Before I get into the journey from Bucharest up into the Carpathian Mountains, I thought you might like a sneak peak at what a traffic jam looks like on the Transfăgărășan Road…

Being an avid “Top Gear” fan, I had seen the episode they did on what they termed the most amazing road in the world, the Transfăgărășan Road – but for some reason, forgot where it was until the other day I was exploring online and came across it and recalled it is actually in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania…

So, of course, I needed to do a road trip!  🙂

On this trip, as with the trip to the salt mines, I had a private tour guide – and he is soooo wonderful, I will write a separate post about Adrian and his Team before I leave Romania…

(and I need to point out right from the beginning – as I was scrolling through the photos to make notes, I kept thinking about how they sooooooo do not do justice to the majesty and beauty that we encountered)

Anyway, we left Bucharest reasonably early…

…and I have travelled to the other side of the planet, but still am haunted by Las Vegas!!!  (on Adrian’s keyring)

The Argeș River…

This building below is one of many, many now abandoned and dilapidated communist farming co-operative buildings…

…and of course, I had to buy some new clothes and a scarf!

This is the Cathedral of Curtea de Argeș and is stunningly beautiful…

Inside the Cathedral are buried the two favourite Kings of Romania and their Queens – Kings Carol I, and Ferdinand; and their Queens – Elisabeta and Maria (Queen Victoria’s grand-daughter).

Although the Queen’s actual name was Pauline Elisabeth Ottilie Luise zu Wied, the majority also knew her through her literary works under the name, Carmen Silva [Sylva].

In this photo below, you will see a red image on the wall and this is such a sad story…

During construction, everything they built by day was mysteriously ruined by night – every night!  Tormented by the fact that he couldn’t finish his construction, master Manole dreamed one night that the only way that he could complete his masterpiece was to offer a human sacrifice. After he woke up, he and his workers decided that the first person to arrive that morning on the construction site should be the one sacrificed.

Unfortunately, the first person to arrive was Manole’s pregnant wife, Ana who had awoken especially early to prepare her husband a lovely meal and bring it to him.

Undaunted but heart-broken, Manole enclosed his wife and unborn child into the wall, brick by brick… and construction continued…

Manole did not come away with his life either…  After he and his men managed to finish the construction King Neagoe Basarab liked it so much that he wanted to make sure that a construction like that would never be replicated and so he locked all the men in the attic of the building intending never to release them.

Using the only items they had available, Manole and his men tried to escape their captives by building wooden wings and intending to fly down to the ground safely…  Every man died in the attempt…

…and this is King Neagoe Basarab of Wallachia who ordered construction of the building and death to the workers who created it…

On this stall, I found Heaven!

I had no idea about the notion of eating pollen – nor the combination of eating pollen and honey…

Pollen is one of the most amazing super-foods on the planet and is higher in protein than even meat!  http://www.mercola.com/article/diet/bee_pollen.htm

To traditional and ancient beekeepers, the pollen represents the masculine and the honey the feminine – the pollen gives you the protein and the honey the carbohydrates…

Even modern medicine has done experiments and proven the effectiveness of the combination, far outweighing the benefit of either alone.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20645809

…and when you combine them from the same hive…….  Magic!

As a side note, in addition to the pollen and honey I purchased from this woman, Adrian was able to find me some FRESH (as in not dried) pollen here and I now take a large teaspoon of pollen and a large teaspoon of honey – just as is – and the a couple of strawberries (as apparently there is something in the fibres of the fruit that kickstart the reaction…

…and I do this as many times as I feel the urge to during the day – sometimes just twice, sometimes as much as five or six times…

It’s amazing!

 

 

…and now we reach the beginning of the Transfăgărășan Road… and this sign says that the road is only accessible for 104km – you will find out why soon…

…and here we have the real Dracula’s castle, well, sort of…

From Atlas Obscura:  “The true Dracula, (Turk-impaling Prince of Wallachia as opposed to the sultry blood sucker) fell in love with Poenari Castle in the 15th century, and realizing its potential as a major stronghold with an amazing vantage point, consolidated and fixed up the crumbling fortress, making it one of his main places of residence. It’s said that his first wife, Jusztina Szilagyi of Moldavia, flung herself from the towers of Poenari during a siege by Vlad’s muslim brother, Radu Bey. Before flinging herself into the Arges River below, she exclaimed she would rather rot and be eaten by the fish than to be a captive of the Turks.”

…and if you look carefully below, you will see a couple of impailed peasants…

“Ceresit” is simply an advertisement for a concrete company…

…and this little critter decided to come and visit – which is apparently a sign of good luck!

These women are picking the very tips from the new growth on the fir trees.  The Romanians ferment it and then around Christmas time turn it into a drink…

 

 

 

 

There are little temples like this scattered all through the country on the side of the road…

…and despite this being the middle of summer, we come across our first snow… but that is NOTHING compared with what we find a little later on…

 

 

The squiggly lines you see is actually the road…

The railings are destroyed every year by the snow…

Only two weeks ago, this area was under tens of feet of snow…

See the concrete structure in the middle of the photo below?  That’s the tunnel through which we would normally drive!

The wall of snow you see in the picture below is where we would normally drive… but what’s even more amazing is that in around three weeks, it will all be melted!!!

The water from this natural fountain was soooo sweet and pure…….

 

…and our traffic jam…

This slogan appears a LOT through Romania…  “Basarabia e Romania” means Basarabia (the bulk part of Moldova and a minor part Ukraine) is Romania – as there is still a huge push to have Basarabia reunited with Romania.

Want cheap wifi?  That’s certainly what you get here!

…and then back to my favourite restaurant for a late supper… (and this photo does not even come close to doing this meal justice!)

Oh, and I managed to find the Top Gear episode about the Transfăgărășan Road online:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bORvyzgykqw

~ Bella