I fell in love on a bike in Transylvania. Not only with the man on the bike beside me, but with the countryside around me. It has been a year now since I agreed to stay with the man here in his beautiful region. While the year has brought many trials and tribulations, too many grey cloudy days I thought would never end chased away by sunshine days with puffy white clouds, many tears and much laughter, the one thing that has remained always a joy is bicycling through these beautiful terraced hills.
It is the terrace-ing (to make my own word) of the hills that makes Transylvania so uniquely beautiful. With the land continually descending from hilltop to valley then ascending again, there is rarely a patch of flat earth to farm upon. The settlers of these regions adjusted to this challenge of nature by carving terraces into the hillside – flattened ridges that wind up the hill like the skin of a potato perfectly peeled in one long curled strip. It gives the entire landscape a surreal feeling – as if it were art somehow, painted with the love of Monet or sculpted with the passion of Michelangelo.
There is, quite simply, no better way to see these lands than by bicycle. Cars move too quickly on crowded roads with crazy drivers where road rage and driver frustration prevent even a modicum of enjoyment of the landscape beyond; and the blessedly unpopulated regions between one town and the next are too vast to walk. Biking is the perfect medium. Old dirt roads connect villages frozen in time, with only the occasional motorist to disturb the tranquility. The terraced hills roll by beneath the breathtaking Transylvania blue skies. Sheep bay in the distance as goat bells tinkle in the wind. Fields of golden wheat blow in the breeze; the occasional farmhouse comes into view then fades away; villages hum with life as old couples sit on benches in front of their homes, men debate politics at cafes, children ride bicycles, and women gather to chat over the chores. As I ride these back roads, the rhythm of life is as present as the methodic movement of my feet on the pedals. The world seems to make sense. I’ve only experienced such a profound sense of peace in the ebb and flow of life in two other places – walking along the coast as waves crash upon the shore and Ashtanga yoga where the oneness with the breath, each inhale and each exhale, rocks me like a sleeping babe.
When the Transylvania spring was bursting at its seams last April, I took off late one Sunday afternoon to find my peace in the new cycle of birth blessing her abundant hills and valleys. Leaving Sighisoara, I rode through şaeş and Apold, turning off to the south in the direction of Brăădeni. There on the side of the road I saw one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. Two shepherds were off to the right. One sat chewing on a long piece of grass chatting with the other who was half-propped up on his elbow. Their charges, a herd of about thirty sheep, were grazing on the deep green grass across the road while THEIR charges played before them. In the space between, twenty baby lambs were playing tag. I’m not kidding, tag. Two would butt heads then one, I guess the loser, would take off running. The others would chase him, running full tilt behind. They would suddenly stop, tumbling into one another, at about the end of the length of field their parents were grazing on. For a minute or so they would butt heads, romp and tease each other, then one would take off running again. I watched them for half an hour, absolutely enraptured. The shepherd signaled to me I could go up closer. As I did so, one of the sheep got particularly upset. I could hear the panic and demand in her bay though it took me a second to figure out why. She was giving birth, that very moment. The sun glistened off the red of the birth sack as her little one fell gently to the ground. I watched him take his tentative first steps while she glared at me. She checked him out from hoof to head before giving me one final emphatic “Baaah!” I left them to their bonding, making my way back to my bike and on to Brădeni.
Spontaneity having driven me onto the road, I hadn’t stopped to consider that I had not eaten since the day before and hadn’t thought to fill the water bottle on the bike. Dehydration comes on quickly when biking and hungry! The well in Brădeni was dry so I asked a little girl – in the universal language of gestures – where I could find water. She signaled me to follow her as she skipped happily home, obviously excited to show off the funny blonde lady she found in the street wearing a skirt and flip-flops on a bike (I can’t abide being hot!). She reminded me of all the times I took a stray home as a little girl – “Look what I found Mommy, can I keep her?” She led me through a gate and shouted something into the air. Her mother stepped out of the small lean-to shack that served as a kitchen where she was cooking. She just smiled and pointed at the well and went back to stirring – like it was the most normal thing in the world to let a stranger in and give them water.
Cars were a forgotten memory by the time I reached Retiş. The sun had begun to set, casting long shadows over the hills. Bărcut was breathtaking as the hills became more prominent in the landscape, gradually shifting into what would become the foothills of the Făgăraş Mountains. A long winding road curved upward into a beautifully wooded nature preserve. With the last of the sun’s rays, I decided to walk the bike, enjoying the beauty of the woods around me. Reaching the top of the hill, I slipped on long pants under my skirt, mounted the bike, and coasted down one of the most blessedly long descents I have ever ridden. I swear I didn’t touch a pedal for at least ten minutes.
