Cluj, Romania 8 May 2017
Thanks all of you who made my trip possible across the South Carpathian Mountains especially Staffan, my walking friend from Floda, Sweden. But certainly, man Romanians like Paul in Alba (Castle Hostel) and his father who drove us to our starting point in Pianu de Sus after we learned at the bus station that the 08:00 bus was in operation only during school periods and now was two weeks leave.

25 april. Now is the day before departure for Malmoe and Cluj Napoca with my friend Staffan. We will walk together from a village south of Alba Iulia to, hopefully, reach the town of Targu Jiu ten days later. Not sure of accommodation in the mountains (the Carpathes) Staffan will carry a tent. He is young (61) and an experienced full backpack hiker. Photos will follow.

Den 24 september 2016 flög jag från Malmö till Cluj Napoca. Planen var att ta mig över bergen till Alba Iulia väster om huvudvägen. Litet oväntat blev det bara en kortare och tre "riktiga" men långa, sköna och ansträngande vandringsdagar. Cluj-Floresti-Tauti-Vlaha dag 1 - buss till Iara-Ocolisel-Ocolis-buss till Salciua de Jos-Sub Piatra (Under klippan) dag 2 - Cheia (lift en bit med en munk i hans jeep) - Modolesti - (lift en bit) Poiana Galdei dag 3 - lift tillbaka till Modolesti - Necrilesti - Lunca Ampoitei - Remetea - lift in till Alba Iulia dag 4. Nu hade jag slitet hårt på mitt högra meniskopererade knä, för hårt, och det blev en vilodag i Alba och två nätter på ett trevligt Hostel i centrum. Besökte Gamla stan som låg högt innanför en väldig försvarsanläggning, fint restaurerad. Följande dag tog jag bussen till Sibiu, eller Hermannstadt som den också heter sedan de ursprungliga tyska invandrarnas tid. Där stannade jag också två nätter och förutom besök i den trivsamma men ganska turistifierade Gamla stan vandrade jag ut ur stan till Michelsberg eller Cisnadie som byn heter på rumänska. Där bor periodvis en tysk bekant, Peter Dahmel. Hans barndomshem.
Here, I have written a few things from my tenth part of walking from Sweden to Greece. There will be more text and, of course, also some more pictures from these days in the end of September, which offered extremely favorable type of weather for my walk. Dry, mostly sunny, not too hot. But very much up and down the hills which eventually hurt my right knee.

Gabriel and colleague at the coffee shop Bujol in Cluj. The most relaxing point in Cluj. Friendly staff. Excellent food. And, of course, all sorts of coffee.

A young father with his daughter (and invisible wife) having brunch at Bujol.

Outside the coffee shop or rather a bistro, was this monument, were these pillars symbolizing and commemorating nine of the, very young, victims shot dead here during the 1989 revolution. Sad. 

Warned of stray dogs I manage to pass two of them before meeting with this flock of sheep, too few to be a herd, I guess.

This chart pulled by two oxen took a lot of hay down from the hills above the small village of Salciua de Jos.

 This lady followed me half a day through the hills. A bitch really.

Zoltan Morten was very helpful and I thank him for his hospitality in Vlaga and great patience waiting for my bus to Iara that never showed up (it had passed earlier but I was soon after offered a lift with a car all the way to Iara). 

Michaela and her husband, whom I took for a jogging monk (he wore black pants and there was a monastary just near by, haha...). They said that there were stray dogs around to watch out for but I did not see one that day. 

This friendly man offered me to sit in his garden to have my lunch in Ocolisei before climbing up a steep hillside to reach the next valley and Ocolis. From there at Rd75 I took a bus to Salciua de Jos.

More to come!

Be patient. More will come. Tonight it seems quite alright to pack for the flight to Cluj on Saturday.

Sunday I will take a taxi (yes!) to Vlaha, a small village south west of Cluj, before 1920 Hungarian terrotory. The following morning by bus to Iara from where I will be walking towards Salciua de Jos. Tuesday is scheduled for a montain ridge walk some 25 k to Intregalde or more exactly Pensiune Floare de Colt. The landscape is fabulously GREEN and SERENE. I hope for good weather of course. However, I don't know yet my destination. It could be as far as Sibiu/Herrmannstadt but more likely I will end upp in the village of Sugag near Sebes/Mühlbach. This is the historical area of Siebenbürgen a mostly Hungarian and German explored region from so-called Saxony in the 12th C. and later in the 17th and 18th C. even 19th C. from various places within the "Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation". Pictures will follow.

Looking back in my notes I planned to do Ukraine 2015-2017 but already in September this year, I was pratically on the doorstep to Romania.

Thus, I am almost half way to the Mediterranean. Another 1200 kms to go! A piece-of-cake it seems now having more than 1000 kms behind me. Who knows?
Ukraine was without sensation. But yes of course,my starting point in Uzhok behind special border Control was a spectacular part of the Carpathian Mountain Range. To get there I needed in fact two days of travelling by air, rail and bus.
Göteborg-Warszawa by Wizzair. Always realiable carrier. Rambling downtown waiting for the night train leaving at midnight for Przemysl. Here, first class single coupe is still the right way to travel. Woke up passing the regional capital of Rzeszow. Everywhere in Poland and certainly here railroad infrastructure is on the move. New double tracks, new crossings, new stations for regional public rail services.

