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Somehow Marce managed to find a campground with a swimming pool in the middle of crowded, overheated Sighisoara. Without a moment to lose we imagined where a pathway might logically start on the way up to the citadel. Sure enough, typically you just know it’s going to be further than you’d think possible, and it was.

Not well used and in need of some attention we started up the stairs thinking that there is probably a good reason that nobody uses these stairs.

No idea how many steps there are but we’re pretty sure there will be no golden Buddhas at the top.

Summiting the knob, we sat for another breather. When able, we wandered around and through the citadel gate to find the main square of a charming medieval village.

We were disappointed to find that the UNESCO World Heritage listed Viscri fortified chapel was sited far up on an outcropping, high above the old citadel, way at the tippy top. Built originally in the 1100s it’s said to be in excellent shape. Nice touch that they provided covered stairs, but a hit of oxygen would’ve served better. Not on the menu but a beer was.

Well there’s nothing for it but to finish that pork belly sandwich and frites and hit the stairs.

Stepping out of the stair-tunnel was like entering another ethereal peaceful world.

No medieval church tour is complete without exploring the catacombs below.

Ok, I admit the hair is kinda creepy.

I probably have people buried down there.

On the way back down we picked up the citadel walled defensives.

There’s so much more to explore in the citadel that we decided to meet friends who are touring on motorcycles, and make the climb again tomorrow.

We awoke to a fine Sighisoara morning but we had to hustle over the Tarnava River bridge which involves loosening up those stiff climbing muscles. Our friends are meeting us at a neighborhood riverside park.

We first met Bertine and Vico at our favorite Thai guest house in Chiang Mai. We met up with them again in Sumatra, and now again right here in Sighisoara, Transylvania. We were keen to try a better way up the knob.

This clock tower is really something and twice a day it is spot on,

A restorative afternoon snack and we’ll have to say goodbye to this magical place.

We wandered through Bunesti until a likely looking dusty parkup presented itself. The vanlife “diesel telegram” is often more of a rumor mill than a sure thing marked with an upside down crimson teardrop on Google maps. Come to think of it Google Maps in Morocco is far from a sure thing as well. 

We could see the old village up a forested path at the top of a knoll.

Suffice it to say, it’s steeper than it looks and sadly we found that we had to give up all that ground due to walls and fences that led us back down, past their quaint shops in town.

There are a lot of wobbly, ankle twisting cobble streets in this town but the real bonus was that several nesting storks were using their nest supporting structures mounted on houses, light or telephone poles.

While driving through Romania we’ve noticed that some communities seem to be really enthusiastic about having nesting storks and some aren’t.

We’re on the hunt for something we’d heard were called fortified churches. Turns out there were over 300 hundred medieval fortified churches in Transylvania. Almost every village had at least one, but only six out of the 150 that still remain are UNESCO listed, and this one in Bunesti is supposed to be one of the best.

It seems the Ottoman-Turks, Mongols, and Tatars were frequent and uninvited visitors in these parts starting in the 1200s. In response, many villages built walls around their whole town or, if they couldn’t afford that, then just their church for defense. These sprouted castle-like, curtain walls, reinforced gates, and defensive towers, that were usually within sight of the neighboring town’s tower.

While the enthusiastic German caretaker regaled Marce with historic tidbits, and Marce tried keeping up with his German dialect, I slipped away for a reconnoiter but he had the place locked up.

Luckily by this time Marce had charmed him into finding the large ornate key to unlock the church for us. I’m glad he did. We were gobsmacked.

Originally a Catholic Church, this country church was richly decorated with saintly frescoes. But during the Reformation they were painted over, leaving a daunting project to try to restore what they can.

This is the manual hand pump for their pipe organ which was sent away for restoration but no one knows where it is any more. Nearly every one of these churches has a pipe organ, and many are still working.

Outside in the church courtyard.

Marce’s favorite, a trip up the tower.

To go from knowing nothing about fortified churches to having this amazing experience has been humbling. I think we’ll have a bit of a wander through Bunesti on the way back to Escape Velocity.

Turns out King Charles owns this charitable compound in Bunesti.

Ok fun seekers, you escapees might be seeing more of these in the near future.

