I’ve been slow to wrap up my Tramp across Transylvania. I went to Transylvania to look for the last wilderness in Europe, but instead I found myself embroiled in demonstrations in Bucharest, drinking sweet cherry brandy with a widower, listening to young farmer extol the importance of luddism, and chatting about Romania’s organic farming potential with a rich agronomist in a big new Merc. It was not what I had planned or expected. But then the best sort of journeys rarely are. I decided to follow my nose and my feet departing from the pre-planned schedule when it didn’t deliver. Plodding along by myself in a deserted snowy landscape looses some of its appeal after a few days. I could have soldiered on, and trudged alone across the mountains but it didn’t feel right. So I changed my approach. Ditched the only human powered journeys bit, and hitched and trained … Continue reading →

I crunched around looking for somewhere to put my tent, or if I was lucky, I hoped to find an old barn or deserted house to sleep in. For some reason I prefer sleeping in building even if its derelict. I’m lazy. I hate taking down tents in the morning. I padded up and down the main road. The muffled crunch of my boots on snow breaking the clear blue and white silence. If there’s enough of it, snow makes anywhere seem like a dream with the volume turned low and in Cerna Sat a small village on a lake in the foothills of the Carpathians the snow was plentiful, crisp and powdery like angels dust. At the Jesus Icon, I met a man with an axe and a heavy waist coat made from a sheep’s fleece. His bare hands gripped the axe, apparently immune or inured to the sharp … Continue reading →

So, I’m back on the road again. Yesterday afternoon I hoped on a train to Brasov, a town in the mountains north of Bucharest. My plan is to spend the next couple of weeks walking around the Faragas mountains; visiting some Saxon villages in the Olt valley, Dracula’s Castle in Bran, the Ice Hotel in Balea and climbing a few mountains. The blog has been a little quiet for the last few days. I apologise to all three of my readers for this. I wanted to post something that made some sense of the current un-rest in Bucharest. I went to some demonstrations, talked to a lot of people, did a good deal of research online and came very close to getting caught in a batten charge. At each turn there was a new twist. The main stream media are presenting the street violence as hooliganism organised by the football … Continue reading →