Romania 2009

I think this was my first bigger trip, that established my forever love for travel. A bit spontaneous decision to go, not knowing exactly what to expect, not knowing exactly where will I be, the only thing I knew is that adventure was waiting.

The trip was supposed to offroad, with around 15 4x4 cars, driving around part of Romania. The trick was, that we didn't know exactly where we were going, we got more details for the next couple of days after arriving at the meeting spot. The details were more or less "turn left, drive 1,5km, turn right". :) It wasn't so long ago, but GPS was not that obvious at the time, so mostly I do not know where exactly we were. :)

Day 1

Me and my friend, who's car we were travelling with (past-military land rover from UK), were scheduled to appear in the meeting spot, with all other 4x4 teams in Baia Mare, so he came from Poznań to Wrocław to pick me up and we went on our way! From Poland, through Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary, and short stop to buy some sweet, cheap romanian wine, we finally arrived in the evening in Baia Mare.

Day 2

Early in the morning all teams have continued the trip with the guidelines, received the previous night. The idea was to meet in the evening in the place we were supposed to sleep, so during the day we would spent most of the time apart from other teams. Mostly we drove around with one other car. It was September, very hot weather and a car without any kind of AC. But I didn't care really.

We quickly moved out of urban area to rural and more hilly landscape. I absolutely adored all the little villages that we passed through. I was amazed by the diversity of colours on the houses. And so many traditionally build homes. Also all the gates, either on the roads or just to enter someone's property - it was something I haven't seen before.

Day 3

Day 3 was similar to day 2 in terms of landscape, although we went more into the mountain region. I was still just shooting photos, a lot of time from the car, enjoying the view. I was a far worse photographer back then, but those photos have so much nostalgic meaning to me, that I like them anyway.

During late afternoon, we have met a nice family in need, guys were really great at helping them change the tire. :) Then we moved forward for our spot for the night.

Day 4

On our last day, we took a bit shorter hike but we got to visit WWII bunkers along hiking route and lovely situated ruins of Dolsky Mlyn (an old mill).