We both felt the need to get up into the clear fresh mountain air, and sure enough Marce found a free overnight, camper friendly parkup. Romania is so beautiful that any chance to get a better look at it never disappoints. However to get up here one has to do the one lane two-step boogie.

Just the same, it is quite lovely up here.

But wait, there’s more. Turns out we found a delightful surprise bonus waiting for us to explore.

A short but steep uphill climb led to a mountaintop UNESCO citadel called Catatea Rupea, which turns out to have been built in the 1200s. Think of it as another medieval Romanian surprise.

The citadel was built by the Transylvanian Saxons and clings to a 400 ft tall basalt cliff.

The location between Brasov and Sighisoara allowed them to control the valley below.

The night parking lot guard stretched a chain across the entrance and in the morning he collected the 15 lei (3 usd) to enter the citadel. As we finished our coffee, the morning sunrays spilled across the fields bathing the scene in a deeply textured relief. We started up the path.

It didn’t take long for dark clouds, scudding down the valley, to add a little drama to the scene.

A quick celebration at the summit, and a peaceful panoramic view of the Romanian countryside.

One last chance to enjoy this find as we head back down.

We set aside the afternoon to visit the Evangelical Cathedral with its tall spire and unique tiled roof. Construction was begun in 1371 on the site of a Romanesque church, and was finally completed in 1520. It was originally Roman Catholic but like many churches we visited, converted to Evangelical after the Reformation.

For 300 years the church was the burial place for local VIPs. The practice was halted in the 18th century, the existing tombstones removed and embedded in the wall, making an unusual gallery of the dead. A QR code leads to details of each person.

The church houses two pipe organs, and we were fortunate that they were both being tuned and played while we were there.

Hats off to Father Xavier Dressler, record-holding organist. Forty-seven years is admirable.

There was a lot to see in the cathedral but Jack kept eyeing the tower steps.

Longtime readers know I suffer from what I consider a completely rational fear of heights. Nevertheless I almost always follow Jack on his missions to get to the top of wherever we are. In this case, I’ve got no problem with enclosed spiral staircases. You can’t see up and, more importantly, you can’t see down.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.” I didn’t give it a second thought. Spoiler alert: I should have.

After what seemed like we should have been at least halfway, the spiral steps ended and we crossed a scaffold bridge into the upper tower.

And this is where my palms started sweating. Looking up, I gasped at how much further we had to go. And looking down, well let’s just say I tried not to.

This is where my fear of heights becomes irrational. Intellectually I know this is perfectly safe, yet I had to talk myself up step by step.

I arrived at a small platform at the level of the bells where I took a breather along with a couple of young men who were also finding this climb a little more challenging than expected. We all hoped the bells wouldn’t chime just then.

Past the bells and up one more flight of narrow open steps and we were finally at the tippy top. And yes, the view was worth it. But my palms are sweating even now with the memory of looking down.

We were so fortunate to have a beautiful sunny blue-sky day and we spent a long time admiring the views from every side.

And then it was time to go down. Down is harder because, well, you have to look down. And that’s the part that scares me.

Going down those open stairways was the most frightened I’ve ever felt. The fear shocked me because I’m normally not a fearful person.

I was comforted knowing I wasn’t the only one who took a long breather between flights. And there were others who had to be talked up or down inch by inch. I instead had a personal photographer who documented my experience.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I got past those flights of open stairs and scampered down the spiral steps to the bottom.

As we left the tower it sounded like the organ tuner was putting the pipes through their paces. We found a seat in the vestibule and listened until my palms dried and my heart rate returned to normal.

I wrote before that we don’t know exactly where in Transylvania Jack’s grandmother was born. But as we listened I imagined that she may have sat in this church and heard this organ over a century ago.

As we drove closer to the Carpathian mountains Jack grew more and more concerned about the condition of our front tires. They passed inspection before we left the UK but Jack wants more tread before we start climbing mountains. He wants Michelin CrossClimate M&S tires and he will not be denied. Why we didn’t do this in a place where we speak the language I don’t know but the search was on for specific tires in a specific size somewhere nearby in Transylvania.

As luck would have it we found a Michelin dealer on our route. We walked in and showed them a screenshot of what we wanted. The man shook his head. They don’t have them. No surprise there.

“Can you get them? How long would it take?” I asked. We’re in a nice place. I figured we could wait a few days or a week.

He thought for a moment and shrugged.

