ROMANIA: NOTES ON A MOTORHOME JOURNEY SPRING 2004

Rose and Alf Walshaw

This is an account of a journey by motorhome through Romania in the Spring of 2004. Rose and Alf Walshaw are experienced long-term, long-distance motorhomers, travelling in a Hymer 'A' Class.  They can be contacted with queries through this website.

It can be read in conjunction with their article on their earlier journey through Bulgaria and with our article: Romania A Journey by Motorhome, whose route they largely followed.

For a series of images of Romania and the painted monasteries of Bucovina in the far north-east, click here:  Romanian Images

Romania is not nearly as ready as Bulgaria for the EU but more beautiful, and cleaner toilets! The people are not nearly so confident, in fact sadly lacking in self-esteem, apart from the Maramures area where they are so confident and so sure of their culture and age old traditional way of life.

The crossing was expensive- a flat transit charge for everything now of 49€  covers you for tax, the bridge etc. We heard that if you cross over on the Black Sea border there is no charge. We paid 70€  for green card for the scooter. I would advise others to ask for the price in lei and then I think it would be much much cheaper. We got our receipt in lei and in fact had been given a criminal exchange rate.

At first we followed very much your steps through Romania visiting Brasov, Sibiu, and those lovely Saxon villages. You know this area so don't need my input- I would say though that I was very surprised at how touristy this area was!

We then moved up to the North East to visit the Painted Monasteries-they are not to be missed, and also the scenery round here is extremely beautiful. As you know we had thought we would rent a car for the northern Area but in the end after speaking to quite a few other motorhomers, decided to go in the van. The roads are perfectly possible as long as you drive slowly and don't try to do too many miles in one day, as you do need your concentration.

We stayed in Suceavita, which has the most spectacular painted monastery and is central for visiting the other monasteries, which we did by scooter. We stayed at Popas- a restaurant just west of the village –and paid 10€  per night. For this we got an electric hook-up, and lovely showers and toilets. Expensive by Romanian standards but secluded, quiet and as there were 2 other motorhomes there it was nice to compare notes and routes.

Moving West from here we stopped at Vatra Dornei which has a lovely campsite, clean loos and showers, above the town up a very bumpy track. We stayed here 2 separate nights being charged 4€ one time and 5€ another!

Across west from here we took the road over the Prislop pass. This was extremely beautiful but the road needs to be taken slowly.

Maramures area has no campsites other than at Sapanta where we hope to stop tomorrow. It will be a shame if campsites do develop here as we have had such a lovely time staying in people's gardens and being part of the people rather than stuck out in a campsite with all the other tourists. It is easy to find somewhere to stay as there is very well developed system of Agrotourism so whichever village you land up in you will be found a place to stay with yard big enough for the van-sometimes the lane up to this house is interesting! The most we've paid is 3€ a night for the parking, and as a lot of these pensiones do food we've had some very good cheap meals. E.g. 5€ each for a 4course home cooked meal, beer and parlinka-no choice of food of course.

We have found this area BY FAR the most rewarding of Romania. In Viseu de Sus  we took the logging train(steam as the diesel engine had broken down) up up the Vaser valley nearly to the Ukraine border through logging settlements, collecting more and more wagons full of trees and loggers going home for the weekend. It was a wonderful experience-we went 70kms in 8hours and it cost 5€ each. Here we stayed one night at the station –not very salubrious but it meant we didn't have to get up so early- and 3 nights in the loveliest garden of a lovely old couple by the river.

Since then we have explored the Iza and Cosau valleys where there is BEAUTIFUL natural scenery, traditional houses, ancient wooden churches (all but one frustratingly locked so we couldn't see the lovely primitive frescoes), and wonderfully friendly people. It has been haymaking time and as this is all done by hand, it has been lovely to see how they make the hay stacks differently in each valley. These valleys have supposedly more minor roads but in fact the surface of the roads here has improved since we left the more major route18. We have explored in the van and scooter on roads which are on the local map given us by the information office in Viseu de Sus but not even on our Euro map of Romania and the only real danger has been from the necessity to keep returning everyone's waves!

Historically the people here are from many different countries and cultures so possibly that's why they're not so afraid of outsiders as in other areas of Romania and are more ready to welcome the tourists. There is also less begging here which we have found rather wearing in other areas, even though I don't think they are any better off here, but they are proud of their traditions and culture.

We would encourage anyone to come to Romania in a motorhome. I would like to say though that it is important not to overwhelm the local people. We have met a group of 25 Hymer owners (German) and 27 Dutch caravans (twice). Both times we have felt that the locals have been swamped.