Weather: ☀️⛅☀️⛅☀️
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, old bread in front of the supermarket in Lunca)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩 (3 out of 5, nice trail through the hills and villages, then a cheeky roadwalk into Blaj)
Milestone: 3000 miles!
Hotel: 🛏️🛏️🛏️🛏️ (4 out of 5, nice room, in the town centre, great shower)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica, road 14B
Special mention: our fellow hikers Rone and Maria. Thanks for hiking with us today!
We have breakfast with Fine and Maria and start hiking around 9.30. We will never make our planned 33 km over the hills, but we enjoyed chatting together too much to leave 😁.
We hike the first 11 kilometers together, passing our milestone of 3000 miles, and their halfway point on the VT. Nice to be able to share these moments of realisation with each other! 3000 miles. We’ve hiked further than we’ve ever done, singing “I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more”. This tradition sparks a pride in me every time we play the song. We did this, and will indeed walk (at least) 500 more 😁. Together we hike to the village of Lodroman, where we say goodbye for now. I’m sure our paths will cross again!
In Lodroman we come past a VT campsite, where owner Raul offers us a coffee and a chat. After this we continue to the village of Lunca and leave the VT for now to do a bit of roadwalking.
In Lunca we get some bread and fruit from the supermarket as lunch. The bread is stale and dry, but the lady from the supermarket is a sweet one. She first comes out with 4 apples for us, and when we leave the bench, she comes after us with a packet of cookies! We apparently looked hungry 😅😅♥️.
From here we take a shortcut to Blaj along the road 14B. Less nice hiking, but good progress. We do get to see an interesting house with lots of detailed metalwork on the roof. Let’s say it’s skillfully made…
Around 17.30 we get to our hotel in Blaj. A nice looking place in the town centre. We first go for a good dinner at L’moon and then for a very nice dessert at Marsil sweets cakeshop. So many good-looking desserts here 😍. Mark was very protective over his Tiramisu 😅.
After dinner we go back to our room and have a great shower. Then, time to relax and go to sleep.
Was a pleasure and privilege to have met and walked with you both. I think your story is admirable, and I have shared your link to your blog to whoever I think would be interested. I am sad that our paths didn’t cross in Alba Iulia but maybe again in the Netherlands. Infact we are due to reach Alba Iulia tomorrow afternoon.
Was really nice to share your 3000 miles accomplishment.
Wishing you your very best, Rone and Maria.