“One hour?” he guessed.

Sold!

We settled into the customer lounge and before long Escape Velocity had two new front shoes. We both feel safer and Jack says she handles better, too.

We’ve looked forward to visiting Transylvania for a long time and now we’re finally here. We’re in Sibiu, the former Hermannstadt, settled by Saxons in the 12th century. The Saxons were the first wave of Germans to lay claim to these parts, long before the Donauschwaben were sent down the Danube in the 18th century. And just as Jack’s paternal grandfather was part of the Donauschwaben migration, his grandmother was what’s called a Transylvanian Saxon, descended from those early migrants from Saxony as well as Luxembourg, Belgium, and Lorainne. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what village she was from so we won’t be searching graveyards for her forefathers, but we’re happy just to explore the area she was born in.

Sibiu, as Hermannstadt, was once the capital of Transylvania and it’s grand and beautiful.

On this sunny day we enjoyed street performers and buskers as we explored the city.

There’s a lower town and an upper town. The upper town is the old city center with most of the historic buildings. The lower town holds colorful houses and remnants of the city walls and defensive towers.

The centerpiece of the upper town is the magnificent gothic Evangelical Cathedral of St. Mary, with its seven-level 73 meter tower, the second tallest in Romania. I think you can guess where we’re headed next.

Deep in the heart of Romania lies the Transylvanian town of Alba Iulia, the location in ancient times of the legendary Roman encampment Apulum. Even Ptolemy made mention of this Roman encampment which started in 106 AD. This sunny morning we are walking to explore the mighty citadel and its defensive walls the Roman encampment has grown into.

The Romans really knew how to humble you, especially with grand entrances and this southern gate is magnificent.

After entering the gate you could see the original draw bridge workings.

Here are pieces of the original Roman road.

It’s one of those peaceful kind of citadels.

Turns out Transylvania is a wonderful location to explore so off we go.

Still in Romania, we Escapees find that our crack logistics department has us parked up in a huge paved but rough and tilted public lot. I would imagine the rain drainage would be quite good. We’ve got the leveling ramps out but things aboard EV remain a touch askew. Typically in Romania one can experience one of those “On the Beach” moments when a place seems abandoned, with very few people about. At least there‘re no crowds to avoid as we walk across the lot to the Saints Constantine and Helena Cathedral.

It’s handsome without being ostentatious until you see the four beautiful ancient carved Roman columns on the side portico. 

The Romans were quite busy in this area. Come to think on it, they were busy nearly everywhere.

In the morning we hiked up to the main event in Hunedoara. Corvin Castle, high on a hill above town, can only be reached by first running the gauntlet of trinket vendors while simultaneously climbing the hill. If they notice that you’re struggling they attack like hyenas sizing-up the weakest member of the herd, because you can’t get away quickly and chances are you don’t even have the breath to say, “NO.”

Still climbing across this magnificent bridge and through the gate.

Entering through the main gate you arrive in one of the most interesting and tilted courtyards I’ve ever seen. The rock substrate bulges through the level of the pavers making for an especially wobbly ankle buster.

The construction was begun in 1440 but it’s often difficult to know what is part of the original fortification. After the fourth and most modern phase of construction Corvin Castle is considered one of Europe’s largest castles. Extensively restored, maybe even reimagined, it’s difficult to know where the “real” starts or stops.

In 1458 the second phase of construction was initiated . This unassuming doorway is the entrance to the Knights Hall.

A long hallway leads to the oldest section of the original castle.

Tower stairs.

The castle has its own app and Marce has been using it to guide us through the joint. It sorta works. After getting lost for quite some time we found ourselves down at the well. Legend has it that the Voivode of Transylvania, ruler of the castle, proposed to his Turkish prisoners that whoever digs a well and finds water will earn his freedom. Three prisoners volunteered. The castle was built on solid rock, so fifteen years later the three finally reached water. By this time the Voivode had died and his wife now ruled in his place. She feared that the three, now old men, knew too many of the secrets of the castle so she sentenced them instead to death. I suppose there’s a lesson in the tale.

What an interesting castle but Schengen never sleeps so we’ve got to move on.

We have long anticipated visiting the Romanian village that Jack’s family called home after their journey down the Danube in the 1770s, and from which his grandfather emigrated in the early 1900s. I had a list of ancestors who are buried there and we hope to find their graves.

