Bucharest

We arrived in Bucharest on the Saturday but didn't fancy visiting the capital until the Monday, which posed the problem of where do we stay. We made our way to the campsite at the north of the city - Camping Casa Alba. I use the term campsite in the loosest sense of the word, since it is actually a 1970's holiday cabin type campsite with a carpark where caravans and motorhomes can stay. There was a large Belgian tour there when we visited. However, should the mood take you, you can park round the back of the restaurant Casa Alba in the large park area behind - we did so for two days, only moving to the security of the "site" to leave our van to venture into the city. Cost £16/day with EHU.

We were going to have a guide for the city, but we've misplaced his details (Michael, get in touch!) so we had to go it alone. We tried tried the bus for a couple of stops but decided when we had to change we would just get a taxi instead. Taxi's are all Dacia's (naturally) and are between 1.39 and 1.69 LEI per KM or about 60p a mile. Our driver was sipping whiskey and smoking for most of the journey but we arrived in central Bucharest in one piece, physically at least.

The traffic could be likened to that of St Petersburg and there is an almost complete absence of tourists of any kind. While we were getting our bearings Sophie spotted a modern looking hairdressers and stopped so we could both have a cut - Sophie's first since home and my first since Estonia. Being a trendy Toni and Guy type outfit we were both treated to a wash, blow dry and cut and finish for just over £20 for both of us - it felt good to have some TLC!

We made our way to The Palace of Parliament which is undoubtedly Bucharest's #1 landmark, a huge building of 1,100 rooms and 12 stories tall and costing over $10bn to build. It's construction was never finished and much of the interior remains empty after the regime change of 1989.

While we were stood admiring the Palace when we were passed by an open topped Sightseeing Bus. Definitely not our usual method of seeing a capital, we usually rack up at least 5 miles on foot but we decided to hop on and see where it took us. The fee was modest (£5 each) compared to some tours and we did a lap and a half around the sights. I'd love to get into the thick of Bucharest one day but I think we're a little tired of big cities and this trip has defined that we are very much country / outdoors people - if we didn't know that already.

We spotted a Hard Rock Cafe and, having never visited one anywhere, stopped off for some tea - a Legendary Burger and a Rack of Ribs for Sophie.

We also stopped off at Peles Castle in Sinaia on the way down to Bucharest which was built in 1873 and completed in 1914. The sun hasn't stopped shining for the past 2/3 weeks and the day we visited wasn't an exception. 

Transfagarasan Pass & Vidraru Dam

UPDATE 6th September: Scroll Down for HD Videos!!

A visit to Romania wouldn't be complete without a trip on the Transfagarasan pass, famed by Top Gear as the best driving road in the world we decided that we'd have to have a go for ourselves.

Probably not the best idea then, with hindsight, to do a big shop and fill our 90L water tank before attempting the assent. Had it not been for our remap I'm not entirely sure we would have made it up at all but as it turned out we gave a few Dacia's a run for their money that's for sure! We've made a video of the best bit - about 6min long and in HD but until we find some decent wifi that'll have to wait I'm afraid!

The road itself is in great condition, compared to some of the roads and passes we've driven on, aside from the barriers which are absent in many crucial places. The Romanian's had taken it upon themselves to setup tents in some various risky looking places, should anyone end up coming off I dread to think of the consequences.

Once you arrive at the top you are greeted by... chaos. Tat sellers and a choice of either pay for parking or do as the locals and abandon it on the road and wander off to look at sheep skins and bread! There was however a large glacial lake called Balea at the top of the pass with a zip wire which ran from one side of the mountain to the other (only for the brave ones!) We pondered over Wild Camping here and probably could have done but we decided to press on and put some further distance in to try and find somewhere to stay for a few days.

After Transfagarasan the next major landmark is Vidraru Dam also of Top Gear fame. However what Top Gear didn't show you is the road connecting the two which is without a doubt the worst road we have ever driven on, with cars abandoned with flat tyres and sump damage everywhere - except for Dacia's that is! We made a video of this road also and will update once uploaded.

I would sincerely recommend that, unless this road improves you don't take a motorhome of any value down it or if you do take it very, very steady unlike like the convoy of 4 Spanish vans we saw. If you see a motorhome body on the back of a horse and cart with Spanish plates on it I can tell you where it came from!            The dam itself is impressive although the power ranger statue (Prometheus, a greek titan) was a little odd, but we were getting pretty tied by this point. Just around the corner is a large camping area where we pitched up and were joined by the Spanish vans. 'Tourist Tax' of 5LEI (£1) was paid willingly and we stayed there for two days to recover! 

However, after the Pass the roads deteriorate quite significantly! 

Cetatea Poenari GPS: (45.34383, 24.63515) - On the way down the pass (south side) there is a small designated camping area next to the river which is £1 per night which goes towards keeping the area clean ie: free rubbish bags etc. 

Sighisoara

Sighisoara was our first 'proper' Romanian village, having driven through many smaller villages and a few medium sized which held no real interest Lonely Planet lead us to the wonderful village of Sighisoara.

Sighisoara is a medieval fortified town, during the 12th Century merchants and craftsmen occupied the town and the famous Clock Tower was built in 1280 - it has now been added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. Behind the clock tower there is plate honoring Vlad Dracul which marks the house where "Vlad the Impaler" was allegedly born.

There is also an old staircase leading up to the Church on top of the hill which was built in 1642 and was used to ease the rush of students heading to what used to be a school on top of the hill.

