Table of contents
Deleker
15th pictures
Deleker
1/15
Traveling by motorcycle in Romania. Beautiful streets, villages and very friendly people make the trip an experience.
Deleker
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Sighişoara, the old Schabburg, is the most beautiful city in Transylvania with its medieval ambience.
Deleker
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the “cheerful graveyard” by Sapanta: The colorful wooden crosses describe them in verses and pictures “official” and the “hidden, mysterious” Side of the deceased.
Deleker
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The most famous pass in the Carpathians, the Transfăgărăş, is still in winter closure in mid-May.
Deleker
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The most famous of all Dracula’s castles is Bran Castle. Whether the legendary count actually lived here is controversial.
Deleker
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Faces of Romania: A big surprise of the trip are the friendly people.
Deleker
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Tourist magnet in the Eastern Carpathians: the spectacular Bicaz Gorge was cut 300 meters deep into the rocks by the Bicajelul River.
Deleker
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The roads of Romania are better than their reputation. While the highways are mostly perfectly paved, enduro riders can still find their Dorado on smaller paths.
Deleker
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Small, well-stocked “mom and pop shops” ensure supplies in the country.
Deleker
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Country life like 100 years ago: old German village in Transylvania (Transylvania).
Deleker
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Every morning the steam locomotive of the narrow-gauge Wassertalbahn leaves the Vişeu de Sus station.
Deleker
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On the way in the Carpathian Mountains on road 7A near Petrosani.
Deleker
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Time stood still: One of the most beautiful villages in Transylvania is Deutsch-Weibkirch, today’s Viscri.
Deleker
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The Dracula myth is monetized in Transylvania: Local in Sighişoara.
Deleker
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The second life of a former Ford Transit police as a minibus on the Wassertalbahn.
to travel
Traveling by motorcycle in Romania
Traveling by motorcycle in Romania
Explore the Middle East on two wheels
Romania is an EU member, but still largely unknown to Western Europeans. The country is full of discoveries and surprises: very friendly people, the mighty mountains of the Carpathian Mountains, old German villages full of atmosphere, Dracula’s footsteps and paths full of potholes.
Markus Biebricher
04/12/2012
Deleker
Time stood still: One of the most beautiful villages in Transylvania is Deutsch-Weibkirch, today’s Viscri.
Not knowing anything bad, Robert and I roll on the E70 through one of the street villages east of Timişoara. Suddenly a powerful wind fist grabs me and pushes the Tenere violently to the side of the road. A fat 40-ton truck roars past me by a hair’s breadth with 90 items. In the middle of the place. Followed by a black Porsche Cayenne, which, as soon as the semitrailer leaves enough space for it, cuts the truck to pieces. How stupid do you have to be to drive so brain-free? We are shocked, but not for the last time, because almost every quarter of an hour we experience similar assassination attempts on the highways. The normal Romanian is quite civilized on the road, it is above all the drivers of German luxury cars who apparently believe that with whatever wealth they have gained, they have also leased the right to insane driving. And what do we learn from this? Avoid the highways, use the small paths.
The first week in Romania does not go exactly as we had imagined. The perfect spring weather that accompanied us through Austria and Hungary does not yet dare to reach the Carpathian Mountains. Winter stubbornly refuses to retreat there. Beyond 1500 meters, the landscape is still deeply snowed, the high mountains are covered in dark clouds, and the slope on which we dare to approach the high mountains sinks into blowing snow and mud at a degree above zero. From the dream of the highest pass in the country, the 2145 meter high Urdele. In mid-May we didn’t expect to be shock-frozen here.
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The nice Dutch Antje, who runs the cute campsite in Carta, spreads optimism: “The day after tomorrow spring should finally come.” The freezing drizzle in the night speaks a different language, but in the morning the sun actually fights its way shyly through the clouds. Finally we see the Carpathian Mountains, a huge phalanx of steep, white mountains, over 2500 meters high.
We leave the tents, stroll along small, often unpaved and almost traffic-free paths through the gentle, green hills of the Subcarpathian Mountains. Shepherds travel across the country with their flocks of sheep, colorfully dressed Roma families bump through the villages in rustic, ancient horse-drawn carts. Here we feel like we have been transported back decades, maybe even a century.
