Good morning from Cluj-Napoca – the adventure begins! 😁

The flight was long, the night short, and our rental car pickup was scheduled early. But we had a full itinerary ahead and wanted to see as much of the country as possible – so off we went!
Cluj greeted us with morning fog hanging over a small lake near our accommodation and clouds draped over the distant mountain peaks, already clearly visible. Cluj is a bustling university city in Romania, but it didn’t take long for us to leave the urban bustle behind and find ourselves on more or less deserted country roads.

Our destination for the day: Transalpina DN67C

The winding mountain road through the Carpathians is one of the most beautiful – and especially popular with motorcyclists. Its highest point sits at around 2,132 meters and offers a stunning view across the vastness of Romania beyond the mountain range. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to enjoy any of that this time. The higher we climbed, the thicker the clouds became, and beyond the tree line, visibility dropped to barely 20 meters.

Even without the long-distance views, the route was impressive – and the thought quickly came to mind: “We’ll do this again!” Marco was a bit disappointed; during the Run (see About Us), he had driven the Transalpina in perfect weather and had really wanted to show me the views. But I still found it exciting – and strangely eerie and fascinating – to ride through the thick clouds.
Besides, the stretch below the cloud cover was absolutely beautiful too. You pass through small settlements and villages, past charming little churches, and you can stop at various spots to soak in the scenery, grab a bite of local specialties at small food stands, and pick up some souvenirs.

The Transalpina stretches 148 kilometers and showcases truly stunning nature – something we quickly realized is a constant presence in Romania. The drive took around nine hours, and it was definitely time to look for a place to stay. Our planned stop for the night was Târgu Jiu – and sure enough, we quickly found a place on the outskirts via the internet.

The Transalpina, also known as Drum național 67C(Romanian for “National Road 67C”, or DN67C for short), is a major tourist road in Romania. It crosses the Transylvanian Alps, connects the district of Gorj in Lesser Wallachia(Oltenia) with the district of Alba in Transylvania and reaches an altitude of 2132 meters,^[2] according to other sources 2145 m.^[3] Its summit height thus exceeds that of the Transfogarasch High Road (Drum național; DN 7C).

Conclusion: It was a real pity that we were riding through the clouds. The few brief glimpses we caught of the vast landscape were already beautiful – it must be incredible when the sun is shining and the sky is clear. Still, the drive through all those switchbacks was impressive and felt like the first little adventure of the trip.