I can't change history so it's copy-paste from the last attempt. Here goes...
Day 1 - Thursday 15 August 2013
Thursday was Saint Mary’s Day and rather surprisingly to me, the Romanian Government declared it a National Holiday. We have had a heat-wave for the last 10 weeks or so with temperatures up to 38 and 40 degrees C and we though it a good idea to get out of the City and to change our routine of going to the house up-country every weekend. So,a colleague friend of mine Florin and his wife Adina & 2 kids Alexandra and Andrei (in a Skoda Octavia) and me with my wife Aura & 1 kid Ana (in the mighty 80) decided to take Friday as leave and make a long weekend of it. Florinwanted to go to the Retizat Mountains and I wanted to drive the length of the Transalpina. Strange thing though, I don’t remember either of us asking our wives where they wanted to go, so anyway, we did both. My wife Aura did, in passing, say that if we were going in that direction, she would like to see the Monastery “Manastirea Prislop” not too far from Hateg. We set off from Bucharest at 08:00 on Thursday morning and we were soon out onto the A1 Motorway and passing Pitesti, on to the DN7 (E81) and on our way to Ramnica Valcea. Then we headed North to a village called Brezoi, where we turned left onto the DN7a.
What a great road this was, twisting and winding with hairpin turns, steep climbsand all of it through mountain forests.
We passed streams and lakes (Lacul Malaia) and we had a few stops on the way.
Eventually we stopped at Lacul Vidra to stretch our legs.
We then pressed on and over the County Border into Hunedoara and onwards to the town of Petrosani. Here we turned left onto the DN66 (E79) and soon left again onto the DN66a, passing through the mining towns of Aninoasa, Vulcan, Lupeni and Uricani. How depressing these places are. The fall of communism 24 years ago, now showing the decline that sets in when the free market economy is left in free-fall. Empty blocks and worst still, half empty blocks where the empty apartments had been robbed of fixtures to keep the remaining inhabited apartments running, asthere’s no money for maintenance. The mines are all but shut down now and the depressing sight of dereliction, abandoned buildings, rusted mineshaft winding-houses and poverty was everywhere. After passing Uricani, we were back into nature and within a few kilometres we passed Valea de Pesti (reservoir) and Campul lui Neag (a man-made almost circular lake) and on to a very "missable" right turn onto a stone track which after a few kilometres took us to our destination “Complex Turistic Cabana Cheile Butii”. Joy of joys, it was raining! How fantastic after the drought and temperatures that we’ve had! The smell of fresh wet grass and pine trees was almost overwhelming.
All of these photos were taken at various times over the two days that we were there.
The electric winding gear of an old ski drag, which I presume is still working in the Winter months.
I tried to capture the reflections in the stream with the ipad
This photo is upside down for effect (my wife's legs are not really that wobbly...)
A group of bikers had arrived just before us. Brave guys, it’s a long haul on an enduro all the way from the Czech Republic.
We’d covered about 400 kilometers and we were a little weary, but we were on holidayand the bar was open!
A few beers later, it had gone dark and we were all sleeping!
Day 2 to follow...
Day 1 - Thursday 15 August 2013
Thursday was Saint Mary’s Day and rather surprisingly to me, the Romanian Government declared it a National Holiday. We have had a heat-wave for the last 10 weeks or so with temperatures up to 38 and 40 degrees C and we though it a good idea to get out of the City and to change our routine of going to the house up-country every weekend. So,a colleague friend of mine Florin and his wife Adina & 2 kids Alexandra and Andrei (in a Skoda Octavia) and me with my wife Aura & 1 kid Ana (in the mighty 80) decided to take Friday as leave and make a long weekend of it. Florinwanted to go to the Retizat Mountains and I wanted to drive the length of the Transalpina. Strange thing though, I don’t remember either of us asking our wives where they wanted to go, so anyway, we did both. My wife Aura did, in passing, say that if we were going in that direction, she would like to see the Monastery “Manastirea Prislop” not too far from Hateg. We set off from Bucharest at 08:00 on Thursday morning and we were soon out onto the A1 Motorway and passing Pitesti, on to the DN7 (E81) and on our way to Ramnica Valcea. Then we headed North to a village called Brezoi, where we turned left onto the DN7a.
What a great road this was, twisting and winding with hairpin turns, steep climbsand all of it through mountain forests.
We passed streams and lakes (Lacul Malaia) and we had a few stops on the way.
Eventually we stopped at Lacul Vidra to stretch our legs.
We then pressed on and over the County Border into Hunedoara and onwards to the town of Petrosani. Here we turned left onto the DN66 (E79) and soon left again onto the DN66a, passing through the mining towns of Aninoasa, Vulcan, Lupeni and Uricani. How depressing these places are. The fall of communism 24 years ago, now showing the decline that sets in when the free market economy is left in free-fall. Empty blocks and worst still, half empty blocks where the empty apartments had been robbed of fixtures to keep the remaining inhabited apartments running, asthere’s no money for maintenance. The mines are all but shut down now and the depressing sight of dereliction, abandoned buildings, rusted mineshaft winding-houses and poverty was everywhere. After passing Uricani, we were back into nature and within a few kilometres we passed Valea de Pesti (reservoir) and Campul lui Neag (a man-made almost circular lake) and on to a very "missable" right turn onto a stone track which after a few kilometres took us to our destination “Complex Turistic Cabana Cheile Butii”. Joy of joys, it was raining! How fantastic after the drought and temperatures that we’ve had! The smell of fresh wet grass and pine trees was almost overwhelming.
All of these photos were taken at various times over the two days that we were there.
The electric winding gear of an old ski drag, which I presume is still working in the Winter months.
I tried to capture the reflections in the stream with the ipad
This photo is upside down for effect (my wife's legs are not really that wobbly...)
A group of bikers had arrived just before us. Brave guys, it’s a long haul on an enduro all the way from the Czech Republic.
We’d covered about 400 kilometers and we were a little weary, but we were on holidayand the bar was open!
A few beers later, it had gone dark and we were all sleeping!
Day 2 to follow...
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and I'm still only on day 1 of 4 days! Goodness knows how Ben gets on with his mammoth posts!
