Now we are already almost two months on the road and once again many things went differently than expected. That's just the way it is with travel... But that does not necessarily mean that it is bad. On the contrary! Otherwise we would never have met the hospitality of the Bosnians, we would not have met a crazy Thomaš and a chilly Thomás, let alone made the acquaintance of Anton, the 70-year-old cyclist. We are curious to see what other adventures await ushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania

On Saturday (10.06.) the first adventure was not long in coming: to push the bikes out of the mud of the previous evening. The result you can see in the following pictures.

After removing most of the mud, we continued on to Janneke - our first and probably only wtmg in Romania. The landscape continous changed again and we went up some hills. Since we were up early, we had the problem of a good bit of uphill for the last few km to Janneke's house - with no shade to speak of in the midday sun!

So we arrived at Janneke's in the early afternoon. She offered us some of her homemade elderflower syrup and we chatted for quite a while. She was very excited as we were her first wtmg guests in Romania and it turned out that she is one of the co-founders of wtmg. So we had a pretty cool conversation with her.

After a shower, we chilled in the garden for the rest of the day. Took naps and wrote blog entry. For once we even ate something from our warm camping kitchen ;)

The next morning(Sunday 11.06.) we took our time and slept in. Just as we finished packing up, Jannecke came out and took a few photos of us.

The weather was very pleasant that day. The sun was shining, but the temperature was well bearable. The first kilometers were very adventurous, because it was a gravel road and made the impression as if we were just in the wild Western movie. The impression was only reinforced by the horse-drawn carriage that passed us.

In between we also had to remove a link from the chain of the recumbent, which had been causing us some problems for quite some time.

Today's kilometers dragged on like chewing gum. It was constantly up and down and we were not really motivated. What we did notice, however, is that there are still many German names for things and on some churches there were also Bible verses in German. This is probably due to the fact that we are currently in Siebenbürgen/Transylvania. Through German-speaking immigrants, the Western European influence also came increasingly into this region. Here we can only refer to the interesting wikipedia articlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania

We also saw many signs in Dutch. Somehow this seems to be a thing of the Dutch here....

The closer we got to Sibiu, the closer we got to the dark clouds and in the distance we saw heavy rain showers. As the rain became heavier and heavier, we took shelter at a gas station for a good half an hour and watched the weather.

After we had also fought our way up the last meters, we were allowed to roll down the remaining 2 km to the campsite. Every now and then you can treat yourself ;)

The campsite was run by a Romanian family, which we found very sympathetic! In addition, they had two really cute cats! In peace and quiet, we prepared our bag noodle soup, took a shower and helped our French neighbors to rebuild their bike coat (which was not so easy!)

Monday (12.06.), after we had freed the tent from various slugs, we continued quite early. The campsite was just 20km away from Sibiu and so we drove along a quite stressful road into the old town. Somehow Sibiu/Hermannstadt reminded us of other German old towns. This impression does not come from anywhere! The weather also seemed typically German, because it began to drizzle. We sat down on a bench near the main square and ate our breakfast. With a full stomach it sleeps better and so Tilman made himself comfortable on the bench and dozed off.

After that nap, we drove around downtown a bit more and met another tourer.

With the weather even worse, we headed back out of town. Actually, it pissed the whole day, with a few breaks to dry a bit - not exactly a nice day for cycling. Especially not the roads! So far we've been able to avoid the major roads pretty well, but a few kilometers today we had to ride on a European road. The problem in Romania is not necessarily the drivers, but that just the first highway ever is built and all the traffic - especially freight traffic - is distributed on the other roads. Most truck drivers even overtake quite well. However, there is often a traffic jam behind them and the people are annoyed and then overtake not so nice... Therefore, we were glad that we could change in between at least for 15km on a smaller road. There we even had the opportunity to put us briefly in a drainage pipe and to examine the route. At the end, however, we had to go again on the annoying road, a bit uphill and fought and with the last forces to the Lidl in a somewhat dubious-looking area, in which we did not want to pitch our tent under any circumstances. So we asked Ilinca for advice, whether the next villages looked maybe better and WHOOSH, she organized us through her mom, that we could pitch our tent next to a friendly pizzeria in about 10 km distance.

Romania can sometimes be really strange. Since you drive all day through actually quite beautiful villages and feel blissful and then suddenly comes a badly run down area where you don't want to stay a second longer. And not even 5 km later you are back in the most beautiful nature.

So we drove to the pizzeria, chose a nice place for the tent and for once treated ourselves to a really good pizza, which we devoured in the tent. Pizzeria .... - highly recommended!

Tuesday 13.06.

We did not regret at all, that we took a small detour to the pizzeria yesterday! Because only 2 km away is an important monastery, which was brought back to shape in the 70s. The fog, in which we woke up, lasted for a long time and only strengthened the mystical impression of the monastery.

Some of what we had driven uphill yesterday, we were then allowed to roll down the next 10 km - what a fun!

Since we got a little smarter that day than we were the day before, we avoided the big road and took a small risk. The next mountain could be driven either over the big road or over a road qualified as "gravel road". We took the latter, of course, and didn't regret it. It was much better than a gravel road, although not asphalted. We saw no cars for the next 8 km and enjoyed the peace and quiet in the forest. Unfortunately, we then had to drive another 5 km on the big road to later get back on a smaller one - no fun!

