The unearthed wild cycling trail bringing visitors to the Romanian countryside

Eastern Europe’s answer to the Camino de Santiago is best explored on two wheels, says Damien Gabet, as he follows a new route that is giving people a reason to return to the countryside

Saturday 18 January 2025 13:37 GMT
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Guest numbers are slowly starting to climb in the Romanian countryside
Guest numbers are slowly starting to climb in the Romanian countryside (Damien Gabet)

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Sometimes you just know you’re going to love a place. It’s an unconscious certainty, formed slowly, through the passive banking of anecdotes, good movies and the occasional connection to your past lives. Iceland, Lebanon and Japan are on the list. I thought I’d love them and I did. Romania’s always been a contender. Especially Transylvania, with its wildflower meadows, pretty villages and folkloric fangs. It’s a bit of me.

So when The Slow Cyclist invited me on their inaugural bike and hike along a section of Romania’s box-fresh Via Transilvanica (VT), I felt the same sort of excitement a philatelist might on bagging a fancy stamp.

Dubbed “The Camino of the East”, the VT is a tethering of ancient trade and transhumance trails that now stretches 1,400km across the country. Beginning in northerly Bucovina, near the Ukrainian border, it scribbles at a slant over Transylvania and the Carpathian Mountains, ending at a village in spitting distance of Serbia.

The first project of its kind in Eastern Europe, the VT is the brainchild of environmentalist Alin U?eriu and his brother Tiberiu, who run T??uleasa Social, a non-governmental organisation. Tiberiu’s redemption arc – imprisoned for armed robbery; now a celeb ultra-marathon runner – adds to the project’s colourful origin story.

Together they defied a litany of odds, shunning “corrupt” state money while getting buy-in from groups spanning local communities to logging companies. Four-and-a-half years later, a trail emerged that unites seven regions and over 100 administrative “units”, giving people like me and you an excuse to deep dive into Romania’s mesmeric arcadia.

Damian joined a group who were cycling part of the way of the 1,400km-long trail
Damian joined a group who were cycling part of the way of the 1,400km-long trail (Damien Gabet)

Having been blackmailed into attending an in-law’s wedding, I was late to the adventure and caught up with my group, on day three (of five), outside a 16th-century painted monastery in Vatra Moldovitei. Crumpled nuns admonished us for... well, I’m not sure what as we ogled its immaculate murals, one of which takes you back to the Siege of Constantinople in 626 AD. Divine intervention and Christian resilience in effulgent blue and golden hues.

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Resilience was already a buzzword in my muddied group: their first two days had been made rather more challenging by Storm Boris. Fortuitously, it had passed by the time I arrived. The air, now, was all petrichor and pine sap – optimum stuff for type-two fun.

I was teased for my obnoxiously clean trainers before we set off on foot up into hills cinematically swaddled in God’s-own dry-ice machine. The topography here looks a little Swiss, with its lawn-like pastures cut into dense conifers. The twee peal of cow bells bolsters the comparison, though they weren’t being worn by heifers, but the hulking Bucovina shepherd dogs that guard the herd from wolves, bears and Rab-clad tourists.

The trail hopes to reverse the effect of urbanisation and give people a reason to stay in or return to the countryside
The trail hopes to reverse the effect of urbanisation and give people a reason to stay in or return to the countryside (Ryan Le Garrec)

“Stay in the pack or they'll think they've separated you!” warned our guide, Sergiu. The hounds slowly approached with baritone barks, but Sergiu soon mollified them with a ready bag of treats. Few are better placed to chaperone groups through Romania’s hinterland than Sergiu: besides being a champion mountain biker, he was personally selected by the brothers to map the VT from a cyclist’s perspective.

As part of the recce, he rode all 1,400km with a friend, powered by pluck and plum brandy. “If you don’t know the trail you can die,” he said. “There are some very steep hills.” The VT is the first in the Slow Cyclist’s (SC) “Expedition Series”, aimed at younger/fitter riders – rather different to the eponymous pootles it’s known for.

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Certain touch points remain the same, though, including SC’s commitment to meals of locally grown, homemade food. My first lunch of cold cuts, the reddest tomatoes and challenging cheeses helped to ground me in the environment as our full-suspension e-bikes were being prepared in our host’s garden.

