The epic walk that reveals Romania at its most beautiful

Autumn is the ideal time to walk the Via Transilvanica, a crowd-funded trail that reveals the country’s rich history

Transylvania, Romania
Rich history: The 1400km Via Transilvanica began as a project to encourage communities to take care of nature and heritage sites

October. A good season for a long walk in the European countryside. Especially if your walk starts with a day wattling and daubing Romanian houses with heritage enthusiast Pascale Garnier, a man bent on saving his village’s wood and stone chalets. Patching walls might seem like an unusual way to begin a hike, but I was on the volunteer-run Via Transilvanica trail in Romania, and such moments were par for the course.

The 1400km trail, stretching from Romania’s North to South, began as a project to encourage communities to take care of the nature and heritage sites that make up their rich history. It unites ethnicities and legacies of empires, including Hapsburg castles, the palaces of Wallachian and Moldavian boyars, Armenian churches, Saxon villages and Szekler fortresses.

“If you think something is important, you just have to take care of it yourself,” Garnier explains. The Via Transilvanica was built on this ethos. In 2018, the project put out a call for volunteers to mark the trail and restore landmark sites along the way—sites cherished by locals but overlooked by the Romanian state, which tended to pour cultural funds into building and beautifying new Orthodox churches. More than 10,000 volunteers responded. Five years later, the trail won a prestigious Europa Nostra heritage conservation award in recognition of its success.

 Via Transilvanica Romania
Guesthouse along the Via Transilvanica route Camilla Bell-Davies

I left Garnier at Putna in the Bucovina region and walked the first leg of the trail with my guide Lucian Rosu from local outfit Rolandia Travel. Rosu tried to scare me with tales of fighting off wolves and bears with his bike on the trail, so I walked loudly to scare off any large roaming mammals. Luckily, all was tranquil, and the well-marked trail wound gently along the eastern fringes of the Carpathian mountains. All around us, autumn trees like coloured jewels were embedded in the pine forests. Below, fields of potatoes and corn stretched to the horizon.

Painted monastery Romania
The painted monasteries along the Via Transilvanica are a delight to behold Camilla Bell-Davies

The first two days of hiking linked the painted monasteries of Sucevița and Moldoviţei, two of 12 Unesco sites along the way. These perfectly preserved monasteries, built in the 16th century, somehow survived the Ottoman invasion and Communist regime. On the outside, the brightly-coloured frescoes were marvels of religious artistry. Inside, archaic, black-robed monks scuttled behind screens. Gold icons glimmered through a fog of incense, their faces darkened from the smoke of tapering candles.

Farmhouse Hai La Saivan is a worthy diversion for a night
Farmhouse Hai La Saivan is a worthy diversion for a night

Thankfully, hikers needed not carry heavy tents or cooking equipment because Via Transilvanica had guest houses — mostly family homes with superb local cooking and schnapps — between each 15 to 23km stretch. A highlight was our second night at farmhouse Hai La Saivan (00 748 031 323; Airbnb, doubles from £170 per night, including breakfast and dinner), a little off the trail from Moldoviței monastery, but worth the diversion. 

Our driver picked us up in a Land Rover and ploughed us through a river, all the while lamenting the complex politics of building a bridge in this region. At the top of a bumpy track, Bucovina’s valleys spread out beneath us, mist fuzzing the colours into one autumnal blur, while La Saivan’s Moldavian-style chalets cast rustic shadows in the evening glow.

On an outdoor dining terrace, the owner, Raluca Voina Riommi, poured palinka — Romanian schnapps — into delicate glasses. She raised a toast and said she too was on a mission to save the Moldavian houses of Bucovina, after coming back from working abroad. 

The outdoor dining terrace of Hai La Saivan
The outdoor dining terrace of Hai La Saivan

“These are all rescues,” she gestured at the beautifully carved homes. “I hauled them up from the village when I heard they would be burnt for firewood. I hope this project will help others see how cultural artefacts can add value to their lives.” Raluca also combed the village looking for handicrafts, which were tastefully arranged in La Saivan’s interiors, along with sheepskin throws and embroidered linens.

We sat down to a sumptuous meal of polenta, foraged mushrooms and slow-cooked mutton stew. Later, we retreated outside as the sun set and heard a strange and haunting sound: shepherd’s pipes and wolves howling across the valley. 

The following morning, we stamped our trail maps and headed to the Transylvania region by car, skirting the dramatic Călimani national park, and stopping to buy huge baskets of foraged mushrooms by the road. We then hiked the trail around Sighisoara, a town whose rather creepy gothic fortress (and vendors selling Dracula-inspired tat) loomed over the region. 

Mushrooms sold in large baskets
Don't forget to pick up some foraged mushrooms as you walk along the trail

In the nearby village of Micăsasa, I met architect Eugen Vaida, who has worked with King Charles’ Ambulance for Monuments charity to stabilise nearly 600 buildings on the verge of collapse, many along the Via Transilvanica route. That day, volunteers were ballasting a crumbling Renaissance manor house that once belonged to a noble Hapsburg family evicted by the communists when they took power in 1946. 

One volunteer was Micăsasa’s young mayor, Timotei Pacurar, who told me there might be frescoes buried under the plaster communists daubed on the walls when the manor was turned into a school. “I would like to restore them. I have a lot of good memories here from my school days,” he said. 

Micăsasa manor’s original owners were long lost, so the building now belonged to the village, but I did manage to find a real-life Count in Cris village after my last day hiking. Here, Count Nikolaus from the Bethlen dynasty, a family who fled communism and the destruction of their castle, had been converting abandoned houses into guest houses that recalled a lost grandeur in this part of the world. 

The Bethlen Estate
The Bethlen Estate PHILIP VILE

On my last evening, I dined at Bethlen estate’s restaurant, which served Transylvanian cuisine with a modern twist. By a crackling fire, I feasted on tender pork loins with apples from the estate’s orchard, earthy vegetable dishes, and seasonal compotes. After calvados with Nikolaus’s mother, Countess Gladys Bethlen, I walked to my room in a restored caretaker’s house by the ruined castle.

I looked out of the window and spotted the Via Transilvanica’s orange waymarkers winding through the peaceful village, before vanishing into the forest. I would have liked to continue following this trail of treasures, but it would have taken another month of hiking to reach the end. Still, I was consoled by the idea that this remarkable route would be there for years to come, maintained by volunteers who believed it could be more than just a path through the woods.

How to do it

Camilla was a guest of Rolandia (0040 736 581 775; rolandia.eu) who offer a three-night painted monasteries and around trip from £299 per person or 4 days trekking the Via Transilvanica through Bucovina including guest houses, starting from £490 per person. 

Wizz air (wizzair.com) flies from London to Iasi from £72 return.

Hai La Saivan  (0040 748 031 323; airbnb.co.uk) has doubles from £170 per night, including breakfast and dinner.

Camilla was a guest of Bethlen estates  (00 40 767 374 998; bethlenestates.com)  who have doubles from £315 per night, including breakfast.