Weather: ⛅☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️ (rating again 6 out of 5, perfect hiking weather!)
Picnic: 🥪🥪🥪 (3 out 5, bread from the supermarket)
Track: 🇷🇴🇹🇩🇹🇩🇹🇩 (4 out of 5, really nice trail through the forest, fields and villages, with great mountain views)
Hotel: 🛏️🛏️🛏️ (3 out of 5, small but nice apartment)
Name of followed trail: Via Transilvanica
We have a nice breakfast with yogurt and fruits before we head out. We first walk out of run down town centre of Otelu Rosu, past the grey apartment blocks, onto a trail next to the old railway.
The track has a bit more elevation today, and undulates through the valley, at the foot of the mountains.
The weather is amazing today, with quite some nice warm sunshine 😎.
With its 26 km, today isn’t a very long day, so we have an early lunch break, sitting on a little wall, enjoying the sunshine halfway our hike, around 11.00.
We continue through the fields where we need to ward off some dogs, and walk past the Caransebes International Airport (a grassy field with some old buildings). From here it’s only a short distance into Caransebes, where we arrive around 14.30. With plenty of time in the afternoon we agree to start with washing, planning etc straight away. Things go a bit differently when we find out that the apartment doesn’t have a washing machine, eventhough it was promised to have one… After some googling we find a laundry service, so we end up bringing our clothes there ater a good shower. In my bikini, shorts and spare t-shirt we walk to the laundry service. Hiker’s life…. But: tomorrow we magically have clean clothes again 🤩.
After the first chore is done, we go into town to get a coffee and some food.
After dinner we get our breakfast in the supermarket, where we have an unexpected chat with 2 people about life here and in the Netherlands. Like the Irish, Romanians are just good at acting on their curiosity by just asking. Where do you go, where are you from, wat do you do, etc. This curiosity often ends in a very nice conversation (however short this may be sometimes) and more understanding of one and other.
From the supermarket we go home and have a chat with our logistical managers Joost and Annemieke, before we go to bed.