The first challenge of the day was parking, we found a good central road side spot but the signs said we needed to pay but we weren't sure how. Eventually we found a guy in a high-vis handing out tickets which looked like lottery scratch cards. Did we want an hour (30p) or a day (£1) - we opted for a day!

Once again another scorcher of a day - easily topping the 30's today I'd imagine without so much as a breeze. We began to explore Sighisoara, the birthplace of Dracula. It was surprisingly un-touristy and the Citadel old town with it's maze of streets and the clock tower with it's views over the town held our interest for considerably longer then many places we have visited.

 We took a gamble on the roads towards Sibiu which paid off and we were treated to villages full of Romanian's, or Roma's, in their traditional red dress. We took a few photographs but owing to the sun and our windscreen caked with flies none of the shots came out too well!

Once back on the main road we spent an hour or so looking for a Wild spot but didn't find anything that took our fancy, so we ended up on a small Dutch run campsite for the night.

Bicaz Gorge and Lacu Rosu

We ended up staying 3 nights at our Wild Camping spot the Voronet Monastery as the weather was (and still is) fantastic here in Romania. When we left we headed towards the Bicaz Gorge first passing over the Bicaz Lake Hydroelectric Dam which gave some dramatic views to the surrounding area.

Bicaz Gorge initially felt very similar to Cheddar Gorge back at home, however once we entered it was clear it is on a much grander scale with the windy road and overhanging rocks adding to the effect. There is also much more 'tourist tat' here then had Cheddar but then this is one of the main sights here in Romania so it is to be expected. On request we took a short video, but the sun and our mounting arrangements weren't in our favor - promise we'll try and do better for the Transfăgărășan Highway!

Afterwards we visited Lacu Rosu which means "Red Lake" in Hungarian, was in fact more of a muddy brown colour when we visited. The tree stumps, however, were still clearly visable peaking out of the water. The lake got it's name when a landslide happened causing a natural dam but at the same time crushing a group of pick-nikers who were nearby at the time, or a variation on this theme depending on where you read it.

Determined to continue with our Wild Camping theme we headed for another dammed lake and found that it was surrounded by fellow campers mostly in tents but there was a couple of VW vans. We pitched up for the night in a location overlooking the water.

Sangeorgiu de Padure GPS: (46.41040, 24.88269) - 2 miles drive up a gravel track to a reservoir - free place to wild camp, lots of other tents on both sides of the water. Bad road leading up to it. 

Here is the video we took, look out for the home made camper van at 2:25!

Microsoft Autoroute 2011 (Europe) Review

I'm usually pretty sceptical when it comes to upgrading software, to the point that the laptop I use to make this post is still running XP because I find it to be much faster then Vista for Windows 7. Usually an upgrade means an upgrade in turn to your processing power or suffer from a reduction in performance and / or a lot of additional features which you probably will never use.

However, I was very surprised to find that on upgrading to Autoroute 2011 there were many changes and in some cases the difference between the 2010 and 2011 mapping versions is night and day. The upgrade could not have come at a better time for us - we were entering Romania just as we downloaded the free 60 day trial version from Microsoft and you'll see further down this post just how big a difference there is between 2011  vs 2010.

I've only been using the software for less than a week, so maybe a little premature to write a full review but I wanted to detail some of the pretty big (for us) changes between versions. If you've found anything else - please use the comment section below to tell us!

UK / Western Europe Mapping
For the UK and I suspect most of Western Europe there wasn't anything 'lacking' in the 2010 version, but never-the-less the update map data is a welcome addition. The map information comes from a company called Tele-Atlas who physically drive most of the routes (or at least they did) in a similar fashion to what Google Streetview - but also recording information about the routes.

The updates are so subtle that I have highlighted the changes in red boxes for my home town of York, if you want me to do any other comparisons for your home town or a section of road you know to have changed recently let me know and I'll post them up here.

 

York Autoroute 2010                          York Autoroute 2011

Increase in Green Spaces and Water Courses

Many areas also appear to benefit from updated water courses which makes navigation while on the road (we have Autoroute mounted on our dashboard when driving) much easier. You can see the differences are subtle here, but not so much that I have had to highlight them, the green spaces are pretty visable and the water is about 6 o'clock on the pictures below.

 

Guben (DE/PL) Autoroute 2010       Guben (DE/PL) Autoroute 2011

Massive Increase in POI's

Using the same example as above, Guben which is on Germany's border with Poland, it is possible to see the massive increase in POI's that are now available - from 722 to 1,430 for the same region.

POI Autoroute 2010 (733)               POI Autoroute 2011 (1,430)

Eastern Europe - What a difference!

The biggest difference in the mapping information that is available between versions comes when you venture into Eastern Europe. Two places we have visited recently we had struggled with, firstly when we visited Lithuania we found that while the mapping was generally good a lot of the water courses were missing which can make navigation and orientation difficult. We're glad to see that in 2011 these are back!

 

Kaunas Autoroute 2010                    Kaunas Autoroute 2011

However, by far the biggest difference I can show you is a place we visited today in Romania called Sighisoara - I don't think you need any further waffle from me - the map pictures speak for themselves!

 

Sighisoara Autoroute 2010               Sighisoara Autoroute 2011

Conclusion

In terms of functionality there appears to be very little difference between the 2010 and 2011 interface, although there appears to be some slight differences in the way data saved for 2010 is imported. The main difference appears to be the mapping information, POI's and business information and therefore the routes which Auroroute plots are slightly different and possibly more accurate. 

Download a free 60 Day Trial of 2011 from Autoroute by Clicking Here - You can keep your 2010 version (if applicable) installed along side it while you make a decision if it is worthwhile to purchase.