Road trip: 36 European countries

Day 56 Lake Balaton,Hungary, to the Neusiedlersee ,Austria

30/4/2015

This morning I drove for 2 hours(160km) to the most north-westerly point in Hungary,the city of Sopron.This time I was following up a ‘top tip’ from my road atlas .It is described as ’ a beautiful walled town with many Gothic and Renaissance houses’.Historically it was the capital of the Burgenland province of Austria,but when Austria and Hungary were dismembered after WWI,despite being in the most part German speaking the populace of the city voted by 55% in a referendum to remain with Hungary,for which it has earned the nickname ‘the loyal city’.Burgenland still exists as a province of Austria but Sopron sticks into it in a salient of Hungary.

The walls exist only in fragments but the street pattern of the old town contained within the oval area that the walls would have enclosed,still remains.One of the features of the town is the tall 12th century firewatch tower which stands over it.The little streets and church towers provide lots of photogenic views, and it is possible to walk a circuit round the old town in just 15 minutes.

Sopron town centre-with the 12th century firewatch tower (green dome) in the background and the plague column

Following a wander ,and then a coffee and a bite to eat ,my next stop was to see the Esterhazy Palace,which I had read recommendations for.I got a bit muddled up here,as the Princes Esterhazy were considerable property builders and owners.There is a massive 18th century Rococo Esterhazy Palace at Fertod, Hungary,20km to the west of Sopron,in retrospect well worth a visit ,but the one I went to was 15km north, at Eisenstadt,Sopron’s successor as the capital of Burgenland, over the border in Austria.This is a Baroque Esterhazy Palace started in the 17th century and modified in the 18th.In the end I was not quite sure whether I saw the “best” one or not.There was nothing wrong with the one I did see and it was definitely worth a visit, and it certainly knocked Festhetic castle, from yesterday, for six.

The ticket allowed access to one section unguided,and also the wine cellars,which were a maze of tunnels beneath the Palace and looked surprisingly well stocked still.The main feature meant enduring a guided tour in German but the state apartments were impressive,and there is a fabulous concert hall ,known as the Haydn room-he lived and composed here.While waiting for the timed guided tour to start I popped down the road to the nice pedestrianised old main street of Eisenstadt to buy an Austrian motorway vignette(sticker) for the van from a tobacconist.All these countries seem to charge foreign visitors a road tax, and I’ve no idea why the UK can’t do the same. In the case of Austria,as well as Hungary,the toll is just needed for motorways and expressroads.I have a nasty feeling that before arriving at Eisenstadt I strayed down a dual carriageway that was chargeable(monitored by cameras)-fine 120 euros.Time will tell on that one.*

(* No, it was OK;no fines appeared later)

Esterhazy Palace ,Eisenstadt

The 'Haydn room'

The stables and coach house ,now competing wine bars

I left the town at five,by which time the roads were getting very busy,as it’s May 1st bank holiday tomorrow(Friday).I expected the Eastern European countries to recognise this on the day of May 1st,but a slight surprise to find Austria doing the same .A short drive of 15 km was all that was needed to take me to a campsite just beyond the nice little town of Rust, on the shore of the Neusiedler See. This is a large(12km x 36 km) very shallow(one metre) lake .The bottom tip just lies within Hungary ,where it is known as the Ferto.The Ferto/Neusiedlersee area has Unesco World Heritage status due to its cultural landscape.The Uneco citation is as follows:"Fertő/Neusiedlersee Cultural Landscape incorporates the westernmost steppe lake in Eurasia. This is an area of outstanding natural values and landscape diversity created and sustained by the encounter of different landscape types. The present character of the landscape is the result of millennia-old land-use forms based on stock raising and viticulture to an extent not found in other European lake areas"

The shores of the lake are lined with reed beds,which extend in places a km or more out into the water.My campsite was out on a peninsular in the reeds,at a boating marina ,the place named Ruster Bucht, (Rust bay)which made me laugh with its approximation to "rusty bucket".Next to this was a strange area of “traditional” thatched holiday huts on stilts out in the reeds,accessed by wooden walkways.There are also rows of boathouses on stilts.Given that the area within the reeds looks like a fetid swamp and is teeming with midges and mosquitos it is not a place I should like to spend much time in .On the lawn of the boating marina, it was rather like Slimbridge ,for dozens of Greylag geese with their goslings were grazing on the grass.A man was fishing among the moored pedalos, and I did doubt whether he'd got a good spot but he proved me wrong by pulling out a monster carp right in front of me.The little town of Rust on the lakeshore,however,is an attractive little place.

PS for those of you who felt that my February Ski trip to Austria shouldn’t count as “a country” ticked off the list because I wasn’t in my van-well, the van is definitely in Austria now !

Traditional thatched holiday homes on stilts, in a fetid mosquito-ridden swamp

The Neusiedlersee :marina in foreground, reed beds, containing assorted huts on stilts, stretching out into the lake in the background

Day 55 Sikonda to Lake Balaton

30/4/2015

today's route ( 215 km )

29/04/2015 It was a 150km cross-country drive to the lake:although the roads were minor ones they were all good.The landscape was very similar to ,say,Herefordshire or Shropshire with hilly farmland, lots of woods, and little country towns.

Lake Balaton is one of Hungary’s leading tourist spots.It’s a huge lake,77km long,14km wide,but it’s very shallow at just 3 metres,unlike the large Balkan lakes,Skadar(44 metres) and Ohrid(288 metres). As a result of being so shallow the water gets very warm and is popular for swimming,as well as all the other watersports.It doesn’t look particularly inviting to me,being an opaque eau-de-nil colour(grey-green).The natural lakeshore is reed beds,but many artificial sand beaches have been made.Dotted along the shore there seem to be marinas,holiday parks,golf clubs etc, and most towns have a vintage steamer or two moored up at a jetty.Confusingly,most towns along the shore are prefixed with ‘Balaton’ hence Balatonzeped,Balatonzemes,Balatonzarszo are just a few of many,making navigation by road signs alone near impossible.