The place-name signs are in German and Romanian, testifying to the former settlement area of the so-called Saxons here in Transylvania. The first settlers came to Transylvania as early as the 12th century, following the promises of the Hungarian King Geysa, building villages and powerful fortified churches and thus securing the country against the dreaded attacks by Mongols and Tartars. As a thank you for this, the settlers enjoyed the privileges of the “golden license”, advantages that they had not dared to dream of at home. Half of the former 300 fortified churches have survived the centuries, some in a desolate state of disrepair, others have been restored worth seeing.
Deleker
Tourist magnet in the Eastern Carpathians: the spectacular Bicaz Gorge was cut 300 meters deep into the rocks by the Bicajelul River.
We find the most beautiful in Deutsch-Weibkirch, which is now called Viscri. Sarah, the 75-year-old “guardian” of the ancient fortified church, leads us through her treasure. Meter-thick walls, pitch-black stairs, a wooden battlement at a dizzy height, surmounted by the white tower with its pyramid-shaped, red tile roof. But not only the fortified church fascinates us, the village is also picturesque, colorful and lively like no other place in this area.
Old pastel-colored stone houses line the wide, roughly paved village street, children drive cows back from the pasture into the stable, a blue Russian truck collects full milk cans from the large wooden doors of the farmsteads. Country life like out of a picture book. Only the German residents have almost completely disappeared, leaving Deutsch-Weibkirch after the fall of the Ceauşescu regime. Today it is mainly Romanians and Roma who live in Viscri.
In contrast to the weather forecast, it was a good day, 15 times warmer than yesterday. But a nasty surprise is still waiting. Shortly before Carta on a dusty mogul slope, Roberts BMW does not want to start after a photo stop, the control lights only glow tiredly at dusk. Apparently the battery is over. We tie the thick 1200 with lashing straps behind the XT and pull it to the campsite. The Tenere is very warm to the heart, it was not developed as a towing vehicle. Antje lends us a jumper cable, but the BMW disdains the power from the Yamaha battery. Nothing works anymore. Of course, such mishaps happen on Saturdays. So Robert spends a boring Sunday reading the GS repair book, learns depressing things about possible faults in the CAN bus electronics, ranting about the ADAC return service.
Quiet, Brauner, we are still a long way from that. On Monday morning BMW receives an organ donation, we implant the Yamaha battery in it. This time the GS does not defend itself against the Japanese current and starts immediately. Robert jets to Sibiu, finds a Bosch service there that even has a suitable battery in stock, and is back in a good mood by noon. Finally mobile again. Pack up and head to the legendary Dracula Castle in Bran.
Whether the alleged vampire, who first became world famous through the novel by Bram Stoker, actually lived here is controversial, but actually also irrelevant, because the myth is alive, attracts tons of tourists to the great castle, which is fantastic even without the horror stories.
Fascinating architecture, playful turrets and arcades, rooms and corridors, sometimes eerily dark, then again filigree and light or extremely massive. Meanwhile it is raining again, we flee north, come through depressing places, are appalled by the omnipresent rubbish along the streets and in the rivers, drink nasty coffee in a terrible inn. The innkeeper drags a large raffia basket with empty, brown plastic bottles across the yard and simply dumps it into the river. He acknowledges our stunned faces with a casual shrug. Everyday life in Romania.
Deleker
The most famous pass in the Carpathians, the Transfăgărăş, is still in winter closure in mid-May.
That’s enough. We decide that it just has to get better now. It seems to help, the rain is subsiding, the temperature is approaching double digits, and in the evening Sighişoara, the former Schabburg, knocks us off our feet. What a wonderful city! Faded, colorful and finely restored centuries-old houses line roughly cobbled streets, spacious squares with cozy cafes – a great medieval ensemble full of atmosphere. We are thrilled and stay for two days. In fact, Sighişoara is the turning point of our trip, from now on not only will the weather be better, but the positive impressions will also pile up.
