Central Transylvania, May 2023

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Central Transylvania this week. The near-constant travelling over the past 4 months has started to catch up with us a little bit now. So this week we slow the pace down and spend some time in the less mountainous centre of the region. 

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The Detail:

Distance Covered: 273 miles

Financial: Fuel £67; Site Fees £60; Groceries £76; Household £10; Alcohol £11; Laundry £15; Zeus £17; Total £257

Stopovers: Nicula Monastery; Cheile Turzii [2 nights]; Targu Mures; Camping Curtea Large  [3 nights]

We planned to be in Romania for about 6 weeks. We have by no means seen everything that we wanted to see. But something has changed. Maybe it’s just because we have been on the road for a while now. Maybe it’s because our expectations were high. I’m not sure what it is. 
 
I think that maybe we need to take a break from always pushing onward. Stop somewhere and just chill for a week or two. A holiday from travelling if you like.
 
So I think that’s what we are going to do. Find somewhere we like. Quiet and out of the way. And stop there for a while, even if it’s only a few days, just chill, and don’t feel we always need to keep moving.

Nicula Monastery

The Nicula Monastery is known as one of the oldest in Romania. The first historical record talks of a wooden church in 1552, used as a school for “the care of souls and the teaching of infants” .
 
The icon of the Mother of God painted in 1681 by the Orthodox priest Luca is perhaps the most notable thing about the Monastery. It is said that the icon weeped for 26 days in 1699 as a foreshadowing of the sad events of 1700 when Emperor Leopold I effectively ended Transylvania’s Eastern Orthodox Church. From then on, the Monastery, and the icon, became a place of pilgrimage.
Nicula Monastery, Northern Transylvania, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania
Cheile Tarzii, Romania

Cheile Turzii

Cheile Turzii is a gorge cut through the limestone rock by the Hasdate River. A nature reserve, the gorge has 200 metre high cliffs, an abundance of caves, and is a haven for the flora and fauna that live there.
 
It is a lovely place. Quiet on a Tuesday, the fast food stalls and ticket office hint at how busy it is likely to become at the weekend. Yes, almost unbelievably even this beautiful place in nature has become commercialised. And yes, you even have to pay to take a walk through the gorge (there was nobody in the ticket office while we were there, so I suspect that it’s only charged at the weekend).
 
It’s clearly a popular spot for camping too. When we arrived there was already another motorhome here, and by the evening there were 3 motorhomes, a couple of campervans, and several tents. 
 
Nevertheless, we had a lovely quiet evening doing nothing much in particular.
 
It was pretty wet overnight and all morning so we didn’t do anything much. 
 
When the rain did finally let up we took a walk through the gorge. Have to say it was a little scary at times. 
 
The walk itself isn’t really that bad. There are parts where a path has been cut into the rock and many places where rocks make it very uneven. However, a combination of slippery rock, narrow ledges (albeit not with a high drop), and a dog with no sense of fear whatsoever made it more challenging than it probably should have been.

Camping Curtea Larga

We were having trouble finding somewhere nice to stop for a few days. The problem being that most places we like the look of tend to be out of the way. In the dry weather that isn’t an issue, but in the rain access can be tricky, and the last thing we need is to get stuck in the middle of nowhere.
 
Tried a couple of places, but they didn’t really work for me. We ended up next to the football club at Targu Mures. It wasn’t glamorous but was ok for one night.
 
With thunderstorms promised and struggling to find somewhere nice to stop off-grid without the worry of getting stuck we decided to head for a campsite for a few days.
 
A visit to the supermarket to stock up first then a leisurely drive through central Transylvania to the campsite, just a few kilometres south of Sighisoara.
 
Not planning on doing much over the next few days. There are a number of castles, citadels, fortified churches, Monasteries and so on in the area, but to be honest we have had our fill of those for the moment.
 
 
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
Camping Curtea Larga, Romania
We have about 2 weeks left in Romania. We are hoping to spend some time exploring the Southern and Western parts of Transylvania, mainly for the scenery. In particular we would like to travel the Transfagarasan, but it may not be fully open until the middle of June. We shall see.
 

Romania is a beautiful country with so much to see and do. We have been here for about a month now and have crammed a great deal into that time. Yet there is still a huge amount that we haven’t seen and we only have around 10 days before we start the slow journey home.

There are so many monasteries, churches, fortified churches, castles, citadels, and museums, all of which are worthy of a visit. That’s not to mention the many beauty spots, nature reserves, scenic drives, and natural wonders. There is no possible way we could hope to see and do everything in our relatively short time here.

So we will have to cherry-pick. Go through everything and decide where to go. We don’t want to rush around trying to cram everything into the last few days. 

Some menu highlights from this week

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As before, There is so much more we saw and did that I haven’t included here – you’ll just have to go see it for yourself!

I haven’t gone into great detail about anything in particular in this post, so if you would like me to expand on anything please leave a comment and I will endeavor to write another separate post on the topic.

Happy Motorhoming.

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