I arrived at the south end of the lake at Keszthely,a town with a population of about 20,000 .I specifically went to visit Festetics castle,a Baroque palace built by a wealthy industrialist and social climber around 1800.One of the family hobbies was breeding racehorses, and they also seemed to do a lot of hunting. One of the Festhetics married a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton in the 1800's and judging by the family portraits she introduced them to the Victorian British upper classes’ pastime of being painted wearing tartan attire.The house was reasonably interesting and I was a little surprised that much of the family’s furniture and so on was still there given that they were booted out in 1944(by which point the contemporary Festhetic had married a Polish Countess) and it has been in state hands since. The place wasn’t quite up to National Trust standards but they are doing a vigourous renovation of the garden;at present it’s at the JCB stage so not too attractive.There was a big library,with a collection of (I was told)important manuscripts and books.In the massive stables,built in a similar style to the house, was a display of about 200 coaches of all types, and as a reminder of the harshness of central European winters, there were also about 20 horse drawn sleighs. Finally,across the road there is a hunting museum, which I skipped,but (oddly) above this is a most impressive model railway filling a 40 metre hall, and that I did have a look at. I think it is sponsored by Marklin (a German manufacturer)

Festhetics Kastely, in Keszthely, near Lake Balaton

After leaving Keszthely I drove for 60km around the shore of the lake to the town of Balatonfured which apparently was the earliest and poshest resort on the lake, where the Austro-Hungarian rich built themselves villas. There is a very pleasant tree line boulevard along the lakeshore, but it’s very touristy in parts, with fast food joints as well as more upmarket things such as the Royal Balaton yacht club .I stopped for the night on a resort campsite on the shore nearby.

Lake Balaton

Day 54 Subotica,Serbia to Pécs,Hungary

29/4/2015

today's route ( 185 km)

28/04/2015 As I went over to Central European time yesterday, and my clock went back an hour from the Eastern European time that Greece, Bulgaria and Romania operate on, I managed to get off to an early start today.

My route first took me through the Serbian city of Subotica (I was camped only 5km outside it).Lonely Planet rates it as a city of a certain interest with some Art Nouveau buildings.It was an Austro-Hungarian city until 1920. I didn’t spot anything worth stopping for and headed straight through, crossing back into Hungary at the quiet crossing of Kelebija.To get to Pecs,I headed west parallel to the border for 60km.I had seen that Hungary has a very modern motorway network(if you want to go to or from Budapest-as all motorways radiate from it).I wondered what it might be like on the lesser roads circling the country.For this first 60km I travelled on a road that was being totally refurbished, some stretches with the tarmac so new it hadn’t dried, others where the old road had been scalped but not re-laid, and there were a number of traffic lights which delayed me a bit, and a massive army of workforce,but eventually I reached the M6 motorway and roared towards Pecs.The Hungarian road signs work on the British system, motorways designated “M” and signed in blue, and lesser roads signed in green. This is exactly the reverse of every other country I’ve been in, where the convention is for green signs indicating motorways, usually designated “A”, and blue signs for lesser roads.

As well as the changes in road signs,I have had to contend with the different currencies,each new one seeming to move the decimal point one place.There are 6.27 Romanian Lei to the pound,170 Serbian Dinars to the pound, and 420 Hungarian forints (nicely known as the HUF)to the pound. I’ve had all three in my wallet in the last couple of days and confused some shopkeepers (and myself)by handing them the wrong currency, more than once, and the mental maths to calculate equivalent values is a bit taxing.

Before reaching the motorway the land was totally flat, the Hungarian plain, which I have been travelling through since 50km before the Hungarian/Romanian border. On crossing the Danube this morning ,travelling East to West ,the land started to get a little hilly,and wooded.This is known as South Trans-Danubia and is recognised as an area of outstanding natural beauty.I skirted the town of Mohacs,famous for its two battles.In 1526 there was a decisive Ottoman victory here which secured a large area of Hungary for the Ottoman empire.In 1687 there was another battle here at which this time the Ottomans were decisively defeated and it marked the start of the decline in Ottoman fortunes in Europe.

In Pecs I first looked in on a potential campsite, supposedly open all year according to its website and several guides,but the person I had earlier reached on the phone to check couldn’t speak English.Following earlier experiences I was not unsurprised to find it shut until May but I had a plan B which was to head out of town 15km to another one, definitely open, once I had seen the town.

Pecs is a pleasant city.It has a reputation as a cultural centre and has a huge attractive central square, pedestrianised streets, vestiges of some medieval walls, many grand Austro-Hungarian buildings, and at least one (non-functioning) mosque, left over from the Ottoman occupation. It is a modern city too, with food in the restaurants very much international. I did have to circuit the town centre 3 times before I spotted a suitable parking place but after that it was just 500 yards walk to the sights.

Szechenyi square ,main square of Pecs:at the top end the Gazi Kasim Pasha mosque,built after the Ottoman conquest in1543

Szechenyi square

National Theatre of Pecs

The 'Post Office palace'

I was particularly keen to see the local Unesco World Heritage site of 4th century Early Christian Roman tombs, apparently rather unusual because they are a series of little mausoleum–type tombs with buildings enclosing them.

These are right in the city centre, in a museum created in the modern cellars of the buildings they are under, and is quite a maze through passages to get to them all, which are all jumbled up with foundations of medieval town wall etc. The wall paintings are fairly similar to those in some chambers of the catacombs in Rome,and have Christian images such as Saints, and Adam and Eve.Defininitely worth seeing.

One of several early Christian tombs on display in Pecs

At 4pm I took the road north out of town to the little spa village of Sikonda in the wooded hills above Pecs where there is a good campsite .Fortunately I’m heading on in the same direction tomorrow. What was nice was that for the equivalent of £5 I was able to treat myself to the spa in the smart hotel across the road. There was a very stylish modern spa with 3 pools, jacuzzis, two types of sauna (Finnish and herbal),a steam room, and even a salt cave, the whole place with about 5 people in it. I think I came out the cleanest I’ve been for a couple of months! Having seen the price of the hotel restaurant (£10 for a four course all-you-can-eat buffet, £1 for a glass of wine) I headed back later that evening for a blow-out.

At dinner I was glad to see that one of the puddings was the Hungarian version of an Austrian ski-trip favourite, Kaiserschmarren. The Hungarian is ‘Csaszarmorza’ which unusually for Hungarian bears a resemblance to the German word, but Hungarian is like no other European language other than Finnish and is a bit of a challenge. Normally you can get the gist of important words in the Latin or Germanic languages. For example, ‘Police ‘is usually something like ‘Policia,Politie.Politzei’ etc and is recognisable. Here the word for police is ‘Rendorseg’ :yes,I have already been stopped by the Rendorseg ! At a routine roadside check just over the border where I think they were targeting the driving licences of foreign cars.