The full moon lit just enough of the road for me to make it to şoarş. My goal had been Făgăraş but my stomach and legs were becoming very belligerent in their insistence I stop. Ah, but where? şoarş is not what you call a five star hotel town. It’s not even a one star hostel town! Just as I was resigning myself to riding on to Făgăraş, I saw a lady walk out of one of the offices. She was about my age, carrying some books, and seemed to be, well, nice. I stopped her and through a mix of my bad Romanian, her worse English, and, again, the universal language of gestures, she understood I needed dinner and a place to sleep. She walked me to a nearby gate, and signaled for me to wait there. Two minutes later I heard a phone ring inside and within a minute the gate opened. It was the lady’s mother. It turned out she spoke some Italian so we were able to get through the tour and pleasantries, and within minutes I was in a lovely room with a wood stove warming my cold hands. She called me when dinner was ready, and I had a hearty country meal followed by a good night’s sleep. She had to leave the next morning but left me in her husband’s care and breakfast on the table. It was a disappointment that he took unfair advantage of me in the price they charged (86 lei was a bit steep for one night in şoarş), but it is something I have come to accept that Romanians will generally take advantage when they can. While I may not like it or approve, I do at least understand how the history and turmoil of this country has contributed to such a mentality. Besides, I felt so fortunate to have found anything at all and the mother’s smile had such tenderness in it that it was best not to begrudge a few extra lei.
By ten in the morning I was on the road again, this time winding my way toward Rupea. Again I marveled at how time stood still in these places. Distant valleys cradled blankets of red tiled roofs beneath white steeples reaching toward the heavens. Men plowed fields standing on tills still pulled by horses. Women too ancient to leave the house in America walked down the street in their headscarves and woolen socks carrying buckets of water that I would have struggled with at half their age. Pastel colored houses with bright green lawns lined the street as people sat on benches in front of their walled enclosures, watching time pass as if it was a distant dot on the horizon. Turkeys and chickens wandered in front yards gobbling and clucking while smells of good cooking and spring springing danced in the air.
Lovnic was lovely, pun intended, spread below in picturesque perfection as the road wound back and forth down the hill. A horse and her foal stood alongside a shocking white-blossom tree encircled by a sea of deep dark evergreen. I don’t think five minutes ever passed without my stopping to take some picture of blossoming flowers or budding trees or animals with their newborns. Jibert offered a much needed spring water pump after a (thankfully) quickly corrected wrong turn carried me on to Dacia. Not wanting to return so soon to city-ness, I decided to veer off from the road to Rupea and head instead to Viscri.
The hills leveled out a bit on the way to Viscri, allowing for long straight roads bordered by tall trees. They made such fine straight lines and the trees were so equally spaced, they reminded me of guards standing watch before a palace. Again I lost myself to the rhythm of my turning feet as the countryside swept by and the absolute remoteness of this not so distant land reflected back to my soul a sense of peace and vastness. We are so wrapped up in the tangible we forget sometimes the reality that in our universe, in our bodies, even in this table I am sitting before and the chair I am sitting on, there is more space than matter.
Worried that I would be forced to ride at night again if I tarried too long, I did not stop at the fortified church in Viscri except to take pictures of it as it appeared and disappeared across the horizon. As the church fell out of few I was again left with a world to myself. Nary a shepherd worked the hills from Viscri to Buneşti, and the solitude calmed my soul. That was a good thing, for little did I know there would be no other choice to get from Buneşti back to Sighişoara than the Braşov-Cluj freeway.
Now, while biking Transylvania back roads is a joy, biking the major roads is a blood-pressure defying feat. The Romanian motorists clearly do not abide by the share-the-road mentality encouraged in other countries and white-knuckle syndrome is inescapable. Saschiz was inviting, and I was terribly tempted to scale the hill and visit the monastery ruin but the sun was sinking and as bad as it was to ride the highway in the daytime, I certainly did not want to ride it at n night! The baby goats along the roadside cheered me on my way (what precious fun-loving little creatures) and by nightfall I was pedaling my way back into Sighisoara. The trip had lasted barely twenty-seven hours, yet I felt like I had been on vacation for a week. Time has a way of suspending, of warping in these hills. Maybe it really does stand still, not just in the aversion to the “modern world” so apparent in these quaint, ancient villages, but in the actual, physical sense of time. A four hour bike ride can seem a weekend, a day can seem a week.
If you are so fortunate to find yourself in Transylvania, do not, do not, do not miss the opportunity to rent a bike for a day (or more) and ride through her beautiful hills. Experience for yourself the sights and sounds and smells that make this such an incredible land. Immerse yourself in her charms. Give yourself a lingering moment to let time slip away to a not-so distant past when the rhythm of life rocked us and the hurried rush of today’s world was as inconceivable as a winter without spring or a day without night. With nary a plastic-Dracula or woven-purse in sight, you will find on your way the true treasures of Transylvania, and, perhaps, the peace you parted from home hoping to find. Drum Bun!
Recent Comments