Michael Tyler

A day of mountains, rain and bears.

The Transfagarasan highway crosses the Carpathian Mountains. It’s not always open due to its susceptibility to weather conditions. In fact, it doesn’t usually open until July. Even when I went up, it only opened in both directions at 11am. Until then, the police would only let traffic through intermittently, and it was closed overnight. Obviously, they’ve had a lot of problems with loss of life here in the past.

As we know, and as I’ve said before, the weather changes quick in the mountains.

Rain

I can’t say I wasn’t expecting rain. Cycling up to my last homestay, I could see the clouds and hear the rumble of thunder from the clouds sitting atop the hills. That rumbling and the clouds rested where it was. Didn’t move onto the plains where I was cycling along.

The easiest and most picturesque day of cycling so far.

Ascending for the first 20 miles out of Brasov, the rest was all down hill for almost 4 hours.

The wind was behind me as well. All very nice.

Had to stop at the supermarket to get dinner as the apartment in Cartisoara isn’t close to anywhere I can buy food.

Got a couple of beers, a pizza, some potato salad and a caramel cream dessert.

Thought I’d take a look in. It would be rude not to seeing as it’s only 20km down the road.

Bran Castle was set up as a tax haven between East and West what used to be Wallachia by tuotonic knights after the crusades.

It’s vantage point, geographical location and local features made it one of the key castles and the seat of Wallachian nobility.

Most of the walk thru is dedicated to the nobility and the history of the castle across the years. During the Soviet period, the castle fell into disrepair. Only in 2009 was it bought out and restored becoming what it is today, a tourist attraction.

And over some hills. Not quite cycling though mountains at this stage but the morning consisted of a long steady incline into the Transalvani range of Romania.

Pretty picturesque stuff but not before I visited Targoviste main tourist attraction.

Wallachia

Pre foundation of the Romanian state, this geographical area used to exist under the name Wallachia which basically spread upwards of the Transalvania mountains.

It was destroyed by the Byzantines and Romania as a self governing entity was born in 1881 when the Ottomans were expelled in the Russia Ottoman war.

Targoviste is home to the palace that used to house the ruling family of Wallachia. So, historically, a fairly important place. Before I got going in the morning, I took a look around…

A lot of the displays were in English. No doubt I could have spent longer if I wanted to.