Day 53 Romania to Palic, Serbia, via Hungary

27/4/2015

today's route (220 km)

Another day of travelling took me over the border from Romania into Hungary and then for a brief peek into Serbia. Palic, just across the border into Serbia from Hungary, seems to be a holiday town but my main reason for visiting was that there seemed to be a convenient campsite open all year.There was a glossy website with pictures of a pool, and a restaurant (the link below has now expired).I had tried ringing, got an answer but the speaker couldn’t speak English.After some difficulty driving up and down near the indicated location on google maps,I found the spot:there were no signs,but there were two Slovenian campervans in a car park behind a tatty building, actually the Mexican restaurant shown on the website.It seems that there was a campsite of sorts,but it is shut, "maybe until June".It looks grotty anyway, and a mile away from the website. Later,another Slovenian family turned up in a caravan and parked-also woefully misled!

camping Palic-the website

Camping Palic,the reality

After discussion with two people working in the little restaurant whose carpark it was, I was allowed to park on the patch of grass with some shade for the equivalent of about £3 (This time I had made sure that I had changed some money and obtained a few Serbian dinars at the border.I had also used my time briefly in Hungary to get some Hungarian florints from a cashpoint at a rather basic looking Tesco store, and just before crossing into Hungary had stopped at a garage to buy a virtual road tax disc, needed for the Hungarian motorways only, which I did travel a few miles on,and will be going back into the country tomorrow,the payment being valid 10 days.)

Palic itself was not a bad place.It seems to be a holiday village of sorts, with a small lake.There is a grid of residential streets with some pleasant bungalows and houses with well tended gardens ,and people are out mowing their lawns.The smell of mown grass,and the buzz of lawnmowers on a pleasant evening was oddly evocative of home, despite the otherwise distinctly foreign and different areas I had been through in the last few days.

Crossing the border from Romania into Hungary must be a frustrating task if you are a lorry driver. Earlier in the day as I had approached this border,for about 5 miles there was a line of lorries stopped at the side of the road,being called forward occasionally towards the border.There was just room for cars and myself the pass them on the road. The queue for cars was only 5 or six, at just the one open lane of five potential ones. It seems that the hold up for lorries is that they have to go through an X-ray machine, and there is just one. Hungary is policing here the border to the entire Schengen area, and their limited facilities don’t seem up to managing the supposed movement of free trade going in the EU.

Day 52 Sibiu to Minis, near Arad

26/4/2015

today's route ( 255 km )

I decided to say goodbye to Transylvania today and head west towards Hungary.I had been told that the main road was a dangerous one, and thought that Sunday might be quieter for travelling on it.There is motorway for the first 60km from Sibiu to Deva,so new some of it doesn’t feature on my satnav.The next 100km,till my stop at the village of Minis,just short of Arad ,was single carriageway road in a good state but quite winding so had lots of sectors with no overtaking. Because it’s a busy route for international traffic heading towards Hungary,there are lorries which acquire a queue behind them.The cars, or even other lorries, seem frequently to try to overtake out of impatience ,often on the restricted sections. Despite this I think I was probably correct that Sunday was a quieter day than usual,which was fortunate.

After about 60km from Sibiu I seemed to leave the last of the ordered identikit old Saxon villages behind.They are very attractive,as each house is painted in a different bright colour.There is a standard format to a street.All the houses are detached,gable end to the street.They are single story with a little attic in the eves. Each house then has a wall connecting it to the next house, through which there is a big arched gate,for carriages or carts, into a yard.The walls are painted the same colour as the house,making a continuous line of house,wall with gate ,house,wall ,gate,the street multi-coloured.

These are not my pictures, but added for illustration. These are good example of slightly more run down houses in villages off the main roads. In towns on the main road they were generally freshly painted and smart.

Leaving this area ,the architecture in villages became much more variable, and the colours much more muted,usually a dirty cream ,or unpainted grey. Despite the disappointment of leaving Transylvania,which had been a wonderful experience,I realised that I was now driving along the road (Highway 7) through the small towns along the banks of the river Mureș where Leigh Fermor had had such a memorable time staying in a series of country houses,featured in chapters 5 and 6 of Between the Woods and the Waters ,and from where he had set off on his motor journey with his girlfriend ,circuiting Sighisoara , Sibiu and the Saxon villages, as I had just done myself.It was the village of Guraszáda, where the von Klobusickys ,the family of Leigh Fermor's friend "Istvan" ,had their estate, and then the next village , Zam where "Angela" had hers .

I stopped at a campsite in the village of Minis ("Camping Route Roemenie" , http://www.routeroemenie.nl/ )on the edge of the very last hill before the great Hungarian plain,about 20km before the city of Arad, and 50km before the Hungarian border.It was another family-run affair,with their little orchard converted.They did evening meals,and I joined 3 Germans at the table for supper,a couple and a single traveller,who all spoke good English.The couple visited occasionally as they were involved in distribution of charity materials to good causes.

Regarding my having read in my guidebook before entering Romania that the country was very behind on delivery of EU infrastructure projects, the couple said that they were last here 2 years ago and had noticed a big stride forwards in the roads since then. It seems on discussing this with the owner of the campsite that every village in Romania does have electricity now but the current contention is the water and sewage supply. Most people in country towns have privies or septic tanks,and the government is trying to force people to pay to be connected to the new sewers they are building to meet EU targets for all villages to have sewerage by 2017.This is not a popular move,as rural people are very poor. According to the charity couple, there are quite a few children who don’t go to school as they have no appropriate clothes or shoes or transport to go,etc(although by and large I think Romania has a high proportion of university graduates too.)Discussing the Roma,it appears that they are not necessarily the poor people in Romania,it is the rural Romanians who are the poor. The Roma were thought by the Germans I spoke with to often do extremely well out of organised begging and other shady dealings in Western Europe and they thought also that they typically drive UK registered cars.I think they were expecting me to explain why, but I hadn’t heard of this !

In fact I did pass a number of the fabled Roma palaces, huge great neoclassical buildings on several levels with colonnades, towers, shiny silver-coloured sheet-metal roofs, in various stages of construction. I was lucky I had not photographed any because apparently if you are spotted you are pursued and often assaulted: the Germans seemed to think you might even be shot at!

