A good trip starts with good coffee, even when nearly 600 km lie ahead to our first destination – Arad. Schatzy, our cool canine traveller, has no clue that he will cross Europe and (part of) the Atlantic to reach my mother in Puerto de la Cruz.
We were lucky enough to find clear roads ahead – June 1st is a holiday in Romania, and I haven’t seen such a clear path to Sibiu in years. So we enjoyed the mountains.
We decided to make a longer stop for lunch at Astra Museum of Popular Technique near Sibiu – Schatzy needed to move and finally we weren’t sure we would get to Arad in time for dinner.
A roadtrip is still an endurance test in Romania. Waze had us cruising between two complete sections of motorway A1, but surprise… The connecting segment of national road DN68a is a work-in-progress. Basically a forest-road really, which tested our nerves as we hadn’t found a gas station for nearly 100km and we had only 60 km autonomy. All is well in the end.
On the first day we crossed Romania from Bucharest to Arad, through rain and bad roads, but fortunately arriving just in time for a good rest. Schatzy, the curious Vyszla, was intrigued by the changing scenery, but remained finally calm to our destination. Maxim Hotel in Arad welcomes pets, but beware: they have no elevator, so our staircase scared hero had to be dragged up to the second floor. Which is basically why we had to give up dinner for today (and I personally dread breakfast).
This would be us at the end of the day – I am still checking entry conditions for Hungary and Slovenia, our targets for tomorrow. We will be testing for COVID-19 in Timisoara and then heading for our next target – Maribor.
