Saturday evening, Sunday morning 23-4 January

Hungary, the bits we've seen of it, is, on the whole flat. We walked on into the dusk and crossed uneventfully into Romania, which promises us mountains. This, we reflected, might be a mixed blessing: easier on the eye, harder on the calf muscles. We were, however, still on the great Hungarian plain even here and couldn't see now, in the dark, whether the landscape before us was changing much. It didn't feel like it. 

Eventually we arrived in Timisoara, a city big enough to offer us a comfortable night's rest. 

The squares of old city centre are lined with brightly coloured buildings and two cathedrals, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic, stand opposite one another in Piata Unirii, each as elegant and impressive as the other. We weren't surprised when our waiter told us, in perfect English, that Timisoara is know as 'Little Vienna'. He was a chatty fellow (he introduced himself as Phil) who had come away from his plumbing job in Birmingham after the Brexit referendum as he couldn't see a future for himself in UK and missed his family. He also told us with pride that Tarzan, aka Johnny Weissmuller, was a native of Timisoara. We didn't ask him about the massacre in the late1980s, it didn't seem polite.

Sunday 24th January

We made a point of passing through the old city again to see it in daylight before heading eastward and back to our route. More flat farmland until, at long last, as we approached Gavojdia. the horizon became smudged with hills. We all cheered and continued along the valley floor in much better heart. We Upton Bishopers and the friends and family who have joined us from the Berkshire Downs, the Cotswolds, and elsewhere are more used to friendly undulating terrain but hadn't realised until this moment how much the flatness of the plain had affected our mood.

The route swung southward, hills closed in on either side and we paused for lunch at Caransebes with the Parcul National Domogled-Valea ahead of us. This was going to be far more dramatic scenery. Someone remarked that Count Dracula's Castle at Bran was only about 100 miles north-east of here and suggested a detour. We looked at the map. Yes, as the crow flies, it does look about that far but there is a small matter of some serious mountains between here and there. The waiter, another English speaker, rolled his eyes.

'My cousin's father-in-law's uncle went there once.'

'Oh yes?'

'He's not been seen since.'

We laughed uneasily and decided we'd stick to the route.

Bounded by the hills on one side and the Cerna river on the other, we had no choice but to share the road with the lorries. This rather took the gilt off the gingerbread, but after the bridge at Orsova, where the river widened into a reservoir, we took a turning onto a lane and into the hills. Here was much wilder country. The route wound alongside steep valleys, down into villages nestled at the bottom and sweeping back up on the other side.

The light was beginning to fade. There was nowhere obvious on the map to stay. We had stocked up on picnic food at Caransebes, which was just as well since we'd only found a petrol station at Orsova with a shop that offered chocolate and cigarettes and not much else.

The forest was very dark.

'Aren't there wolves in Romania?' asked someone unhelpfully. There was no option but to press on, mostly downhill now. Drobeta-Turnu Serverin is an industrial town on the banks of the Danube. It has little to recommend it as a tourist destination but, my goodness, we were glad to be there. We camped a little beyond the town, beside the river.