the Carpathian Mountains and then south into heart of Romania

Sunset over Ukraine mountains

Early start to make sure we did get on the train ...

We are right on the Ukraine border and I know that if it had been a year ago we would have gone over to take a look....

They get up early  - school kids from 7 am , horses with carts and many walking to work in the fields with pitch forks, scythes and huge rakes.

The train ride is the very best..... 2 hours up a deep gorge, an hour plus BBQ at the rail head ( with beers) and then back down the vallly - a railway built to take logs down the valley as floating them down was unreliable ( lack of water in the summer etc)...the max speed is barely jogging pace as the track condition couldn't take it.

For £4 each I cannot hide my total shame in saying it knocks 'old ratty' into a cocked hat....

couldn't keep Susan off the footplate..

today I learned 'selfie' is a global term...our wooden suspension free carriage had a number of Romanians who took said photos a number of times !

Logging still abounds - combination of some big bits of machinery but what feels unbelievable in 2014 are many horse drawn carts.

we drove south - 7 hours all and arrived late in a Fortified town - Sighesiora - 7 hours canning it ( as much as you can in a van) on winding pot holed filled roads to do just 200 miles - less than 30 mph average speed.

Day 16 & 17 Citadels and Fortified Churches in central Romania

We spent 2 nights not in the van - firstly a 'Pension' - a B&B in the heart of a fortified town where there was sign after sinn telling us we were not allowed to drive up into the small walled centre...signs to be ignored as it turned out. With all the gear on or in the van it is good to go to sleep having a degree of confidence all the stuff will be there in the morning. This old Romanian couple were spot on, cake and drinks in the garden on arrival...top breakfast the following morning....and all with the van just outside :-)

The following night was in a small hotel in Sibiu - they directed us to the 'private secured parking' - a rubble filled car park full of rubbish and a couple of old sofas behind a block of flats...I was approached by 3 kids asking for cigarettes and then not accepting my reply, asked if i could bum them some cigars...Susan,  not up for leaving the van there went back to the hotel and they then changed their advice to .....remove the bikes from the back would be a wise idea.....a couple of minutes later and we were parking the van in their courtyard.

pig wins :-)

Some fantastic towns, villages, churches- horse cart after horse cart - lots and lots and lots of people cutting grass, raking grass, turning grass over, shifting grass on to hayricks, transporting grass from somewhere to somewhere else........





Boy acquired a crossbow which without the rubber tip to the bow could
cause serious damage....top fun though

You could easily spend a couple of weeks just touring Translyvania - if Allan Stribs, Simon E, Wolfie, Chris E, Dave C etc are reading this then this is the place to take a cycle - the Transalpina and Transfagarasan passes ( the Top Gear one.....best road in Europe unfortunately closed until end of June !) ...but even better than than.......beer and food at outrageously cheap prices that need to be taken advantage of - this tasty little number ( Cozia - 1 litre for 3.19 Ron...60p...a typical Romanian 'maintenance ' lager) .....Bucharest flights to be booked for 2015..

Back to the engineering - I dragged C and S a few miles off route to check this lock out....won a prize in 1900 Paris show........with one key it operates 19 catches............       Worth the trip alone to see it !

Romania to date has been fascinating - its later entry into the EU in 2007 from the other 'eastern block' countries visited to date is evident to see, but there are many signs of it morphing into the common EU such that having seen CZ, Poland and Sk it can and will lose more of its identity in just a few more years - Infrastructure improvements are everywhere - they clearly do not worry as we do with HS2 as railways are being built next to old tracks but in straighter lines and with tunnels, roads are being built or upgraded wherever you travel, Lidl's are cropping up as are out of town hypermarkets......cant help feeling they could do much more with tourism income if they really got their act together......

off to 'Dracula' country tomorrow and then towards the Black Sea






Day 15      Breb ( Ro) to Sighisoara ( Ro )          309 km     Total    2829 km

Day 16      Sighisoara ( Ro) to ibiu ( Ro)           121 km      Total   2950 km

Day 17      Sibiu ( Ro) to Ciofrangeni ( Ro)         118 km      Total   3068 km