retiredmartin

May 2026. Transylvania.

Mrs RM had refreshed her knowledge on dealing with bear attacks (“Play dead. Oh, too late“) as we planned the next stage of our Transylvanian tour over an “autentic” Romanian buzz bar.

No crumbs left for the amarous pigeons at our bus pick-up point to peck.

Our transport was the official sounding “UNESCO Bus“, your only way of getting to those off-the-beaten-track Saxon villages with fortified churches without hiring a car.

The day pass cost an ambitious 65 euros to take you to Sighisoara and back on a hop-on/hop-off basis; we’d paid about 100 lei (£16) each to get to Biertan with stops on the way.

Only one other passenger, a charming young New Yorker (via Sao Paulo) we shall call “Hot Pants” as I forget her name.

First stop, Valea Villor, where we could only admire the exterior as the “lady with the key” could not be located.

Hald an hour later it seemed we might be frustrated at Alma Vii as well, as the Wi-Fi signal disappeared at the top of the hill. But our driver gamely drove back down the dirt track to find a better signal and get the custodian of the fort to let us in (after a long delay as the card reader failed to take the £1.60 entrance fee off Hot Pants) before she started cooking lunch.

Alma Vii has the towers with views over the hills ,

the Saxon church, the weird display of “stuff”,

and the skeletons in the ossuary. There’s also a helpful map on the wall which tells you where the bears are,

but since it’s in black and white you can’t tell whether they’re brown or not.

Last stop for us is Biertan, one of the top draws on the UNESCO trail, with coach loads of German and Japanese tourists in a village of 2,239.

Perhaps the most picture book of the villages,

Biertan has the colour,

and the explanatory panels for those keen to understand what Romanians did to “unhappy couples”.

Mrs RM and I decided that we were deliriously happy, and went for a beer.