I would thoroughly recommend Transylvania as worth visiting.The scenery is beautiful and at times spectacular:there is much to do and see and I felt I hadn't done it full justice in 3 days.As a added bonus all the young people speak good English(in fact excellent English judging by the hoardings advertising the latest museum exhibition in Sibiu,using the slogan 'Go for Baroque')April is definitely the time to visit too.The winters are severe and the summers very hot: In September when it starts getting cooler again, apparently the landscape is brown following the hot summer. Now in April it is beautiful and green, and pleasantly warm.

I didn't have any bad experiences ,and was only bothered by the odd begging child.The main visible issue apart from poverty is Romania's stray dog problem.This is partly the legacy of Ceaucescu's North Korean-esque social experiment whereby he forcibly moved country people into cities to try to create industrial workers.There was no room for dogs,and many thousands were released.There are sometimes packs of them:mostly they ignore you.There are many dead dogs on the roadside.No one knows what to do with them.They have tried killing them,to public outcry.Animal welfare NGOs have been neutering them and releasing them, but recently there was a scandal in Bucharest when a pack of dogs released by a charity killed and ate a small child.So at the moment they are pretty much left alone.

Day 51 Sighisoara to Sibiu

26/4/2015

today's route ( 105 km )

I have now completed the third side of the triangle (Brasov/Sighisoara/Sibiu) that more or less makes up the Siebenburgen.

I had one more walled church to see which came highly recommended,about 20km down the main road towards Sibiu,then 10km up a smaller road.This was in the small country town of Biertan(German:Birtalm).The trip there was not quite such a raw experience as the visit to Viscri yesterday:the minor road to it,although rather bumpy,had no holes,and even had a white line in the middle,although there was quite a lot of horse drawn traffic.Imagine the most bucolic of gentle English valleys,pasture and ploughed areas in the bottom of the valley,woods up the slopes.I drove along here several km before Biertan came into view,and towering over the small town was the mother of all walled churches, in fact, a cathedral :it transpires that it was the seat of the Lutheran Evangelist Bishop of the area for several centuries.Biertan is a sleepy little town.It does has tarmacked roads (in the centre, anyway),and a central square with a bar and a shop but that’s about it,other than several apparently German-run pension B+B's in the centre.Walking around ,all I could hear were the birds,and gentle clucking of chickens.The cathedral complex is reached up a long wooden staircase,like the one in Sighisoara last night,roofed over with wooden shingles.At the top,around the walls, are several watchtowers and a clocktower.The cathedral is a bit tatty,but seems to be undergoing a bit of restoration. Some of the floorboards were up and some pews piled up.I don’t know if there are any Lutherans left around here,but I think the local economy is cottoning on to the tourist draw. Mind you, with the entrance price of all these places the equivalent of about a pound they won’t have a massive amount of money coming in from the visitors.

Biertan walled cathedral

Biertan-it felt like it could almost be Hobbiton

Further on my way to Sibiu I passed many more Saxon villages with walled churches:there was one down at the junction of the main road at the turn off to Biertan.Any number of villages looked as if they would be interesting to explore but I pressed on.In one village I passed a funeral procession.The coffin was being borne on an open trailer pulled behind a jeep.Everyone was in black.The men were all walking in front of the hearse,the women all behind it,and the leader of the procession carried a big cross.In another village I seem to have entered the territory of a specific tribe of Roma,for all the men here had beards (unusual in Romania)and wore small black sombrero-like hats.

More and more walled churches...

...this one had a very persistent little Roma kid who kept asking for money.

some examples of the many horsedrawn carts.These boys stopped to have their picture taken.

This one was going at a good trot

Sibiu (German:Hermannstadt) is a city that looks as if it has a lot going for it.The current president of Romania,Klaus Iohannis,an ethic German,started his political career as mayor here.I managed to find a parking space just below the city centre,never an easy feat in the van,and walked up to the main square,which is an attractive space next to the cathedrals, and filled with pavement cafes,and leading from it there are some big pedestrianised shopping streets.Still the Germanic style of architecture in multi-coloured paint was evident ,although on a much bigger scale than Sighisoara last night.I had a stroll around but it was 25 degrees and a little too hot for vigorous exploration so I left after a fairly short while to head on to my next campsite .

Piata Mare,the main square in Sibiu

My strangely named campsite (Camping Ananas) was in the nearby village of Cisnadioara(Saxon:Michelsburg)where there was one more walled church awaiting me, this one more compact without the towers but in a very defensive spot at the top of a little steep hill above the village.A later church with a steeple sits below in in the village.I was the only person in the beautiful orchard campsite for some time but the German owner eventually turned up.As we watched a cowherd bring his herd of cows and calves ,with jangling bells,past the campsite, I asked if the herder would have to stay with them the whole time.The answer was yes, they are free roaming: there is just one fenced location he can leave them for an hour or two, that’s all. When I walked up the lane later he’d taken some into an orchard and was sitting on a stool milking one.As I have now travelled south to about the level with Brasov, the snowy Carpathians are back in view again to the South, behind the wooded hills which climb directly above the village.

The view from the campsite tonight-the village and walled church of Cisnadioara (Michelsburg)

Day 50 Bran to Sighisoara

24/4/2015

today's route ( 190 km )

Today I have mainly been hunting Saxon fortified churches.

I started with a list of eight that were mentioned in my guidebook and planned to visit three that were close to my route to Sighisoara, my next planned overnight stop. Unesco awards the whole lot World heritage site status. I did wonder how good the roads and parking might be given that these were villages and ,influenced no doubt by the mythology of Transylvania, I was half expecting mountainous narrow roads and dark impenetrable forests. Reaching the first two, close to Brasov, which were Harman (German : “Honigsburg”)and Premjer (“Tartlau”),was easy. Actually they are on the open plain next to Brasov with wide streets, well maintained lawns around the churches and parking was easy. Harman church was locked: the grumpy caretaker said it would re-open in one hour, but I had already looked round Premjer church at that point so didn’t wait, unlike the solitary Japanese tourist who had roused the caretaker with me-he was going to wait ,as he was cycling. Premjer is apparently the largest of all these churches, with also the thickest walls: The design of them seems standard-an entry gatehouse leading to a little courtyard, then though a portcullis-defended tunnel in through the wall encircling the church. This one dates from the early 13th century. All around the inside of the wall at Premjer were numbered tiny cells( 272 in all),on four levels ,reached by many sets of external wooden steps and walkways. Each cell was apparently the designated residence of one family when the populace had to spend time holed up in the fort.

