The idea of owning a 4x4 has always been to reach the unreachable and get to where no car has gone before. But here, the sport of the off road is divided in two separate areas: those who go off roading for the drive and those who use the cars to get somewhere. This adventure falls under the latter category, as we spend almost a week exploring one of the most breath-taking area of the Carpathians the Central Transylvanian hills.
We set off from Bucharest, early Tuesday morning, making our way towards the village of Biertan. Weve been to this area several times over the years. Regardless of what tracks weve driven on over time, there are always new routs to discover, with all levels of difficulties. Arriving, we met up with a few of our German friends whove just participated in the Cluj Cup. At this point, there were 2 Defenders, a 90 and our 110, two G Klasses, a G320 and a G290 as well as a lovely vintage Toyota 60 Series.
The idea was to visit a number of of fortified churches, traditional villages as well as a few fortresses. A good deal of the buildings in the villages in the Transylvanian plain are of medieval age, some dating back to the early 14th century so in our first day, we visited the church at Richis where we also discovered a lovely camping place.
The area is very tightly linked to the German culture and, we had the pleasure of discovering that most tours at the castles were done in both German and Romanian as well. This is due to the Transylvanian Saxons, who occupied these parts as early as 1200 A.D.
Most mountains in the region are covered in roads of all kinds, from paved rock roads to exploitation tracks and extremely muddy wanna-be roads. Just to make everything a little more difficult, the whole period there was constant rain. With this last problem in sight, we drove from place to place, visiting the Malancrav mansion and 15th Century church, the Biertan and Richis fortified churches (the latter with a
World Prize winning 15th century door locking mechanism). The area was inhabited by Saxons in medieval times and thus holds delightful vestiges of culture, history and architecture particularly the fortified house style which has been employed throughout the land as a measure for protection.
During our journeys to and from various places, the cars managed to see it all. Both G Klasses had problems; one with the starter motor and the other with the catch tank, while the 60s axle and leaf springs kept jumping out of place. Each time this happened, we would have to stop, put the truck on a hi-lift and get the springs back in place (which would be done by Robert, owner of the Land Cruiser, while everyone sat around making Toyota jokes, for some reason).
The tracks gave us really deep mud, in places where tractors would drag huge logs out of the forest, where the winch was our best friend. We had slippery descents and steep slopes to go up, rivers to cross and side slopes to attack. Through it al, it was all great fun and an interactive learning
experience about architecture, religion and culture in the Middle Ages.
Radu Tudoroiu
Radu Tudoroiu is a photographer and an editor for 4x4 Off Roads and other publications as well as an off-road enthusiast. Radu lives in Romania.
