Romania. From pasture to city. Last week was a gentle ramble through the rural idyll of northern Romania. Calm. Bucolic (such a strange word). Ancient. On Saturday afternoon we rolled into Iasi (pronounced as Yjash) and everything changed. The grey concrete outskirts of Romania’s second city would be truly grim in drizzle, but with the […]
Author: Kelvin Collins
Romania. Running on plums. And other stories.
Plums. Arriving in Romania at this time of the year you might think that the country runs on plums. Trees are purple with the fruit everywhere you look. And in a way you’d be right. Apparently 75% of them end up bottled, as palinka. Palinka is their lethal plum brandy. It comes out to help […]
Slovakia by campervan.
Mountains, castles, clean air and long views. Should you go? Definitely. When we set out on our adventure last year we didn’t expect to spend two months in this little country, but despite the unfortunate circumstances that kept us here it has been marvellous and I reckon we’ll be back for more. Slovakia is clean, […]
The golden nectar of Tokaj. Hungary.
Sweet wine. It conjures images of elderly aunts. Sherry maybe. Fortunately our love of Spain taught us to enjoy sherry long ago and we were ready to try the sweet nectar of Tokaj. Slovakian Tokaj. The Tokaj region spreads across the border and we first visited the Slovakian wine producing village of Mala Trna. MalaTrna […]
Butterflies and archangels.
Butterfly walk. I forgot to write about the butterfly walk we did from the campsite at Podlesok. It wasn’t called that, it was through the Pilska Dolina (Pilska Valley), but as we progressed we quickly became aware of the thousands of the delicate little flutterers. The valley is billed as the most quiet in the […]
Back on the road.
We’ve risked the softening effect of creature comforts. We’ve been nearly two weeks under roofs, with beds, showers, toilets and cookers. It’s time to move on, if only locally. We booked a few days in the Levoca house for Polly’s convalescence, and then a few more for our friends Paul and Heather to come and […]