Ukraine. Stretch no.8. cont'd.

Saturday 19 September 2015. Day 1.

Passes in the Carpathian Mountains often hit 900 m.a.s.l., as here, a couple of hours south of my starting point Uzhok. Looking almost straight to the south, no traffic but millions of sharp stones nearly penetrating my soft shoes.

Sanity is usually quite satisfactory in the town and village as well as along the roads. PET bottles are collected in recycling centers, which in a village can be like this plain construction. 

In Poland - the main roads being in perfect conditions - glass and plastic bottles and containers were abundant along the B-road tossed out of the car windows. 

In Ukraine the road sides are normally in good condition: no garbage, but the roads are in a terrible state. The traffic is zigzagging to avoid all the pot holes. 

Many families had gathered for the weekend working the land or repairing their houses. At 3 p.m. temperature was down from +30°C to around a more pleasant +20°C and I began to fancy the overnight place in Zhdenijevo. In Roztoka I spotted these bee hives. 

                                     

In the most remote and modest village you will find spectacular new orthodox churches in white and blue colours with golden cupoles and decorations like here in Roztoka.

Today's surprise. - Where am I to stay overnight? I showed my www.booking.com print with the address Selo Pashkovtsy 19,Zhdenevo. to a man in the street, where this church of wood and tinplate roof stood, in the village of Pashkovtsy, whereas the center of Zhdenevo, the second part of the address, was a further five kms down the road. - You just passed it, the man said in Ukrainian.

I turned back 50-100 meters and entered this building which looked like a simple but solid place to stay overnight. Some sort of a combined youth hostel and info centre for the adjacent nature reserve, I believed. But it turned out to be only a centre for the Forest Agency. 

My encounter with a Saturday afternoon drunk unhappy family man did not change that fact. Sorry, he failed to show me the right house another 100 meters up the road. I got annoyd and walked on until I got a lift in a car to Zhdenevo. It turned out to be a rewarding mistake. Instead of a private house, here I could stay more comfortably in a hotel with restaurant. The night brought a storm with millions of lightenings and thunder.

to be cont'd

Thursday 17 September 2015. Stretch no. 8.

Getting to the starting point on the Ukrainian side of the Polish border took me two days of travelling.
 
After a mere 1,5 hour flight to Warszawa Chopinska Airport, I strolled for the rest of the day the streets of downtown Warsaw taking an espresso double at Intercontinental Hotel, eating a generously stuffed pizza

on re-opened Swietokrzyska street and...

having a late coupe of thé and a muffin at the Green Caffe Nero...

 on Aleja Jana Pawla II, where I was mazed by this giant wall art

and near the train station these to giant buildings, one a quite new geometric construction and...

...the other, Palace of Culture, a donation by a neighbouring country after WWII.

before I finally could border the night train for Przemysl departing at midnight. 

Friday 18 September 2015. 

Ukraine is a big country of large distances especially between east and west as this map clearly shows. Most areas are lowland east and west of the important river of Dnepr. Only in the very far west, the Carpathian mountains you will find altitude above +1000 meters. 

To find MY ROUTE of walking through Ukraine look for the shortcut between the south-east corner of Poland and the north-west corner of Romania. 127 kms. Less some kms by bus and hitchhiking I walked probably less than 100 kms, When temperature was not above +30°C it was raining.

The sharp part of the Ukrainian -Polish border stems from a end of WWI dividing line proposal called Curzon after the then (1919) British Foreign secretary Georges Curzon. As can be seen from the map below After WWII the Soviet Union claimed a further piece of land that had belonged to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for centuries  -  and to the Czechoslovakian Republic between the two WW  -  but which was extremely strategic for SU's access to its new buffer states. 

Border crossings between Poland and Ukraine are not many and there is none in the very corner where I ended my walking in May. Thus, I needed first to head east by bus and then catch the night train from Lviv to Solotvino (= the end station that happended to be my prime goal for this stretch on the Romanian border). There was some confusing moment at the Przemysl PKP bus station as to which bus I should get on to. No one really spoke any other language than Polish or Russian or Ukrainian. But in one of the buses I tried a man promised to bring me across the border and to the train station at Sambir. At Medica border crossing we left the bus and simply walked across passing controls in five leaving Poland and five minutes entering Ukraine. The car, truck and bus lanes were endless and it would probably have taken many hours to get through sitting in a vehicle. At Sambir I had to wait another seven hours for the night train that ultimately brought me to Volosyanka. Met by the Recreation Complex Uzhanski Kupeli we had to get cleared through this off border control post.

Saturday 19 September 2015. Day 1.

A bright morning. A road in the mountainous landscape of much beauty and no traffic. I am free. Again.

to be continued...  :)