Weather: 🌥️🌧️⛅⛅⛅
Picnic: 🥪🥪 (2 out 5, wraps with almost no Nutella)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩🇹🇩 (4 out of 5, beautiful trail through the autumn forest, past homesteads with great mountain views)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺⛺ (4 out of 5, home hospitality in the garden of the Stone House)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica
We start our day on another cold morning, the first day we both start in our longs. We first continue our uphill track through the forest, together with Henk, who still refuses to leave us.
We get a little drizzle and put on the raincoat, more for the cold than for the rain. We stop at a shelter where someone likes to play with wood and even made an instrument out of it!
We also see another fire salamander (didn’t pick it up this time, apparently they are poisonous…)
When we get out of the forest, we walk through a beautiful area past a few homesteads. We need to cross the terrain of one of them, with a very big dog, beloning to an old lady. The lady is very friendly and also has a stamp for our Via Transilvanica passport. It’s special to see someone live her life like people have done for generations in these mountains. A hard but honest life to live.
After we are safely past the domain of the big dog, we make ourselves lunch. We hear the leftover Nutella so we can actually use it this time. Unfortunately it isn’t enough for all the wraps, so the last ones are plain.
Our trail takes us back into the forest, where we meet our second fire salamander of the day, before we get down into Ponor. In Ponor we get a drink and we finally convince Henk to go and find other people to stay with. We hope he finds a good home…
We continue the last 4 kilometers to Rau Barbat, to the Stone House. (Trail)Father Christian took effort to make markings to guide hikers to his place, where
we are welcomed by him and his wife. After pitching our tent in their garden, we get some groceries at the local store. When we get back, we are put to work as assistants in milling apples for home made Palinka. It’s a great pleasure to partake in this process.
After all the apples are milled, we go for dinner, a good soup and a plate of Mamaliga (polenta with sheep’s cheese). Christian gets an invitation from a friend to eat there and after telling us not to finish our meals, takes us along. With a bag of beers we walk to another house, where we are welcomed by a group of men. The women are in the kitchen (perhaps they are right…). Today one of the men slaughtered game meat and made a big stew out of it. This (and the making of his plum palinka were reason for celebrating. Once again we get to enjoy the incredible hospitality of Romanian people. Mark brought our peach palinka from Joseni, which is well received. And followed by more palinka….😅 The food is a savoury feast, enjoyed by everybody.
Our story is also appreciated as an entertaining extra. We are grateful for our translation option on our blog, so everyone could understand what we were telling 🙂.
Receiving this much hospitality left us grateful and humbled. Humbled, because when 2 Romanian hikers would walk our streets, the hospitality would be a lot different. I truly hope that can return the hospitality that we receive on this trip ♥️🙏. Being more open to others and share food and company with them is such a great thing!
Did I already mention we love hiking Romania😇?