Premjer church

Cells for the populace lining the interior of the wall of Premjer church.Now I know where Travelodge got the idea from.

Harman church

Harman

I then took the main road towards Sighisoara. Despite my guidebook naming just eight of them,it soon became apparent that there must be hundreds of these walled churches:they were practically falling out of the trees.There were quite a number of brown signs to historic churches in villages off the main road,which I didn’t follow up.I went through several villages on the main road where the churches were not even signed-in these cases the defensive wall was often still visible but was in ruins.

I was heading particularly for Viscri church (German: Kirchenburg)which my guidebook told me was one particularly not to miss,30km short of Sighisoara,my final desination.This is the one pictured on the relevant page in my Unesco book.It is ,however, off the main road.On the way the drive was easy on a main road,through gentle pastureland,although at one point the road wound over a hill clad in dappled forest with the wild garlic in flower .At the turn-off to Viscri ,in the village of Bunesti(“Bodendorf”), there was another walled church ,but again unfortunately locked. According to a sign on the gate I could have summoned the caretaker by phone,obviously a Saxon,Frau Wagner,but I didn’t bother and I set off up the lane to Viscri,a 7km drive.At this point I stopped for a couple of hitchhikers.Normally I wouldn’t but they were a young couple and clearly not Romanian.I guessed they were making for the church too,and I was correct.As I drive along the roads here,often people try to flag me down.They all seem to be Roma people,dark-skinned old ladies with shopping and so on.Perhaps there’s an unwritten rule that if you are Roma,you pick up any other Roma,I don’t know,and with the white van maybe I'm mistaken for a local.

In the case of this couple,my hunch was correct-one was from Italy,the other Spain and they were doing voluntary work introducing school children to healthy habits,and had been particularly recommended to visit this church.

It would have been a long walk to Viscri and back .This was an example of more remote Romania.Off the main road the community seemed wholly Roma.The lane was 80% uneven tarmac ,20% gravel and potholes ,which took a bit of negotiating.The only traffic we passed were horses and carts. One feature of Romania that is interesting is that the land is not enclosed, and traditional rights of free grazing exist. (In fact from Albania ,through northern Greece, Bulgaria and now Romania the job of shepherd is not dead. Every flock of sheep has a shepherd leaning on his stick watching them, with 3 or 4 dogs)

I read that EU regulations controlling movement of livestock are endangering the tradition of free grazing, but it doesn’t seem to have had any impact as yet so far as I can see.

As we drove very slowly towards Viscri,the lane winding through low hills of unenclosed pasture, all open, we passed one local couple with a mare and cart going the other way.The foal was running free about 50 yards away,across the grass. The carts look like big open coffins,low slung on rubber tyres.The driver sits on the front edge. If there’s a load ,the wife sits on top of it, otherwise down on the floor of the cart.Apart from the rubber I suspect the design has not altered for hundreds of years; a timeless scene.

Viscri is one of the Romanian villages where Prince Charles has bought a property:he is committed to assisting in the preserving of the traditional rural way of life

Viscri walled church

the interior of the church-a wooden gallery

inside the wall

the gatehouse

Viscri has the same Saxon houses that more prosperous Premjer and Harman had,but in a much less good state of repair and just a dirt and gravel high street,and a cobbled lane leading up the hill to the church.This looked as if it could have been a medieval castle in the Welsh borderland, a historic building with a very rustic feel. I felt a bit a bit guilty that I did not buy anything from the two local women bravely trying to sell souvenirs at makeshift stalls in the lane on the way up.We were the only visitors and had to wait half an hour before the caretaker was due to open it. Inside,the church had an interesting painted wooden gallery in the nave. There was also a simple little museum of village life in one of the buildings lining the inside of the wall.It was possible to climb the tower ,up an extremely narrow staircase within the tower wall,and finally up wooden steps to a gallery at the top which presumably would have been the watchtower.I was interested in the war memorials :the WWI tablet had names of soldiers who had died fighting for the Austro-Hungarians.The WW2 one had an equal number of names,and poignantly I realised there were several women’s names,with matching surnames among the men:I guessed these must have been the Jewish community; but good reconciliation to have them on the war memorial.

On the way back, I gave my hitchers a lift all the way to Sighisoara, as they lived there. Before reaching the main road we passed the local couple with the cart and the foal coming back.

On arrival in Sighisoara I first sought out the campsite, Camping Aquaris .Despite my two camper guides saying it would be open,I had tried ringing a couple of times and was a little perturbed there was no answer.I had decided to just risk it anyway,but was dismayed to find the gates shut.A campervan heading in the opposite direction as I drove into the town should have been a warning. Inside a door was an old woman in a pink housecoat who spoke no English.I worked out that everything was shut,no toilets,water or anything:when I managed to get over that I didn’t care, she made a phone call and I was allowed to park on their small grass enclosure.The easiest £10 they’ve ever made-but I didn't mind because its big plus is that it is just 200 yards from the old Saxon citadel.

Sighisoara's Saxon citadel

Sighisoara (Saxon name variously given as "Schassburg" or "Schespurch”) is described in my lonely planet guide as ‘so beautiful it should be arrested’.I am not sure I wholly agree, but it was indeed very pleasant. It is a Unesco World Heritage site.Like Brasov,it’s a Saxon-founded commercial town:its particular feature is the old Germanic citadel.Actually the rest of the city has no particular redeeming features ,but the citadel on a hill overlooking it certainly has some charm,having cobbled streets, bright painted old German buildings ,and several churches, one up yet a further hill, the 100 steps up covered by a wooden roof. Sighisoara is supposedly the birthplace of the infamous Vlad III 'The Impaler', otherwise known as Vlad Dracul, owing to his father's membership of the knightly order of The Dragon("Dracul")which was conferred on him by the Holy Roman Emperor .One of the brightly painted old town houses in the citadel has a plaque announcing the location.

The covered staircase leading up the main church at the top of the citadel.