We found the Catholic cemetery and parked at the gate on a brutally hot day. It was the beginning of an intense heat wave that would last for weeks and affect most of Europe.

This region, known as the Banat, was previously under Austro-Hungarian, then Hungarian rule before being awarded to Romania after World War I. Notice, however, that the inscription at the top of the gate is in German. The area was inhabited by ethnic Germans, including Jack’s family, for centuries.

The cemetery is in poor condition and difficult to walk around in places. As soon as we entered the gate we found stones with the family names we were seeking but not yet the specific ones.

We could only stay out in the heat for a half hour or so before taking shelter in the shade or back at the van.

While we were having lunch in our campervan a Roma woman walked toward the gate carrying a bucket. She stopped at our open door and put her hand out for money. We honestly didn’t have a farthing because we’d just left Hungary and hadn’t yet found an ATM for Romanian currency. We shook our heads and indicated “No.” She didn’t react and just moved on. Jack said her begging gestures seemed automatic and well-rehearsed. A few minutes later she came out of the cemetery and her bucket was now filled with water from the tap in the graveyard. She walked past us without a glance and crossed the street. Presumably she lives in a house with no running water.

We found a row of stones bearing the name Schütz, the original family surname. In the dialect spoken here it sounds like “Shits” which obviously doesn’t go over well in America. Jack’s grandfather was encouraged to change it to Schulz when he became a citizen in 1915. (I tried calling Jack “Schitzi” but it didn’t stick.)

We spent the better part of two days trying to read every stone in the cemetery. The stones are very deteriorated and the inscriptions are nearly impossible to make out. In places they were completely encased in ivy that we both tried to tear off so we could make out a name and date.

We aren’t sure if we found the specific people we were looking for because while we could usually make out a surname, we couldn’t be sure of the first name or the dates.

We are sure, however, that this plot of ground holds the remains of generations of Jack’s ancestors and their neighbors. I’ve read the parish records of this village. I feel like I know these people. Seeing their final resting place brought the history of the village to life.

We left Bogarosch and drove to Timisoara, the county seat, to visit the Banat Village Museum.

We parked in what little shade we could find with our campervan door open and a young man out for a run stopped to say hello. Noting our UK license plate he asked it we were British.

“American,” we told him, “in a UK van.”

Turns out he’s German and his parents are Donauschwaben and left Romania in the 1990s for Germany. The history of Germans here runs deep.

We were excited to visit the museum but with our usual luck it was closed, not just for the day but for an entire long weekend for a special event.

The guard at the gate took pity on us when we told him we’d come all the way from the US to visit and he let us in to see the historic houses.

These are original, although certainly repaired and restored, and they helped us visualize the life Jack’s ancestors lived.

The house below is from the 18th century, so would have been like the original homes in the Banat after the migration. I’m not sure that chimney is up to code.

This one from the 19th century is a step up from the crude timber house. As the village prospered their dwellings grew larger and more comfortable.

We enjoyed exploring the buildings and we appreciated the information plaques in English. It was a disappointment that we couldn’t enter the rest of the museum but we were grateful to the guard who let us in at least to this part.

We had one more stop to make before we left the Banat.

After Jack’s grandfather and his sisters emigrated to America, their parents, Jack’s great-grandparents, moved to a neighboring village, and presumably that’s where they died. I spent years trying to find where they were buried but never found a burial record. As a last resort we drove to the village and walked the graveyard. Since all the parish records are so complete and residents so well documented from birth, through marriage, to death and burial, I didn’t hold out much hope of finding them. But we had to try.

This graveyard is smaller and in worse shape than the first one but we did our best to read the graves before surrendering to the blistering heat.

This marks the end of the trail of Jack’s paternal ancestors. Well, not really, but we’ll take up the journey of another branch a little later. Now we just want to get somewhere cooler and see something of Romania that isn’t a graveyard.

It’s an unassuming approach to the border crossing between Hungry and Romania. This is our first hard border since Calais, even though on paper both countries are Schengen and as such this ought to be a soft border. It’s easy peasy if you enter via air or sea, but on land they still have this foreboding inspection facility, so what the hell, it’s business as usual.