“We’re about to go uphill, would anybody like a sugar hit?” said Sergiu, as we finished up. We chewed down on the nutty bars before pedalling up to a rudimentary ski station with another almighty view. I’d not ridden an e-bike before and, well, the power-assist button quickly became more addictive than a hospital morphine clicker.

From ancient forests to pleasant countryside pedals, the route goes through various landscapes
From ancient forests to pleasant countryside pedals, the route goes through various landscapes (Ryan Le Garrec)

Sergiu could see my busy thumb and shouted: “Be true to yourself – only use ‘turbo’ if you have to!” Spiriting words; sage, too: running out of battery in these hills wouldn’t be much fun. We spent the afternoon moving at a leisurely clip through scenes more bucolic than a Constable canvas.

Our wooden lodgings that night were another nod to the Swiss theme (google La Moara and you’ll see what I mean) and dinner was hearty enough to replace those pedalled calories. I couldn’t get enough of the g?lu?te (semolina dumpling) broth, made aromatic with fistfuls of dill. The afinat? blueberry liqueur slipped down pretty easily, too.

We started the next day wending over meadows variegated by horror-movie haystacks before plunging into an ancient forest – home, Sergiu told us, to bears, deer and even the odd lynx. This was my first taste of single-track riding and I deliberately waited back from the gang, so I could bomb downhill, tongue wagging, to catch them up.

Bears, deer and other wildlife also share the same home as the trail
Bears, deer and other wildlife also share the same home as the trail (Ryan Le Garrec)

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For every kilometre of the trail there’s a 250kg anthracite stone waymarker, with a bright orange “T” on it. Each of them has been uniquely sculpted by a different artist. “It’s the world’s longest art gallery,” said Iancu, our second guide. I asked him whether the VT was a bellwether for prosperity in Romania. “Well, it was built by volunteers – people who’ve dedicated their spare time to a higher cause,” he said. “I think that reflects positively…”

Part of the Via’s MO is to reverse the leaching effect of urbanisation, to give people a reason to stay in or return to the countryside. With Iancu’s help, I spoke with our lunch host that day; she told me that the number of guests she receives a year has risen 600 per cent since the VT was launched. It dawned on me that so far we’d seen a total of three other visitors on the trail.

The VT route was built by volunteers, officially launching in October 2022
The VT route was built by volunteers, officially launching in October 2022 (Damien Gabet)

“The numbers are still small,” she admitted, “but things are going in the right direction and my daughter is now planning to return from the city to work with us.”

The final day was spent tracing the Rodnei Mountains and proved another masterclass in pastoral porn. We stopped to natter with a local farmer’s wife, who was following her free-roaming cows around with a milk bucket. Lunch was made memorable with my new favourite snack: raw spring onion, dipped in salt, chased with a big bottle of Harghita beer.

As we hit the afternoon run, up a vertiginous ski slope, the varying fitness levels of the group became more obvious. “It’s a bloody bootcamp!” sputtered someone at the back. Lots of stopping and starting risks stymying more active cyclists’ fun, so I’d advise checking, before you book, whether others in the group are at your level.

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Dinner was a more level affair: we snarfed chicken paprikash and a huge pile of baked polenta, mixed with punchy unpasteurised cheese from our hosts’ own flock. It’s the sort of salubrious food that makes you feel better in real time. “Farm-to-table eating isn’t a reversion here,” said Iancu, earnestly, “it’s a way of life that’s not changed.”

A wide range of locally made delicacies were eaten while on the expedition
A wide range of locally made delicacies were eaten while on the expedition (Damien Gabet)

We finished dinner and were treated to a live performance of melancholic music and traditional dancing. Sated, pleasantly tired and half-cut on brandy, I ruminated on Iancu’s words. They were confirmation that this part of the world – how it looks and tastes and does things – agreed with me. Like feeling longing for the life you’ve never had. I thought I’d love it. And I did.

How to do it

The Slow Cyclist (01865 410 356) offers a five-night Bucovina Expedition from ?1,750 per person based on travelling as a group of 12, either as part of a scheduled trip, or in a private group. This includes group airport transfers, a support vehicle and luggage transfers, two English-speaking local guides, support vehicle, five nights’ accommodation, all meals, snacks and drinks, all activities, electric bicycle and helmet hire. A 1 per cent donation to local causes aligned with The Slow Cyclist’s values is also included. International flights, personal costs, tips and travel insurance are not included.

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