Weather: ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, bread with fruit in a field)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩🇹🇩 (4 out of 5, very nice trail over the hills, mainly through forest, some fields and a few nice villages)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺ (3 out of 5, flat-ish spot with good view)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica
Special mention: we met Stefan Popa, one of the people who look after the trail in their region.
We start our day with a small sightseeing walk through the citadel of Sighisoara, before we get our packs from our room. At this walk we see the birthplace of Vlad Dracul (Dracula) and we enjoy a good cup of coffee in a small coffeebar.
We leave Sighisoara around 9.30 and with 31 km to go, we have to be slightly more efficient with time than the days before 😅.
The trail is easy going, eventhough there are a few steep ups and downs. We start in a beautiful forest, with hollowed out paths that have been used for centuries. The trail mostly stays in the forest, and goes through some nice looking villages too, with their brightly colored and decorated houses. On our way we meet a cyclist who appears to know quite a bit about our trail. We find out that he cycled the Via Transilvanica, and has now ‘adopted’ part of the trail to help maintain it. Nice to meet someone who is connected to the trail!
A while later, we meet two other cyclists, who are also on Vida Transilvanica. When we start telling them where our hike started, the ask: “are you the guys that…” We get recognized again from a question in a Facebook group. Trail famous 😅.
We enjoy our hike today in again perfect weather. We pass a hut on the trail, which you seem to be able to reserve. It has a mattress, shower, towels, …. quite a luxurious hut! We continue through, planning to camp again for the first time in 2 weeks.
After getting our water in Malancrav, we find a nice spot on the hill.
Really happy to be camping again! We pitch and make dinner. We see the sun set and the stars appear in the sky, before we get into the tent.
I like the comfort of the rooms with a bed, shower and meal. But I did miss the peaceful sense of freedom that free camping gives us both ♥️⛺