First of all we have to thank Ilinca, Gabi, Dan and Chella for this incredible hospitality we enjoyed the days in Brasov! They showed us a really beautiful part of Romania and this time we will definitily not forget so quickly!

Saturday 17.06.

After a good night's sleep we had breakfast in the kitchen, packed our things and played with the crazy cat. When Chella came into the apartment, she took us with the car to Bod. There we cleaned the bikes properly - which they also needed and changed the tires on the recumbent, which was long overdue.

After a short thunderstorm we went to a field and tested Tilman's new drone - I have to admit that it's really fun to fly it - I'm looking forward to the pictures that will come out!

Chella whipped us up a fantastic dinner based on a recipe from her grandmother. The rest of the evening we played with the cute kittens, wrote blog entries and talked with Chella.

Sunday 18.06.

Goodbyes are never easy, especially when you have to say goodbye to great people! Also this morning, saying goodbye to Chella and Gabi was not easy for us. Gabi came with some breakfast to Bod and we enjoyed a beautiful morning with the two.

With heavy hearts we left and the rest of the day we were not quite present - you should always go when it is most beautiful.

To make matters worse, we got wet more often than we would have liked and the motivation to tackle the last mountain of the day was also limited. So we asked in the village before the hillat a garden with a car with a German license plate in front and were warmly received by a gentleman. He had just had a visit from his family and - poof - we had the remains of the barbecue in front of us. He told us that he had worked near Munich for a few years and his two children now live in German speaking countries as well. He was pretty cool and chilled. For example, he told us that his two dogs were named "Bubi1" and "Bubi2" by his grandchildren. He is also completely renovating the house and garden on his own! At the end of the evening he even offered us to sleep inside and prepared the sofa.

Monday 19.06.

We were greeted with coffee early in the morning. After chatting a bit with our host, we set off with renewed energy to do the mountain that we didn't want to do yesterday. It turned out that it was not so bad and in fact we enjoyed it. Around us again alternated forests and fields and in between we had a fantastic view! And as it is so often, if the ascent was pleasant, so is the descent. Although with a bit more rain than still uphill.

The area to the north is increasingly marked by Hungarian influence and so we saw at the wayside many ornate wooden gates!

Since we drove parallel to the Carpathians, it was also for us more often uphill and downhill. After the next uphill with cool truck drivers we stopped and played around a bit with the drone. This time we also had a very interested audience - a herd of cows!

The landscape down the mountain just passed us by at our speed.

Towards the end of the day we passed many strange villages with very skeptical and grumpy looking people. And Gabi had also expressly warned us not to camp at the edge of the forest, because in this area, due to the dwindling habitat of the bears, there are always unsightly clashes between bear and man.

So, since we didn't want to go wild camping there or stay near the villages, we decided to go to a hotel in Reghin for once. The woman at the reception was funny on it and we talked somehow in English/Spanish/Italian. We stowed the bikes safely in the boiler room. And since it was already later in the evening, we snacked on the remaining things, showered and went into bed.

Tuesday 20.06.

Since we had already paid for the hotel, we also slept in for a long time. However, this led to the fact that the sun was already burning when we drove off. Fortunately, there are spring water points everywhere along the road, where we also filled up our water a few kilometers behind Reghin and operated a mini fridge.

We drove along between two mountain ranges and the landscape felt relatively monotonous. And so there is not so much more to say about the day. Since we learn from our mistakes, today we looked at the villages where we would potentially end up via google streetview and it looked very reasonable. Right in the first village we passed a young man who looked cool and we asked him if we could pitch our tent on the lawn in the yard. The property belongs to his grandparents, with whom he lives and the two also came right away.

We talked with him in English. His name was Alexandro and we understood each other right away! He showed Tilman the whole yard and garden, while I disappeared in the tent because of my headache. But all in all a very cool evening and we learned a lot about the history and language of Romania.

Wednesday 21.06.

Early in the morning we were awakened by the loud crowing of the rooster next to us. Not 10 minutes later also came the wood delivery, which was unloaded right next to our tent - luckily we were already awake :)

The grandma woke Alex when she saw that we were already awake and served us a coffee and cookies for breakfast. Super sweet this woman!

We said goodbye to everyone and drove off in already warm temperatures. Of course, they did not decrease, but rather became even hotter.

To make it perfect, we had another really nasty climb as a gravel road - no fun I can tell you!

After that, fortunately, we came back to a paved, but later with quite a steep climb.

