Many years ago I walked across Transylvania, guided by a compass, sleeping in village houses, keeping an eye out for bears and defending myself against vicious shepherd dogs.
It was a truly memorable experience, but it was also tough and unpredictable. So, when I heard there was a new hiking trail that covered similar ground but with certainty and comfort, and which could be combined with easy access from a new airport, I couldn’t resist.
The trail is the Via Transilvanica, and it sets out to traverse 870 miles (1,400km) of some of the most unspoilt hills, meadows, mountains and forests in Europe. A slice of timeless rural life, where transport is often still by horse and cart, harvesting is by scythe and shepherds still watch over their flocks by night, for fear of wolves.
Opened this summer, Brasov is the first new airport in Romania for 50 years. From the nearby station, I boarded a stopping train north to begin my hike from the Unesco-listed village of Saschiz, home to a 15th-century fortified church, 14th-century fortress and unique ceramic tradition.
Besides being championed by the likes of our own King Charles (who has properties in the region) for its untrammelled ecology, Transylvania is also a Petri dish of ethnicities. Under the broad Romanian umbrella, there are Hungarian-speaking villages, Roma settlements and what they call Saxon villages, originally settled by German-speaking people, particularly on the “Terra Saxonum”, the section of the trail I was intending to walk.
Most of the original Saxons have gone, but their pastel-painted villages remain, beautifully laid out in herringbone style along the valley bottoms and best seen from the towers of their magnificent, fortified churches.
In Saschiz, I stayed in the Casa de pe Deal guesthouse run by Anca and Charlie, the latter a carpenter originally from France. Over a dinner of paprika soup and cabbage lasagna it was Anca who filled me in on the origin of the Via Transilvanica. It was the brainchild of Transylvania-born Tibi Useriu, a hardcore adventurer with a nefarious background (he spent a decade in a German prison), and his brother Alin. Their intention was to generate new income for Transylvania’s struggling rural communities.
I climbed out of Saschiz past its 600-year-old fortress in the company of two female hikers from Moldova. We were to leapfrog each other several times that day, and I could locate them in the woodland because they played songs on their mobile phones to scare the brown bears (there are around 6,000 of them in the nearby Carpathian Mountains).
That first day was partly in beechwoods and partly in grasslands, the trail beautifully waymarked every 30 to 50 metres, with hand-carved marker stones every kilometre. The hillsides were pebbledashed with flocks of sheep, and it was a relief to see them at a distance, as I knew from previous experience the shepherd dogs can be aggressive.
At lunchtime, I stopped under a spreading walnut tree to eat nuts with the Moldovans in the village of Daia, where the only shop sold bread, ice cream and exercise books. And then it was off again, up to another forested ridge and over into a new valley system.
My overnight stop was in the village of Sapartoc, at a guesthouse run by Radu and Andrea. This turned out to be a Hungarian-origin village, with three churches for a residual population of just 25. Radu had bought his dilapidated property many years earlier on a whim for just €2,000. It had been just a weekend DIY hobby, but the arrival of the Via Transilvanica has changed that, creating a viable business where before there had been nothing.
There was a full house that night, with four other hikers, all Romanian, and we all shared a hearty meal of roast pork and sour cream washed down with quantities of the local hooch – palinka – distilled by Radu’s uncle.
I rose early the next morning to walk among woodpeckers in the beechwoods. The view was fabulous from the high pasture, with silky morning mist lying in the valleys. But then I heard barking, and a tidal wave of sheep came surging up the hill. Their milking done, they were en route from the sheepfold to the grazing, and they had four large dogs as escort.
I had come prepared with a stick and a high-frequency zapper, and it was only when the dogs were surrounding me, snarling and barking, that I felt forced to use them. These shepherd dogs are trained to defend the sheep against the unknown, and it wasn’t until the shepherd himself came running, wielding his own stick, that they let me go.
A couple of hours later, I was back down in another valley, in thick woodland, listening to another sound. This time it was a disembodied chanting, punctuated by the ringing of bells, breaking out occasionally into solo song. It was, according to my map, the monastery of St Demetrius at Aurel Vlaicu, but given that I could see nothing but woodland, listening to it was both surreal and compellingly spiritual.
Later that day I was in Sighisoara, one of Transylvania’s prettiest and most touristed towns. Its old part sits atop a hill, where narrow streets are paved with ankle-snapping cobbles, surrounded by walls punctuated by turreted towers.
This is the birthplace of Vlad Dracul, the supposed model for Dracula, and it makes the most of the connection.
But I wasn’t interested in any of that. I sat in the old town square, listening to the church bells and savouring a long coffee in the sun.
I’d done about 40km. Only another 1,360 to go.
Travel essentials
Getting there
Wizz Air flies from Luton to BrasovStaying there
Advance booking is recommended, usually via WhatsApp, and a room with dinner typically costs around £40ppMore information
saschiz130.com
viatransilvanica.com
romaniatourism.com
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