
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.