Leaving my campsite at Turda I headed north. It was around 280kms today, not far, and the first half of the journey was boring A roads – but the latter half was superb, riding on B roads through the countryside and small mountains with lots of bendy bits.
I got to my campsite at Camping Poieni around 1.30pm and soon got my tent up, a brew on the go and a packet of biscuits open. The campsite is only small and it’s attached to Casa Ana, which is a lovely rustic restaurant. It’s only £5 a night, which is absolutely brilliant. I was only going to stay for one night but I decided to stay for three nights. The campsite is about 5km south of Sapanta, which is a small town in the north of Romania. In fact just across the river from Sapanta is Ukraine…! South of Sapanta is a huge national park and forestry area with hundreds of Kms of tracks.
While I’ve been here I went to visit the main church in Sapanta. Wow…! The Cimitirul Vesel is huge and you really cant miss it as you drive into the town. It’s also called the Merry Cemetery, because everything is so colourful and happy. The church is full of colour, everything from the multi-coloured roof tiles to the murals at the entrance and inside of the church, which are all brightly decorated. The inside is like the Cistene chapel on steroids. The most amazing sight are the grave markers, with each one having a carved picture of the person in life, and sometimes a picture of how they died on the reverse side.
The Cimitirul Vesel was built around 1935, but nearby is the original church for the town. It is much smaller and is built entirely of wood, with a traditional spire. Inside it’s also quite beautiful, with lots of pictures on the walls and gold decoration around the alter area. It really is worth visiting after you’ve seen the Merry Cemetery.
After that I went to visit the nearby Peri-Sapanta Monastery. The main monastery building is huge. Built of wood over several levels it looks like the biggest Bavarian ski-lodge ever made. Next to the main building are two wooden chapels, a small one with a spire and open sides, probably for summer services, and then there is a huge chapel. Built over a brick chapel, the wooden spire above the chapel spire is 78m high, and it’s the third tallest church in Romania.
While I’ve been here I’ve also been riding lots of logging tracks and trails around the nearby forests. I’ve ridden every afternoon and evening and its been brilliant, just aimlessly following the tracks through the hills and mountains and the forests. The tracks are mostly hard-packed dirt, shale and some muddy bits, and it was brilliant. I am so glad I changed my tyres last month as I would have been able to do it as easily as I did. I found that after two hours of riding, and mostly standing up, my legs would be very tired, so my age is starting to show itself. But, the Honda Transalp was brilliant. Yes, the front-end sometimes bottoms a bit and the rear kind of does its own thing, but I’m not an expert and its not a competition bike, so I’m happy. It did what I wanted it to do, and most of all, I had fun. Isn’t that what bikes are all about…?
