Cycling Romania’s Most Iconic Road — before Jeremy Clarkson “discovered” it.

I made this slideshow back in 2009, when I was into photography, with a compact Canon camera, and assembling my shots into a slideshow on a long-forgotten but delightfully simple programme called Windows Movie Maker. I was living in Romania back then and enjoying every minute of it — Romania is a great country and well worth a visit. Especially the mountains. Unfortunately Romania is terrible at promoting its good stuff and so most westerners have a negative view of the place. The Romanian people are also really very charming and friendly.

I really like this slideshow and want to share it with a new audience in 2025.

This is what I wrote back in 2009:

“Some snaps from a couple of cycle tours over Romania’s Fagaras mountain range, on a remarkable road (the “transfagarasan”) which gets up to 2000m before plunging back down into Dracula’s home patch on the other side. A helluva ride. This road was featured by the Top Gear crew who drove it in 3 supercars. Jeremy Clarkson became rather lyrical. He said “That’s the most amazing road I’ve ever seen…From above it looks like every great corner from every great racetrack in the world has been knitted together to create one unbroken grey ribbon of automotive perfection.”

“If you don’t have a supercar but you do have a bike (and you’re in Bucharest) I suggest you get the train to Curtea de Arges, then ride to the base of the mountain (Cabana Capra) where you can sleep. On day two you can ride over the top, fly down the north side (Sibiu County). There is a train line at the bottom of the hill on the north/Sibiu side, but when I was last there it had been washed out by the heavy rains. Most people do this drive in the car, but the tunnel through the mountain pass is only open in July and August (unless you are Jeremy Clarkson).

“Music was gratefully copied from Sting and Edin Karamazov from Sting’s incredible album called Labyrinth (thanks guys, send me an invoice).”

#transfagarasan
#Romaniacycling
#carpathianmountains
#Balealac
#România
#Fagaras
#MuntiiFagaras
#Transfagarasan
#ViziteazaRomania
#Ciclism
#bicicleta
#Calatorii