At Lidl in Targa Lapus I then noticed how the heat was getting to me and we decided not to go to the Mănăstirea but directly to our Warmshowers Hans-Jürgen and Guiselle. Super inspiring people! Hans-Jürgen comes from near Speyer and was, as he says himself: "ahead of his time". So far ahead that the local newspapers reported quite incredulously about the "exempt official" on his bike. For a while he even offered rickshaw service in the Speyer region. In between, they both lived in the south of France before moving to Romania.

It was just a beautiful summer evening, which we enjoyed on their terrace. With super many interesting topics - that would get out of hand here now to write everything!

Thursday 22.06.

Together with Hans-Jürgen and Guiselle we enjoyed breakfast and would have preferred not to leave because it was so nice. But how do you say? "The show must go on". After all, we still had a few cool things on the program today.

First, however, we drove past a nice gypsy village where all the people were super friendly and waved cheerfully at us. This shows once again that you should never generalize.

Right after that, unfortunately, we had to climb a brutal incline - so brutal that I had to dismount and push!

Downhill we passed a pretty cool wooden church in Baia Spire and stopped for a few photos.

Finally arrived in Baia Mare, we went to the tourist information to ask for postcards and the post office. The nice woman was very exuberant and then pressed a stack of postcards into my hand and two more cards from Baia Mare. I wonder if we need them?

Fortunately, we found the way to the planetarium quite well!

There we were immediately greeted by an employee who was super enthusiastic and wanted to show us her old Zeiss device. It was cool to exchange some technical stuff ;) Just a bit later the director joined us and we were invited to an English speaking show. But before that he gave us two books/brochures about the Romanian view on the starry sky - pretty cool!

First, a super nice employee presented us the starry sky and showed us what their ZKP could do. Afterwards, they showed us a show that was created out of a cooperation with several other German planetariums, "Satelix". Really cool! For fulldome projections they have a fisheye projector from RSA Kosmos - the French system. Overall, we really enjoyed our time with the staff there and learned a lot! We even learned about a planetarium in Timisoara, which was not yet in the planetariums database - now it is :-)

After that, we got back on the road and drove to a strange Lidl to stock up on supplies. Since it was already late afternoon, we already held a little lookout for campsites, when we passed a fence with a nice woman. She immediately said that we could pitch our tent. We could even wash ourselves outside at a small sink. She made contact via video phone call with a friend from Germany, through whom we communicated. In the end, we were even allowed to sleep inside in the kitchen :)

Friday 23.06.

On Friday we got up very early and set off. When a company bus passed us, we still waved, because the woman from last night was sitting in it on her way to work. Our first destination was Satu Mare, where Tilman wanted to look for stamps at the post office. Of course, we were there much too early and used the time to have breakfast.

When we wanted to go shopping, we unfortunately found that the bridge we had to cross was somehow no longer there... instead we found the "Wolfenbütteler Straße". Strange swap, isn't it? In the end, we still managed to shop somewhere, which was a miracle due to the traffic routing.

Only a few kilometers behind Satu Mare was the border with very confused border officials. So now we were back in the Schengen area.

Hungary topped also immediately with a really good bike path that led us away from the border. Unfortunately, just behind it came a road of the quality we would actually have expected in Romania. Fortunately, after some time to the right a bike path on a dike went off. Of course, we took advantage of this to play around with the drone again.

After a once again "Romanian road", we found again a very well made bike path (quality as in the Netherlands!). Since it was mostly flat, we also jetted without really straining. Due to the high temperatures (meanwhile we had arrived at 30 ° C), we put a break in the shade. There we chatted then with a gentleman who warned us that there should be thunderstorms in the evening.

In Jánkmajtis we stopped again at a small post office and Tilman came out again very happy :)

Since we had already covered almost the entire distance in Hungary and it was just early afternoon, we played with the idea to drive Hungary in one day. So we refueled again new energy in Vásárosnamény and drove on relaxed. When we had only 25km to the border, we had to decide. Stay here or drive on. Because if the thunderstorm catches us on the open field, it will not be funny. Since we still had a few hours according to the weather report, we decided to continue. A mistake?

Directly on the field / dike began fierce wind. First from the side, then from the front. This reduced our speed considerably and our fun too... When we were back on the road, it began to rain even absurdly large raindrops. In the last village before the border we looked for a permanent shelter. We saw a soccer field with covers. Right next to it a woman was still working in her garden - it was just rain break. So we asked her if we could camp in her garden. She spoke very good German and came back with the key for the soccer players' changing rooms. What an outrageous luck we had!!! When the keys did not fit, even another gentleman came and we talked with them. Really cool and nice people! Inside we were even allowed to take a hot shower! Gabriela, so the woman introduced herself, asked us another interesting question: what does it take to make such a tour?

Continuing to ponder the question, we fell asleep between locker room benches with the loud rumble of the thunderstorm raging outside.