Romania Notes

[MikeOnabike]

After a week hiking in Romania, I wrote these notes with a view to future bikepacking trips. They may be useful to folks here, as there does not seem to be much info on the country.

Romania is an underrated country. The food is good, esp fresh fruit and veg, sausages, cheese and wine. It’s cheap to get to and to stay in (£10 for good dinner with wine and coffee, 10km in a taxi for £4). The mountain rural life is fascinating (thatch cottages, horse and carts, hand-scything hay, small-holdings with chickens and pigs, households home-brew good spirits) and the provincial cities are sophisticated, safe, and interesting. History is rich (communism, Hungarian and Saxon influences) and the orthodox churches are wonderful. People are a bit dour and not given to over-politeness but, judged by actions rather than smiles, are extremely hospitable and kind. English is common among younger people, and they are often happy to chat.

Where to go.
I spend my time hiking in the Apuseni, and this seems like an excellent places for bikepacking along dirt roads among small villages. This is the kind of bikepacking (and hiking) i like best, but others may prefer higher, more alpine areas. The Maramures region also seems excellent. Developing a good route might be tricky.
The book Hiking in Romania has several suggested broad itenaries for off road cycling. If anyone is planning a trip, I can post photos of the relevant pages.

The cities of Braşov and Sibiu are wonderful; Bucharest less so. You can fly to Cluj-Napaco which is close to good cycling country and is reportedly very nice.

Hazards.

Roads
Romanian drivers are reckless, I will avoid cycling on roads as much as possible if I return. Source: several nerve-racking taxi’s and lifts in private cars. Some traditional bike tourers I chatted to confirmed this.

Bears
In several regions of the country, bears are common. I went to a hide with a ranger in the forest near Braşov and 5 appeared within an hour. There is lots of conflicting info on how much of a threat they pose but a few precautions probably worthwhile if you are in bear country. The bears are generally spooked by people and will run away, but if surprised by a suddenly nearby cyclist, they may attack. Solution: don’t supprise them. In Romania they are active from late evening to early morning (source: ranger). Avoiding these times and/or making a bit of noise is probaly worthwhile. We hiked with a bear-bell. If cycling, I’d probably put a nice loud bell on my bike and give it a thwack now and then. Camping: Author of Hiking in Romania argues that they pose no problem to the camper whatsoever, but a quick google turns up news reports of bear attacks on tents. One mountain ranger strongly advised against camping in areas with bears. Another ranger found us camping, showed us a phone video of massive bears seen in the same clearing a couple of nights ago, and then said something vague in Romanian that either meant ‘don’t worry, sleep welll’ or ‘you should worry, don’t sleep at all’. Personally, I would not camp again in places with bears - it was a bit too stressful. I’m not sure this concern is warranted. However, there is a good network of cabanas (cheap mountain hostels) and hamlets where you can probably camp in a garden, so this is not much of an impediment to exploration. Not all areas have bears. I don’t know to find out which areas are hotspots.

Dogs.
Because of the bears (and the wolves, not a threat to people) rural households and mountain shepherds keep large, fairly aggressive dogs. The ones with the flocks are in particular a problem because they are in packs and bred to be aggressive pricks. If you see a flock of sheep, look for the pack bounding towards you. Also look for the shepherd who will hopefully call them off. This happened each time for us, but the Hiking in Romania author describes getting into nasty interactions including bites. The rural households dogs were big and angry, but generally relaxed once you talked them down a bit. Having a stick / suggestively picking up stones also seemed to help. So, not a country for you if you don’t relish a bit of dog action.

Resources:
Hiking in Romania had a few relevant sections, and useful general information about the different mountain areas. Maps are awful.

Duolingo has a Romanian course, but the few hours I did were a bit focused on grammar and less-useful vocab.

Stanford’s in London has a mishmash of Romanian hiking maps, most of which don’t seem to be on the online store. MapOut, which uses openStreetMap was good, but missed some tracks and did not always distinguish sealed from dirt roads.

Bucurați-vă!

[mikehowarth]

Great info! Always fancied a trip myself.

If I remember rightly Nic Carmen over at Gypsybytrade has some notes on Romania as well.

[lune ranger]

The mountain sheep dogs in E. Europe, Balkans, Turkey are truly terrifying. Especially on a bike. Apparently they see cyclists as a different species to humans (a little bit like drivers in that area of the word too )
I have had a number of frightening experiences with them, luckily none that involved bites - but only just!
When I passed through that way on way to Cape Town they were the scariest animal interactions by far.... even compared to camping in Africa and accidentally spooking a bull Elephant...

[FLV]

Not sure I could write a better synopsis of my home country, thanks for taking the time to do so.