Transylvanian Adventure — Day 8
A small town in Transylvania, food, cars and strange orchids in the forest.
My little hotel in Zarnasti was fairly new, but with a ‘traditional’ Romanian style and lots of heavy wooden furniture in the public areas. My room was nice, with a balcony overlooking a farm and the hills and an outside dining area where I went for supper. The menu followed the usual pattern, but I was hungry and opted for barbequed ribs with chips and a ‘summer salad’ on the side. They don’t do vegetables with meals it seems, and salads are generally variations on coarsely chopped tomatoes, cucumber and red onion, with oil and vinegar in sprinklers. The draft beer was Italian, but the ONLY wine available was made by the hotel owner which, on tasting it, I declined. The rib portion was enormous, and although very tender and tasty, I couldn’t finish it and needed the salad as light relief.
On Monday morning after a good sleep and breakfast, I walked into the centre of Zarnesti. The roads in the town are good, with pavements on both sides, but these are blocked by parked cars, so you have to walk in the road. This is a pet hate of mine in the UK, but it is worse here. Since the end of communism, the Romanians have really taken to the car and in populated areas, the roads are crammed. The rail network is extensive, but very neglected and, like bus travel, very cheap. This seems to be because, in spite of the vast difference in cost, the status and convenience of the motor car is preferred by most people. The result is that all roads in settlements are lined with vehicles, huge acreages are taken up by car parking, and people complain about the traffic.
Wherever I have been, dwellings are one or two storeys and usually in a continuous row along the road with no front garden. Virtually all of them are walled or fenced, and Marius told me that most ‘Saxon’ style houses are fortified to keep intruders out, which speaks of a turbulent past. Of course, this is not unique to Romania, but the blank facades in towns around the World hide the richness within.
You don’t see much litter in Romania and, apart from the odd derelict building, settlements are well kept, and this is certainly the case in Zarnasti. The centre seems quite prosperous and people look positive and active. Throughout the area there is a lot of redevelopment going on as the Stalinist apartment blocks are replaced with suburbs of pitch-roofed houses that are more spaced apart than in the older settlements. The centre was clean and quite attractive and mostly fairly new, though the choice of shops and restaurants was limited. So after a brief look-around, I walked back past my hotel and out into the countryside intending to walk up to some high pastures through the endless forest.
I have an app on my phone and laptop that has all the footpaths and walking routes in Europe on it, along with route planning and tracking. In orienteering, we have a slogan, ‘Give me a map and I’m magic!’, and this app magically makes everywhere open to exploration. There were many walking options accessible on foot from my hotel, most of them through spectacular scenery so it took a while to chose where to go. My Slovenian adventure was a journey from Ljubljana to Venice whereas, because I was expecting to be in company, I moderated the plan to make it a bit less challenging. This meant that I didn’t have a specific goal, but with the knowledge I’ve picked up so far I was hoping to find some of the best of this lovely area. For some, this would be castles and churches, for others the best hospitality, or chasing the legend of Dracula, but for me it is landscape, wildlife and the people.
As I only had the afternoon, I decided to take the closest marked route up through the forest to some high pastures and karst (limestone formations). The weather was cool and sunny, which was perfect, and grey wagtails strutted about along a clear stream that ran alongside the dirt road, living up to their name. After less than an hour, I found the start of the route and which climbed steeply into the forest. Soon I spotted some woodland orchids a little way off and left the track to get a closer look. It was very steep, but the leafy forest floor was easy to walk on, so I focused on my orchid hunt and rather forgot about keeping track of my progress as long as I was headed generally uphill. The first group were the odd, brown, birds nest orchids, but further on I found a few white helleborines. These are not conspicuous, but more interesting than their green cousins.
Then, in a patch of sunlight, I came across two the lovely butterfly orchid with its tall spike of white florets, which made my day.
Having taken a few pics, I thought I’d better head back to the marked way, but my progress started to get blocked by fallen trees. Then, as I got close, achieving it was blocked by a deep gully so I had to struggle on uphill on a diversion for a good hour, which was rather hard work, and slow. It occurred to me that this would not have been a good idea had I been in company!
So it was a relief to recover the path which was easy to follow and clearly marked. Mature beech forest, alive with the song of chaffinches and other birds, gave way to spruce, and then opened out onto a grassy meadow with lovely views of the Piatra Craiului ridge only a mile or so away. There were lots of wildflowers over which blue butterflies danced, and martins swooped through the air chasing insects. I spent an idyllic 30 minutes stretched out on the springy turf, surrounded by flowers and limestone scenery.
The climb through the woods had been quite tiring, so I decided not to go further, but to head back down on the most direct marked route. This, again, was steep, but aided by my sticks, I got back down the 1,800 feet (550 metres) of altitude to the road in about 45 minutes, against the 3 hours taken in the ascent.
That evening I decided to head into town again in the hope of finding something different for dinner, but there was little choice. The only proper café that was open offered pizza, burgers, pork and also grilled trout, which I ordered along with salad although it came with polenta. The wine in small bottles didn’t look tempting, so I had another beer. When it came, the trout was, well, it was definitely grilled, and the polenta was a hard ball of starch, and the salad was the usual mix.
(As I write this in Brasov Airport while waiting for my flight home, someone nearby has terrible garlic breath: this is not surprising as many dishes are served with a sauce of garlic pulverised in vinegar on the side.)
The lack of choice doesn’t seem to worry the locals whom I see tucking into big plates of pork or sausages and polenta, and every outlet, including the supermarkets, offer pizza, burgers and starchy desserts which must all be in demand. I didn’t bother with dessert in the cafe, but on my way back to the hotel I bought a doughnut with chocolate icing in the supermarket, which gave me energy to edit my photographs. And work out where to go tomorrow…..