You just know you’re going to get the full Monty inspection of all the official forms and papers you have and especially close scrutiny of your face against the picture in your passport. No smile, no welcome into their country like we’ve become accustomed to. They weren’t happy with our proof of insurance, but they didn’t stop us either. I guess old Soviet-satellite habits die hard. I took a beat before I dropped Escape Velocity into gear just to quiet the heart down. [As of January 2025 this is now a soft border.]

We noticed immediately that these were not going to be the Hungarian roads we were used to, but poorly maintained in comparison.

By afternoon we rolled into Bulgarus, which for 150 years was my paternal ancestors’ home town.

I think It’s safe to say I am not to the manor born.

Just finding Bulgarus was a major goal. Generation after generation of my ancestors were recorded in the parish records, and finally we’re here.

A lot of the German families began leaving the area in the early 1900s, both for economic reasons, and because Hungary threatened to force cultural assimilation and military service. Recruiters from the United States enlisted workers for the steel mills in the Midwest. That’s how my grandfather and most of his family ended up in and around Pittsburgh.

Many of the Donauschwaben families remained but World War I and World War II took a toll on any goodwill Romania may have felt toward Germans.

By the 1970’s Nickolas Ceausescu’s nationalist threat of “Romania for Romanians” put paid to what was left of any ethnic Germans. The German government paid Ceausescu 60,000 marks per person to buy their freedom from this communist nation. Ceausescu’s cult of personality soon lost its charm and in a popular uprising he and his wife were arrested by the military while trying to escape in a helicopter. Their personality ended with a firing squad.

I haven’t unpacked what it all means but it’s evident squatters have taken over and stripped many of the abandoned buildings. We watched a Roma woman fetch water from the graveyard tap and carry it back to the derelict house she was apparently living in. On her way past the van she stuck out her hand for money.

Like their roads Romanian graveyards have been left to their own devices.

The overgrowth made hunting for specific names on old worn tombstones exhausting in the oven of Romanian summer heat.

I’m sure Bulgarus was a much more pleasant town in the early 1900’s but poor ground is poor ground and ethnic tension is ethnic tension.

Our wet Slovakian weather continued and glued us to the inside of the van waiting for sunshine.

Eventually Jack got bored and said we may as well be driving so we continued south through more Pennsylvania look-alike terrain.

As we approached the Hungarian border the sky suddenly brightened and so did we.

Where we can park the van makes a big difference in how we experience a city. In Budapest we found the perfect place on the edge of the city and near both the bus and the metro. In minutes we were at stop #1 on the self-guided audio tour I downloaded. This has been my approach here in Europe. If there’s a free walking tour we take that, or if there’s a free-to-download audio guide we do that.

We started with a walk through an enormous city park where we searched for statues of Bela Lugosi, George Washington and a tiny Dracula.

We appreciated the beautiful weather after the rain we’d had the last few days.

Budapest is huge and there’s more than you could possibly see in a year, let alone a day, but top of my list was the central market, a restored Neolithic hall where I could have spent a week and a lot of money. Markets are always my happy place.

Jack indulges my love of markets but he does occasionally need to be fueled with coffee and a pastry. We found this fun cafe with a choice of international brews. We didn’t do a taste test but we did rest our legs for the next stint.

Why is there a statue of TV detective Columbo in the middle of Budapest?

We wanted to visit the Holocaust Memorial Park but the area was closed for security reasons and we could only photograph the Emanuel Tree through the fence. Each leaf bears the name of a local Holocaust victim and I’m disappointed we didn’t get to see it close up.

Much of our visit to Budapest was about finding public art. We sought out this memorial to Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz who saved more than 60,000 Jews from the Nazis by creating safe houses and providing transit documents. He was awarded “Righteous Among the Nations” by the state of Israel.

Oh sure, we should be eating traditional Hungarian food, but when we find eggs Benedict, we have to go for it.

There were so many more places we wanted to visit in Budapest but our feet gave out before our desire to see them all. Down at the river we thought we might book a sunset cruise but it was right out of our budget. So we settled for a beer.

Prague, Krakow, Budapest. We’ve loved them all and they all deserve more than a quick visit. Some day maybe we’ll be back. But the calendar reminds us we have a long way to go and a dwindling number of Schengen days to get there.

We drove south and parked in a beautiful field. Tomorrow we head for the Romanian border.