The yellow building is announced by its plaque as the birthplace of Vlad III,the Impaler.It looks quite modest, but was owned by his father Vlad II,Prince of Wallachia. Whether Vlad III was actually born there is historically uncertain.

After a wander through the colourful lanes I sat down for a meal in the main square ,still warm in the open at 6pm.I got chatting to a Canadian couple who sat down next to me and were on a guided tour of Eastern Europe-They were visiting Viscri tomorrow.The woman said she was an avid reader of travel autobiographies but hadn’t heard of Patrick Leigh Fermor so she wrote him down. Actually, he was on my mind because yesterday as I drove through the mountain resort of Sinaia,I had seen signs to Castelu Cantacuzino, which was one of the family homes of the Romanian Princess ,Bălaşa Cantacuzino ,a girlfriend with whom he had later shacked up .He did in fact visit Sighisoara on his journey, during a secretive motor tour conducted by his friend "Istvan"( actually Elemér von Klobusiczky) , a Romanian count ,(but of Hungarian ethnicity).Leigh Fermor's new (25 year old,married) girlfriend Xenia Csernovits de Mácsa et Kisoroszia was in tow and they were being cautious to avoid meeting anyone they knew. Strangely ,he refers to Xenia in this part of 'Between the Woods and the Water' by the code-name 'Angéla' although he names her as Xenia few pages earlier. This was to be a short-lived triste. The more lengthy affair with Princess Cantacuzino began the following year.

As his friends spoke Hungarian, Leigh Fermor refers to the town by its Hungarian name, Segesvar.

Sighisoara. The main square of the citadel

Day 49 Bucharest to Transylvania-(Brasov and Bran)

23/4/2015

today's route ( 190 km )

I take it all back(or at least most of it) what I said about Romanian roads yesterday. I’ve had a great day of travelling today. I don’t know what that appalling Bucharest ring road was all about. My suspicion is that lorries are banned from some of the best roads, and I may have been taking the HGV-only route. After a prompt start this morning I headed north towards Brasov in Transylvania on Highway 1,a perfect dual carriageway, via the industrial city of Ploesti. There were no lorries at all, anything above 7.5 tons banned.(There is a roughly parallel motorway where presumably they are allowed)My Airfix model-making days remind me that Ploesti was(and is ) the centre of the Romanian oilfields, valuable to The Axis powers in WW2 and finally within bombing range of the allies once the long-range Liberator bomber came into service. There were several oil refineries in view as I drove ,but the ring road skirted the city by a few miles.

The country north of Bucharest is a flat plain: the deja-vu feeling that I had yesterday about it resembling New Zealand continued this morning. Along the wide, straight highway, with the snow-clad Carpathians coming closer ahead ,in bright sun, the roadside towns were built as strips along the road, often turn-of-the-century (late 19th/early 20th)bungalows, with verandas,tin roofs, and more modern American style advertising hoardings along the highway.I felt as if I could have been on the Canterbury Plain of New Zealand.

The road was fast and straight for the first 100km of the journey then for the last 50km my speed slowed as I wound up into the Carpathian mountains. The highest point was the town of Predeal ,which is a ski resort,although the main ski resort of the region is Poiana Brasov, the other side of the mountain. I might as well have been in the Alps,for there were big hotels,all in alpine style.There was patchy snow on the ground and actually some snow on the roofs. Cliffs clad with pine forest and snow soared above. I wondered what sort of climate I was heading into, but this pass marks the border between the regions of Wallachia to the south of the Carpathians, and Transylvania to the north,and very shortly the road descended into Transylvania by a series of hairpins down to a big plain ,situated well below any snow, where the city of Brasov sits .

Brasov

Now for the history lesson. I love this bit, as it shows just what a complicated place Europe is.

With increasing threat from the Ottomans in the12th century,the King of Hungary encouraged Saxon settlers to come to what was then the eastern side of Hungary, to help defend it.They established a thriving German community which became the main occupiers of the area : it was called Siebenburgen(Seven Towns) and in fact is still called that by Germans(e.g. in my German campsite guide).Brasov was a Saxon trading borough run by city guilds:the German name was Kronstadt.The old town is very attractive -it has a large wide pedestrianised area,set out with cafes,a Germanic look to the buildings too. Brasov in the post-war communist era was briefly named Orusul Stalin,although that name didn’t stick.

The Saxon community was widespread,and in the villages there are unique fortified churches which I hope to visit, each little community needing defences against raiding Ottomans.Romania did very well out of WWI,joining the winning side and at the treaty of Trianon was awarded territory which doubled its area,including the taking of Transylvania from Hungary ,so the Saxon community became Romanians as opposed to Austro-Hungarians.

In WW2 the Romanians,like the Italians,joined the wrong side first then switched.I read that 600,000 Romanians were killed fighting the Russians on the Eastern front.As the Soviets were about to enter Romania,Romania suddenly switched sides.Thereafter 200,000 more died fighting with the Russians against their former allies,the Germans.At that point a large part of the Saxon community were evacuated or fled towards Germany,but a sizeable minority remained,and they were not evicted by the communists.However,after the fall of the Ceaucescu regime in the revolution of 1989,life was made difficult for them,and most of the remainder left.I didn’t know that Germany still retains a policy of re-naturalising any ethic Germans(Auslandsdeutsche), and most were welcomed back to Germany after 800 years, though some went to the USA.

After a walk around Brasov,I headed southwest 20km,first to the small town of Rasnov which has an imposing castle overlooking it,originally Roman,then a fortress for the Teutonic knights,finally a fortified town of Saxons.Despite its impressive look from below,it is now mostly a ruin and the best thing up on top is the view.In fact several scenes from "Cold Mountain" (Nicole Kidman/Jude Law,Renee Zellweger)were filmed around here.The Romanians are having a good go at touristising it,with the castle walls full of souvenir shops, and a Dinosaur park on the slopes below about to open.

