7 months ago

Mountains, Valleys, and Kingly Castles: From the sylvan environs of Brașov to the Wallachian Plateau

By Noah

22 Min Read

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06September

In a small valley cut between two hills packed thickly with green trees, I sat ensconced in a wooden chair in the outdoor restaurant of my roadside motel. There, I supped on vegetable soup and “Transylvanian” Tochitură (a Romanian and Moldovan pork dish) with egg and polenta. As I waited to order, the man who had kindly given me a lift in his cart an hour earlier appeared. I translated the word...

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8 months ago

The Transylvanian Heartlands: From Cluj to the mountains west of Brașov

By Noah

28 Min Read

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11August

We went south: through the freak downpours characteristic of mountainous regions, we sped along the newly completed motorway, skirting the western regions of Transylvania. Two hours later, we drew up by the site of the old Roman fort at Alba Iulia, a Transylvanian capital in days past. With the sun now back out in force, we strolled around the later-Hapsburg fortifications and restored old town...

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9 months ago

Crișana and Northern Transylvania: From Oradea to Cluj

By Noah

19 Min Read

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12July

Come the morning, I set off from my roadside hotel just over the border into Romania. It was raining fairly heavily, and I followed a rather token cycle lane just to the side of the main road, where a long line of lorries and trucks queued towards the border. The winds picked up and it soon began to lash it down — though I had dressed fairly appropriately for the weather, I was drenched in little...

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10 months ago

Crossing the Great Plain – Part 2: A yomp to the border

By Noah

13 Min Read

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14June

I left town early the next morning. István had prepared me a dish of two fried eggs served with a hunk of brown bread and, on a side plate, a small, light green bell pepper that he had diced. Grateful, I ate this in his living room over a mug of coffee.

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10 months ago

Crossing the Great Plain – Part 1: Into the Steppe

By Noah

15 Min Read

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07June

My eastern exodus from Budapest was not all that dissimilar to departing Bratislava, a few weeks prior, albeit on a grander, busier scale; the charming backstreets of the old town fell away to the city’s perimeter transport hubs, which soon gave way to clusters of commuting urban centres, complete with brightly coloured communist-era blocks lent new life by the parks, greenery, and the odd...

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10 months ago

The Land of the Magyars: Easter in Esztergom and Budapest

By Noah

14 Min Read

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24May

By pure happenstance, I arrived in Hungary on the eve of Easter weekend just as Paddy did 90 years ago. Dropping my gear off at the hotel, I headed into town to grab some pulled pork as my celebratory supper. (This was one of the many cravings of the trip thus far. Most of these were frankly ridiculous, such as fish and chips, or American diner food – both of which I was hardly accustomed to back...

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11 months ago

Into the Slavic realm: A march across Slovakia

By Noah

13 Min Read

8 Comments

18May

In the small hours, I awoke in the middle of a wind storm: entirely predictable. I had tried my best to keep warm, dry and comfortable, readjusting my prone position on the small bench every 10 minutes or so. After only a few hours of restless sleep, the winds picked up, and I took shelter under the bench itself. I woke at 2:30am to howling winds. I was cold (due in part to sodden clothes) and...

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11 months ago

Familiar faces in foreign lands: From Vienna to Prague, and the Slovakian border

By Noah

13 Min Read

6 Comments

10May

It was a great pleasure to share the next couple of weeks of my trip with two close friends; first one and, soon after, a second appeared in the Austrian countryside. And together, we headed east, the pull of Vienna almost tangible. I felt somewhat proprietorial as I showed off the Danube’s glories, as we headed into the Wachau region: proud and curious.

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11 months ago

Upper Austria: Returning to the Danube via Salzburg and Linz

By Noah

16 Min Read

7 Comments

29April

On a bridge over the river Saalach I crossed into Austria. I stopped two elderly Austrian ladies in the middle of the bridge who were headed the opposite direction, and they very enthusiastically agreed to photograph the event. Having told them where I had started and where I was headed, they shook their heads in disbelief and began stopping other passersby, relaying the tale.

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12 months ago

The Bavarian Heartlands: From Munich into Austria

By Noah

16 Min Read

5 Comments

20April

On the steps of the palace Leaving the minute village of Einsbach the next morning, I wandered around the countryside outside Munich and Dachau for a good few hours. I likely took the least direct route possible, looping around the grassy meadows, slowly zeroing in on the centre of Munich. But the weather was good, and I was approaching the heart of Bavaria: I didn’t care. A rare selfie...

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