Monday, August 07, 2017

Driving Transalpina again and E81 : Romania road trip Day 4

Today's original plan was to do some castles, churches, hitorical monuments in Sibiu. However, I negotiated with my Wife for another Transalpina drive. She reluctantly agreed albeit with one condition that we would visit Corvin castle which was a long detour. This made this a pretty long and tiring day with almost 8 hours on the road.

After having a nice breakfast, we drove from Sibiu all the way to Corvin castle. We reached early for a 1030 opening. Since we had a long day ahead, decided it was not worth just waiting around for it to open. Walked around the castle and shot some images though light was pretty bad already. It was interesting with a nice bridge over rivulet - I could see how it would have been tough to penetrate the castle in olden times. But other than that we did not find it super appealing. Wifey thankfully agreed that she is OK giving interiors a skip thus saving almost an hour.




An hour into the drive from Corvin, we hit slight drizzle. By the time we hit Transalpina, DN67C and started the many hairpins up, the visibility started deteriorating. It took a long and careful drive of over 3 hours in deteriorating weather to reach the top. By the time we reached top, we could literally see only a few feet ahead of our headlights. Decided to turn back and climb down a bit till we could see the curvy roads ahead. Trekked a few trails, climbed a few small hills for some gorgeous pictures.





On the way back took another (this time avoiding parts of Trans Alpina) - 106E merging into E81 after Saliste and onwards to Sibiu. Less well maintained but more adventurous route through pine forests.

The second trip to Transalpina was well worth it since we did bit of trail walking, enjoyed different weather and better photography conditions - especially some great timelapse videos given the cloudy atmosphere and also a nice drive through E81 rather than the faster but boring A1.

Reached back in Sibiu by about 830 (we had booked two nights here), had some dinner and I conked off the moment my head hit the pillow. 

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