As the sign says, it's Rasnov

The view from Rasnov castle

Next stop was 10km down the road, at Bran castle.This is very much an established tourist site and Bran village(German 'Torzburg') tries to ride on the Dracula myth,although the truth was very different. So far as I can see the only connection to Dracula is that Bran castle most fits the description of the imaginary Count Dracula's castle in Bram Stokers' original novel . The historical figure of Vlad the Impaler actually has little ,or no ,connection with this castle. This does not stop the avenue of tourist stalls outside the castle gate trying to sell masses of tacky Dracula souvenirs. The real history is that the castle was originally another Teutonic knights base, and eventually became the home of Queen Maria of Romania, gifted to her by the state in recognition for her help in unifying Romania after WW1.Her daughter Princess Ileana was evicted during the communist regime,but in 2006 it was returned by the state to her children,including Dominic Habsburg,and they have since opened it as a museum. It is quite small but spectacularly turreted, and the design owes much to the Lego school of medieval castles.The rooms are small,and must have been cosy,and quaint little staircases and walkways wind in all directions.

In the village was my base for the night ,“Vampire Camping”, a nice field with the snow clad mountain towering behind. I ate at a pleasant little Italian restaurant just up the road from the campsite.

Bran castle

"Vampire Camping", Bran

Day 48 Veliko Tarnovo,Bulgaria to Bucharest,Romania

22/4/2015

today's route ( 215 km )

Into Romania today

The drive from last night’s campsite to the next in Bucharest was 220km,and should have taken 4 hours.Due to various things ,it ended up taking 6 .

Leigh Fermor had walked to Veliko Tarnovo from western Bulgaria, having visited another of Bulgaria's major tourist destinations, Rila monastery.There are suitable camping places near this place and if I'd had more time I would have like to headed westwards to visit this .But Leigh Fermor had then headed north, into Romania ,crossing the Danube at the city of Ruse(then known as Rustchuck) My plans were now the same ,so I set a course north.

The journey to Ruse, Romania's fifth-largest city,was uneventful. The road was a single lane but ,although busy with international trucks,there were no hold ups and the road was good.At one point I decided to notch up another Unesco World Heritage site by deviating off the road 6km to see the ‘rock hewn churches of Ivanono’,a whole series of churches,chapels and a monastery that were carved from the rock face, around 1100-1200 AD ,with labyrinths of rooms tunnelled out of the cliff face of a river gorge,some with frescos still remaining.There was a brown EU-standard attraction sign pointing from the main road,and a moderately well surfaced lane leading to the village of Ivanovo,then down to the gorge. Beyond this there were no signs at all. Most oddly,I found down there only a derelict building that may once have been a visitor centre,with several decayed visitor signs ,and a map ,so faded that they were all illegible,and the “you are here” dot was missing so orientation was impossible.Several tracks led off towards the cliff face of the gorge in different directions through scrubland.I followed one of them to the cliff face 300yards away and found nothing much.At this point I chickened out,deciding that it was unsafe to leave the van parked up in such a deserted spot while I blundered around some paths-so I never saw the rock hewn churches, and Unesco-you should ask Bulgaria for your money back!

I retrospect I had a further look at this issue later and decided that I had not been bold enough,and if I had pressed on for another 1.5 kilometres down the lane past the derelict hut I would have come to another carpark,and seen the churches.I had started out down there but after 400 yards down a lane where there was no room to pass another vehicle if one came along ,I gave up and extricated myself with a 16-point turn, and headed on my way.Here are some library pictures showing what I missed.

Rock-hewn churches at Ivanovo

Ruse is a city of historical interest and is known for its 19th- and 20th-century Neo-Baroque and Neo-Rococo architecture, and is somewhat of a tourist destination. It is apparently often called a "Little Vienna" ,although I usually find these comparative nicknames turn out to be a bit disappointing. Leigh Fermor seemed to find it quite a cosmopolitan place but his usual tales of the high life in such places are absent and he had instead been holed up in a cheap hotel recovering from illness, and the theft of his rucksack and possessions. Arriving in the afternoon, a little behind schedule ,I decided to press straight on and ,from the main highway leading to the bridge over the Danube, I just saw high-rise suburbs and the heavy industrial area by the river.

The border with Romania was quite strange.The Danube is the border and the “Friendship Bridge" connects the two countries,replacing a previous ferry service which may or may not still exist alongside.At the Bulgarian end I was simply asked for the toll for the bridge:supposedly they were supposed to be checking validity of the road tax sticker I bought the other day,but this didn’t appear to get done.Then I crossed the bridge,in a most appalling state of repair,the road surface potholed and rutted,the metal superstructured rusted and uncared for.It was quite narrow,a single lane ,and tight with a slow stream of international lorries crawling in both directions.

The Friendship Bridge, over the Danube: Bulgaria to Romania. Everything moves at about 30 kpm as it's such a tight fit for the lorries.

The Romanian road vignette and currency exchange shack, just over the bridge

At the other (Romanian)end after a simple passport check I had to pay Romanian road tax. Unlike in Bulgaria where you buy a windscreen sticker ,In Romania you buy a virtual tax disc('Rovinieta')with no sticker and just a till receipt as proof of purchase,and your payment is monitored by road cameras with numberplate recognition: I had been warned that you have to make extra sure that your registration number has been correctly entered into the system when you pay.Although you can sign up at petrol stations,I saw people buying them at a little money exchange hut just after the passport booths,a strange no man’s land of concrete bordered by wasteland where there was no discernible road or designated parking place .While waiting to pay for mine I had to go back to my van to shoo off some Roma children who had started polishing the lights. A sympathising Bulgarian man kept my place in the queue.The exit from the border area led oddly onto a minor country road and it was 5km before this reached a main road.

The contrast ,on the strength of brief impressions,between Bulgaria and Romania is a most odd mirror image.Bulgaria clearly has some very poor rural people,not least its Roma population, and is facing an exodus from rural villages which are in a state of decay. The houses and apartment blocks I have seen in Bulgaria have all looked very tatty, although the roads are surprisingly good, even to UK standards.I whizzed down some now motorway and there are signs of more being built .In contast the Romanian roads are absolutely shocking.I read that 20 billion of EU infrastructure grant has disappeared with the arrival of just 180km of modern road,and I was warned that Romania has the highest road mortality in the EU.Despite this the houses I have passed have looked very smart.The older ones remind me very much of New Zealand,many of them bungalows with verandas and tin roofs,but in good order, but also there is plenty of modern smart housing ,both detached and apartment blocks on show too.I have read ,though,that there are villages in Romania without electricity or running water so perhaps these small towns 50km from the capital on which I am basing my judgement are not a typical example.