Over small streets, often in the stage of renaturation, decorated with a considerable arsenal of potholes and thus a suitable terrain for the long suspension travel of our enduros, we bump north-east, marvel at the curious, always friendly people, an apocalyptic industrial ruin amidst sulfur-smelling spoil heaps , endless forests and exciting passes. The place-name signs are no longer Romanian-German, but Romanian-Hungarian. In the former Hungarian settlement area, the villages are also changing their face: wooden houses decorated with artistic carvings glow in the warm sun. What a contrast to the ugly cities like Ostra, Stulpicani and Fraisin, which are also annoying with endlessly long through-roads.
We follow the Bistrita river through a beautiful valley, visit the famous Vltava monastery in Sucevita and then finally discover mountain roads that are really fun to drive. Like the 17A, which curves over 1000 meter passes through the mountains of the Maramures region with the best asphalt. On the horizon, the snow-covered two-thousand-meter peaks of the northern Carpathians stretch their peaks into the deep blue spring sky. Maramures is different, densely forested, wilder and lonelier. The people have lived from forestry for centuries. In Vişeu we find a simple inn right next to the forest railway, an absolute must for steam locomotive fans. Every morning the cute narrow-gauge locomotive steams with three tourist and many open freight cars into the road-free Wassertal, and in the evening it comes back to Vişeu fully loaded with tree trunks. We would have loved to have gone on this journey through time, but the train was sold out.
Tomorrow we want to go to the Ukraine, time to sum up our impressions of Romania. It was exciting, often depressing, then again extraordinarily beautiful. The toilet paper was always pink and rough, the people always open and friendly. We never felt unsafe. There was only one thing we never wanted to get used to: the mindless speeders in their German luxury sleighs.
Info
Werel
Travel time: 14 days. Distance covered: 2000 kilometers.
The contrasts along the Carpathian Arc: pollution and beautiful old cities, hospitality and Dracula stories, life like 100 years ago. Romania is exciting!
Getting there:
It’s a long way, from Cologne to Sibiu the shortest distance is 1,600 kilometers. The fastest route from southern Germany leads through Austria and Hungary, otherwise you can also travel through the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Ukraine. For the long journey from northern and western Germany, the night journey with the DB Autozug to Villach is ideal. A one-way trip from Dusseldorf to Villach costs from 186 euros per person and motorcycle, depending on the season. Info: Telephone 0 18 05/24 12 24 or www.dbautozug.de
Traveling:
The petrol station network is astonishingly dense. Unleaded gasoline is widely available. The roads are better than their reputation, which can be experienced especially on comfortably suspended touring motorcycles. The trunk roads are often in very good condition. However, side streets often require a slalom course between the potholes. Gravel junkies will get their money’s worth on the numerous slopes. Don’t forget: the green insurance card.
Travel time:
Spring in the Carpathians sometimes doesn’t come until mid-May. The high passes are often stuck under a thick blanket of snow until June. Summers can get up to 40 degrees. The ideal travel time is therefore mid-May to the end of June and mid-August to mid-October.
Accommodation:
Free travelers usually spontaneously find accommodation for the night, mostly in pensions and inns in the price range between ten and 30 euros. There are now enough accommodations in touristically developed areas. Campsites are rare, but they do exist. Free camping is not a problem. The price level is well below that of Central Europe. Payment is made with the Romanian lei, which can be drawn from numerous ATMs. For one euro there is 4.36 RON (official name of the lei).
Literature:
Recommended, if not flawless, is the thick Romania manual from the Reise Know-How publishing house for 24.90 euros. The book “Kulturschock Romania” for 14.90 euros from the same publisher allows interesting insights into the Romanian soul. Good cards are in short supply. We had the tickets for Transylvania from Friday & Bernd in the scale 1: 400000 and the Romania sheet in 1: 600000 from Reise Know-How included. Both have an unusual error rate, show streets and campsites where there are none and, on the other hand, deny real roads. You have to make the best of it.
Info:
As usual, the best source of information is the Internet, for example with the following pages: www.rumaenien-tourismus.de, www.sibiweb.de, www.siebenbuerger.de, www.karpartenwilli.com, www.maramures.de
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