During the last kilometers to Ilinca's parents, we drove past cool ponds, where you can watch birds, which are usually only seen in the Danube Delta. Unfortunately, we saw only jumping fish.

Arrived in Bod at Ilinca's parents, Gabi - the mom - bagged us together with our things, drove us to the house in the city of Brasov and served us a super delicious 3 course meal - so that we had also tasted everything delicious once!

With a full stomach, the meow of kittens, and lots of great memories, we got to bed and fell asleep right away!

Wednesday 14.06.

On Wednesday we had a relaxed morning - after all, we did not have to dismantle our tent, but only make the bed neat again. Ilinca had already "forewarned" us that her mom had put together a whole tourist program for us. First on the list was a trip to Bran Castle, also known to some as Dracula's Castle. However, we think it to be so much more than that! It is relatively small and very winded in the courtyard, which makes it seem kind of fabulous. The interior is mostly wood and paintings, and the rooms are large but not oversized, so it must have been cozy once the fireplace was really doing its job. Because of the association with Dracula, some rooms were also used to give an overview of Romanian mythical figures and creatures. We also learned a lot about the history of the region, but we will spare you the details - you'll have to come here yourself or consult Wikipedia :) In any case, we were very excited and thought that the visit was definitely worth it. Despite a rather annoying private guide, who stood with the couple always directly in front of things and has spoken so loudly that you could hear him even two rooms away.

Gabi and Dan were waiting for us in the car with a super delicious Hungarian pastry:" kürtőskalács " - probably my new weakness!

Afterwards we drove with them through the old town of Brasov and enjoyed the views from the mountains and the ski lifts down to the city. Simply a really nice day!

Thursday 15.06.

The tourist mode continues! After a productive morning, we drove with Gabi and Chella (Ilinca's sister) to the palace in Sinaia. To get there, we first had to drive through the mountains. I was really glad that Gabi drove very sensibly, because with all the up and down, left curve and right curve I would have otherwise surely become sick!

After a good hour drive, we crossed the border from Transylvania into Wallachia, where the palace of Sinaia 'Peles' was waiting for us. The palace is not that old. Most of the rooms were designed only at the beginning of the 20th century and Tilman and I got some ideas for our later house. Who didn't think how practical it would be to have an anteroom to the bathroom? That way you can have a great conversation with other people and still chill in the bathtub. Or one room for breakfast, one room for lunch and one for dinner! Then you don't have to clean up the dishes from the previous day until the next morning! Or you probably had your servants for that.... Nevertheless, the house seemed very large for only one family - well we probably prefer something smaller ;)

Afterwards we drove by the castle where 'Wednesday' was filmed and were a bit disappointed. The castle and the garden look absolutely cool from the outside, but you can find absolutely nothing about the historical background, because everything was just made for the marketing of Wednesday. It's a shame when you reduce such historically rich things to a modern series (although the series is supposed to be quite good!).

In the evening we had the Romanian version of the "Sigusch pan", which unfortunately turned out a bit too spicy due to lack of the right ingredients.

Friday 16.06.

As almost always when we are in a bigger city, we have a mission: postcards and planetariums - the big "Ps" of our trip. On Friday, we first took care of the latter. The planetarium in Brasov is relatively new (2019) and is located in the zoo.

Unfortunately, no one had answered my e-mail, but that should not stop us from simply going there and asking. We found a somewhat stressed employee of the zoo, who fortunately took the time to refer us to the employees of the planetarium. Two young women, but they also seemed a bit stressed. We later learned that just an hour earlier there was a big event where the Romanian astronaut was a guest - unfortunately we missed that!

However, one staff member took the time to show us her dome room - a slightly erased unidirectional planetarium with Skyexplorer and RSA cosmos. So the French again ;)

She told us that a total of 3 people work full time at the planetarium and they are in the process of realizing many projects. Since she still had to do a little bit of work, she showed us a 20 minute movie in English - about black holes - the specialty of her colleague. After the show her colleague came in and we talked a lot about planetariums, working in science and new concepts. They also showed us a really cool trailer for a fulldome movie with cats in space - very ingenious!

Afterwards, of course, we went to the zoo, even though we are not really fans of the concept. Here, too, we have the opinion that the enclosures were definitely too small for the animals, but you could also see, that much is built in the zoo and some enclosures are made larger. We were always amused by the lions, which demonstrated to us that they are also just big cats. We also enjoyed watching the little baby lemurs climbing and playing.

Back in the apartment in Brasov it went on with the animals, because Tilman played "cat and mouse" with the crazy cat. Tomorrow we go to the house in the countryside at first to clean the bikes and perform other maintenance work.

What is Romania now?

To be honest: We don't know. But we are also very sure that this question cannot be answered that simply. Romania is many things. From a modern city to a shabby village, it can sometimes be only a few kilometers. Sometimes there is only a river between the mountains and the plains. And sometimes you meet super warm people, like Ilinca's family, and sometimes you meet very grumpy people on the street.

So Romania can be everything. Super versatile and our time here will definitely not be enough to get to know all facets of this country!