Cycling Romania: Blaj to Gura Raului to Sibiu

Passing a horse cart and avoiding some poo.
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Surely it had to get easier, right?  Well, wouldn´t you know it, it did.  From Blaj, we embarked on a downright awesome day of biking.  Our goal for the day was to reach a family guest house in Gura Raului, a small village about 15 kilometers outside of Sibiu. The beautiful, green rolling hills of Transylvania continued as we did a few respectable climbs along pretty good quality roads with little traffic.  Heaven!  Mostly, our only interactions during this day involved waving at shepherds and villagers, trying to look menacing enough to keep stray dogs from chasing us, and communing with the natural beauty that was all around us.  Oh, and there was one road race between Tole and a group of boys in a horse cart.  Tole won!  Go, Tole!!!

Horses hanging out in the town center, north of Sibiu.
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The only kicker for this day was a 4 kilometer stretch, ending just 7 kilometers from Gura Raului, where the only route appeared to be along the biggest interstate in Romania.  As I previously mentioned, Romanian highways are no good for bicyclists.  It´s a two-lane road with no shoulder, a bazillion trucks, and the drivers make crazed suicidal dashes to pass each other at every opportunity.  Once we reached it, we found a gravel, trash-ridden "shoulder" that seemed passable.  It more or less was, but unfortunately it ended after about 1 kilometer.  Here, we basically followed a small road off to the side, which promptly ended.  We were now high above the highway, and perversely, we could see the town cathedral that marked our turn off to the smaller road to Gura Raului, but had no idea how to reach it.  We decided to try to bicycle across a green field to try and reach what appeared to be another cow path which we hoped would lead to the cathedral we could see.

the cows and cow herders at the top also seemed pretty surprised by our presence

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We´d begun to understand that the cow paths really are a road system unto themselves.  After all, the farmers and villagers in horse carts use them to get into towns to trade goods and so on.  So it was a reasonable, if far from sure, bet that it would lead us to a town.  Of course, we could just end up stuck or turned back again.  The thing is that when you´re biking somewhere like Romania, you get into these situations, and you don´t really have a lot of options.  We were dead tired, having already biked over 75 fairly tough kilometers that day, and we could see no other way.  So we trudged on.  And holy mamoly if it didn´t work!  By carrying our bikes and panniers through some bramblebush, we finally reached the muddy cow path.  Yes!  Another classic moment presented itself as we immediately encountered a fork in the "road."  Luckily, a family came riding along the path in their horse cart, and we busted out our broken Romanian to ask directions.  They seemed a little puzzled to see us, but were quick to help.  We pushed our bikes up a big muddy hill (again!), and the cows and cow herders at the top also seemed pretty surprised by our presence.  In the end, the amazing views coming down the last part of the cow path provided a reward for all our troubles (see pics).

A glorious morning just south of Blaj.
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Near sunset, we finally reached Gura Raului and the awesome, cozy family guesthouse, Pensiunea Campean, aka Pensiunea Agroturistica Maria.  The owners are a very cool married couple, who live there along with their two young children.  In addition to a clean and cozy guesthouse nestled up against the Fagaras mountains, they provide delicious breakfast and dinner.  Dimitru speaks French, so he and Tole were able to talk a lot that way, and I was able to pick up most of it (it helped that neither of them are native speakers, so they speak slowly!) and interject now and again with my toddler vocabulary.  Dimitru showed us the full operation, and explained that they make EVERYTHING that is served at the guesthouse, with the exception of the meat they buy from a neighboring villager.  They grow all the fruits and vegetables, take the milk from their cow, and make the jam, cheese, sour cream, and bread.  And of course, like any good Romanian man, Dimitru makes wine and palinka himself.  And it was all delicious.  If you´re ever in the area, their guesthouse is an absolute must.

Huffing through the hills.
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Palinka, if you´re wondering, is essentially a liquor distilled from either plums or pears.  It´s strong, and has a faint fruit taste.  It´s extremely similar to the schnapps that you get in Germany and Austria (real schnapps, not the syrupy stuff you get in the States).  Seriously every single guesthouse we stayed in had homemade palinka.  Everyone has the distilling equipment and goes through the process to brew their own.  Same with wine.  Everyone has grapes growing all around their house, no matter how little land they have.  They ferment the grapes in big barrels and, voila! Wine!

Thats an order! Okay, later we learned it means, "good travels" ("bon voyage").
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After our dreamy time in Pensiunea Campean, we rode into Sibiu to spend a day.  Sibiu is one of the most historical cities in Romania, according to the old LP guide, but we found it a little boring.  The downtown is pretty nice, and we saw the most beautiful and unique handpainted pottery on offer in the very lively town market, but I think Romania´s charm lies more in the mountains and smaller towns.