Another night with aircon – another night well slept.
I get up bright and early (one of the perks of getting older) and get my TWIKE ready for today’s drive.
The sun filters though the trees at Bela Crkva’s main square in a very nice and warm shade of yellow that promises a very, very hot day. Temperatures at 6.15 am were already 21°C.
As I mentioned in the last post, Bela Crkva is the last Serbian settlement before the border crossing just 5 km down the road. The views were already stunning and Romania’s hills were already beckoning in the distance.
Just a few minutes later I’m at the border post staffed with an almost completely female crew who all were super curious to see the strange vehicle. As this border crossing is a Schengen outer border, the checks are thorough. Papers, registration, license, insurance, etc.
One border official takes all the papers to work on whilst – since it’s really early and no-one is here – the rest is having a multi-lingual chat with me. Some of them are more comfortable speaking Italian, English or even German.
I clear the border within 10 minutes of arriving and immediately are on my way to much more interesting roads that the last few days … hairpin bends & climbs!
On the other side of the hill, every few kilometres, there are signs warning about the dangers of your phone roaming onto Serbia’s mobile network – and given the topography i can fully confirm that this is absolutely a risk. It seems that for Romanians Serbia’s networks are the same super-expensive affair as they are for me.
After the very satisfying climb and descent, it’s time to get closer to the Danube river, which i’ll be following for the next 130 or so km.
Once there, the views start getting better and better.
The valley seems to be a major tourist attraction as there are small hotels and stays every few km, complete with restaurants and boat rental places.
I keep my cruise control activated and just enjoy the views and just stop from time to time to take a picture or two.
Geographically, the Danube gorge seems to be much harder on the Serbians, as they had to overcome much more complex challenges to get their road along the Danube.
As mentioned, on the Romanian side, most of what is going on is based on tourism… which brings its own challenges – there seems to be much construction going on – not all of it is very adapted to the environment … as you can see below.
Most of the smaller places, however, are still just quaint affairs from many years ago, like the pontoon restaurant below.
In Orsova, I take a break from driving and need some time at a petrol station to rehydrate and cool down. Temperatures are back up to 36°C and still climbing. Time for some local energy drinks and Hungarian ones in versions I don’t know yet. 🙂
From here onwards, I am driving towards a National Park, some hills and, ideally, the Transalpina pass.
Depending on where i exactly i want to go and how much reserve charge i want to have, I’ll have to charge somewhere in between – a ver!
The first thing that changed, was not nature being untouched… it was roads being redone for a good 12km which reduced my average speed to around 15km/h.
Later sections, however, were ok and even the temperatures were noticeably lower in the shade of the trees.
What happened, however, was that I got stopped by the police – not because I had done something wrong (which they told me immediately) but because they were curious to learn more about the TWIKE!
Another thing: whilst the road through the national park was super interesting – climbs, valleys and a general sense of being very far away from civilisation. This was confirmed very quickly by the absolute absence of any phone signal.
As someone coming from Switzerland with ridiculously overengineered mobile network coverage literally everywhere – even in the most remote valleys or deepest parking garages, it is very strange to see this icon on your phone…and recognise how little you can do with it without any connection to the net. (interestingly enough, I said the very same thing about the absence of mobile networks during my TWIKE adventure to Spain in 2012 – 14 years ago!)
Then, if there was any reception, it defaulted to essentially the bare minimum of GSM with GPRS … which I had to check and actually was able to ping a server with a roundtrip time of… 13000+ ms!
Although I had planned to take the road all the way to the end of the valley and had checked the road surface most of the way via satellite images, arriving at the start of the smaller road showed it to be not much more than a dirt track with patches of tarmac from 1950. It looked like no fun and I quickly decided to take my TWIKE up out of the valley and back to the southern ridge of the Carpathians, ready for the Transalpina pass just 120 km further down the road.
As I felt still ok and had the energy to continue past the Transalpina pass, I popped into a Lidl parking spot and started charging from a venerable ABB multi-standard charging station.
My EV-emulator works really well and hasn’t failed me even once since I built it at the end of 2024.
Also, I’m always proud how grown-up my TWIKE looks when it’s charging from a professional, commercial charging station!
I head into Lidl and see many people idly browsing but not buying. I suspect they are – as me – trying to get out of the brutal heat outside. I buy some ice-cold drinks and down them before leaving Lidl to return to a TWIKE that is barely holding on temperature-wise. Especially the batteries were getting super-hot. With a maximum design temperature of 45°C, I decided to stop charging and get on the road again.
The Transalpina pass is just 40km away and I am really looking forward to the lower temperatures up there!
One thing that I noticed, was the weird disconnect of buildings in a village – there are either ‘normal’, older, smaller buildings that seem to belong here and usually, obviously, have been here for a while … or much newer, bigger ones which usually have gaudy features as falcons made out of stone overlooking the entrance and columns, yes, many of those…
Are these the houses expatriate Romanians build to show their neighbours that they are doing well abroad?
Back to today’s trip – after around 30 km, the Transalpina mountain range comes into view.
…and I arrive at the start of the road taking me to one of the nicest road passes of Europe. The pictures are absolutely unbelievable – curious to see how much of it is clever photoshopping or plain AI generated…
According to Google Maps, the antennas are along the road – so let’s go there first!
The road up the pass is perfect and the views are stunning.
The pass likes to tease: you think you’re at the top and there is no other hill to climb…just for another one to come into view a minute or so before you get to the last highest-visible point.
Eventually, the road flattens out and indeed seems to head back down. Wait a moment! We’re only at 1730m – where are the 2000+ we were promised?
We first descend around 150 to a place called Randa. A larger ski resort.
And in the distance one can see the pièce de résistance: the pass itself (or so I thought – spoiler alert)
One other thing, however, was much more important: the cool air.
Having arrived in Randa, I decided to stay there and enjoy an evening breathing fresh air and – shocker – maybe even having to wear a pullover? (which I wisely packed just for such a situation)
I check into a nice hotel and get a room with a view for less than a friendly handshake from an hotelier costs in Switzerland.
This hotel must be super-practical in winter, as the ski-lifts start just 30 metres behind the building!
My charge is part of the room price and is set up in minutes.
I settle in and enjoy the view whilst starting to write an entry for this blog.
Later I go to one of the few open restaurants and get some undefined meats with oven potatoes …both covered with generous amounts of garlic – yum!
After this very healthy meal, I take a stroll and find the main après ski place just at the end of the ski lifts open and at the same time completely empty. I can imagine this to be a very cool and lively place in winter.
Even later, I enjoy the sunset, calm (The Transalpina road is closed throughout the night) and cold air on my balcony before going to bed and falling asleep immediately.
How do the stats look for today?
I’m really looking forward to both the Transalpina and Transfăgărășan passes tomorrow!