On reaching the Bucharest area,I headed for an overnight stop ,a campground in a wood in the northern suburbs called Camping Casa Alba, roughly between the airport and the Police Academy(http://www.eurocampings.co.uk/romania/bucharest/campsite-casa-alba-117090/) Coming from the South, I had to take the Bucharest ring road which was a dreadful road, just single lane, the tarmac rutted in deep grooves by the tyres of international lorries that moved slowly nose to tail round it, and degenerating occasionally to huge potholes and puddles that you had to navigate round.The ruts didn’t quite fit the width of my wheels and and I had to carefully pick a path without swerving in.Even worse,at all the junctions with the roads coming out of Bucharest (‘the spokes’)there were crossroads with no road markings,no traffic lights ,and the traffic on the spokes seemed to have right of way over the traffic on the ringroad. As a result there were great bottlenecks, and navigation across each junction was based on a game of "chicken": the driver who dared to pull out gained right of way.

Foolishly I had not changed some money at the shack where I bought my road tax,and on arrival at the campsite,although the manager would have accepted Euros, I didn’t have the right notes and he had no change .So I had to follow his directions and drive to find the local shopping centre and a cashpoint, fortunately not too far away.And there ,in contast to the appalling roads,was a massive out of town shopping Mall some ways bigger than the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, with a big Ikea,even bigger Carrefour and an indoor shopping mall glistening with all the world’s chains and brands.So the infrastructure seems in a schizophrenic state.

Apart from me ,there is just one other campervan at the rather odd carpark surrounded by assorted lodge huts.It's a 4WD camper lorry, driven by an Australian couple who have come overland from Singapore in it, and are next heading via Ukraine and Belarus to Murmansk. They are going into Bucharest tomorrow to get a visa for Belarus. My journey vanishes into insignificance at this point !

I do not feel particularly inclined to explore central Bucharest myself, although the monstrous Romanian Palace of Parliament building, Ceausescu's legacy, might hold morbid fascination. I plan instead to head towards Transylvania.

What you need to drive overland from Singapore

The Singapore to Bucharest route

Day 47 Biser to Veliko Tarnovo

21/4/2015

today's route ( 210 km )

Today I have crossed the heart of Bulgaria,heading north,and am camped near Veliko Tarnovo,an historic town and a former capital of Bulgaria (from roughly 1100-1400) .The old town is built on a hill above the gorge of the river Yantra. There is a fair sized modern part to the city also, and it hosts one of Bulgaria’s most prestigious universities. The most well-known ancient monument here is Tsarevets castle, which is a focus of national identity to the Bulgarians, and was heavily restored in the 1930’s.I discovered that I have joined Patrick Leigh Fermor's 1934 route: his account of arriving at the town(which he called 'Tirnovo') is a good example of his eloquent descriptive skills:

"The town of Tirnovo…rose from a canyon like an emanation, a sharp flight of houses hovering in ascending waves along the lip of a precipice which swung airily away and then back again in three quarters of a circle. The rock face, as the town gained height, fell beneath it into a chasm of organ-fluted rock, all stressed and heavy with shadow, to the sinuous bend of the river Yantra. The tiled roofs of this winged insurrection of houses were plumed by belfries and trees, and the highest rocks at the farthest point of this amphitheatre, after the town had died away, were scattered with churches. The airy town jutted with oriental balconies craning on diagonal beams above the gulf, and hundreds of windowpanes threw back their evening sun in tiers of square flamed sequins, as though fires were raging within...The remains of battlemented walls girt this almost inviolable rock.."

Tsarevets castle and the Yantra gorge

the Old Town

The castle approach

centre of the town

The old quarter of Veliko Tarnovo

It was with some difficulty that I found parking in the town, not helped that my arrival coincided with a heavy downpour of rain and I drove through the whole place three times before I discovered a square with enough space. Luckily the rain quickly stopped and with umbrella in readiness I walked from here to Tsaravets Castle, via the old town. This part of town has narrow paved street winding up the hill, with medieval looking over-hanging houses.In contrast to this historic look I later spotted a modern fast-food restaurant on the way back down,staffed by a group of cheerful youngsters who all spoke English, and I enjoyed an acceptable kebab.

The drive across the country to Veliko Tarnovo had been interesting.The main roads are very good:I had worried that my satnav wanted to take me on some “yellow” roads but it turned out to be a good fast route,initially over rolling farmland then through the spine of low mountains that run east-west across the middle of the country.The landscape could well be English-there is the undulating countryside, gentle hills, same patchwork of fields, some ploughed(a red clay soil), some yellow with oilseed rape, and there is none of the high craggy mountains of the Balkans. The agriculture in many places seems very developed, i.e. herds of 200 or more cows in industrial sized modern barns in places, then you see shepherds with a flock of a few sheep in others but its seems the most basic areas are where the Roma live, and it is they who drive the little pony carts,and live in the most slum-like houses.

The campsite-could be an English scene

The local village of Dragizhevo

Death notices on most front doors and telegraph poles.I don't know how many generations they go back...

The campsite I am on (called "Camping Veliko Tarnovo" ,but actually in the nearby village of Dragizehvo http://www.campingvelikotarnovo.com/)is run by an English couple,Nick and Nicky Kinson, who did their camping tours 10 years ago, and liked it so much here they stayed. I can see why in a way: the countryside is very attractive, and looks very like a rural idyll of England and it is so much less densely populated-Bulgaria has an area of about 5/6 that of England but a population of just 7 million.

The village where I am is a bit more up together than the one last night, but still has an odd mix of very homemade houses, a few quite reasonable ones and a surprising number of derelict buldings .It seems there is no money for basic infrastructure-grass grows up through all the village pavements, which are all falling apart. There is plenty of good major roadbuilding going on though and part of my journey today was on a fast motorway. Lots of projects have the EU logo on the sign, though I have read that the EU has not released the usual grants as it is concerned that endemic corruption has not yet been solved.

The campsite is very pleasant,a well prepared landscaped field in countryside on the outskirts of the village.There seem to be a number of English ex-pats coming and coming,and the main building has a bar, and restaurant with a wide ranging menu including much traditional Bulgarian cuisine and I enjoyed a tasty meal and some local wine here that evening.I believe the chef is a local Bulgarian woman. The campsite must be bringing in much-needed money to the village as they seem to employ a number of locals as gardeners,cleaners and cooks:also ,I see that the pool is open to locals, particularly to teach the local children to swim.

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