Day 29 - Bear Sounds? and a Very Special Treat - Hiking Romania’s Via Transilvanica - Alba Iulia

[@riordache]

Thank you for showing me my country in such a genuine and warm-hearted way. I hope you are having the best of times, it surely seems that you do!

[@thebigweg]

@@riordache You’re very welcome! It has been my pleasure.

[@violeta585]

You are pretty focused on the trail & making it in 50 days, but if others pass through the city of Alba Iulia, it is worth mentioning it is home to ‘Alba Carolina Citadel’, a star-shaped fortress that was built in early 1700s and it has been recently restored (2010). It is a very interesting spot, worth a walk and provides nice places to have a drink or a meal (there is even a restaurant inside the fortification walls).

[@alina4077]

I am with you. There is a place for wildness in the modern world or else it's not a world I want to live in. We NEED wild places and wild things... Bears are losing their habitat in Romania (thank you, IKEA and corruption) so in the remaining pockets of wilderness, their population is denser and encounters/incidents are on the rise. I am immensely grateful to the VT because, among many other things, it raises awareness as to the incredible beauty still left in this place and the need to protect it. On a related topic - personally, I don't trust bear spray because I think that the bear would have to be pretty close for it to be useful. Too close for comfort, imo. I was thinking that, if I'm ever lucky enough to hike the VT, I would carry an air horn. Thoughts on that?

[@thebigweg]

@@alina4077 Thank you for that wonderful, thoughtful comment! Interestingly, the grizzly bear is on the California state flag, yet there are no longer any grizzlies in the entire state! As for the air horn idea, it sounds good to me, but I’d definitely want to research it before trusting that it would work. It seems possible that it could disorient/anger the bear.

[@alyloopt1771]

Thanks for sharing your journey!

[@thebigweg]

@@alyloopt1771 My pleasure!

[@carmenmihu326]

That is a Roe Buck! Not a bear. We met before Carbunari! The Canadian connection:) Male deer.

[@thebigweg]

@@carmenmihu326 Wow, that’s a relief! I hope you’re right :) I sure thought I saw a bear though.

[@alyloopt1771]

That sounds like a vox

[@thebigweg]

@@alyloopt1771 Probably a dumb question, but what’s a vox?

[@alyloopt1771]

@@thebigweg Oh sorry. I looked it up. I mean a Fox. Haha