I had not arranged transportation from Balea Lake ahead of time. The area is extremely popular for tour busses, road trips, hikers, etc so I thought it was safe to assume that there would be at least taxis up there we could take. As it turns out, there wasn’t any form of transportation. There was supposedly a bus that comes from Sibiu, but it didn’t run on Tuesdays. I was worried this would hurt my near perfect logistics record. Nick and I brought our bags to the big lake parking lot and started hitchhiking. “Oh boy, we’ll be here for hours, and I’m going to be in trouble”, is what I had thought to myself. Around 20 minutes later we were picked up by the nicest Swiss couple who were on a roadtrip. Amazing! Bullet dodged.

It was a short drive to Sibiu and we enjoyed chatting with the couple as we made our way down the Transfăgărășan highway. The drive is famous for its windy roads, views, and waterfalls, which we enjoyed together. Fabian and Nicole, our Swiss heros, dropped us off right in the area where we were staying in Old Town. We even convinced them to get a fika with us before continuing on their journey. NOD Prajitoria de Cafea had amazing mint lemonade, coffees, and brownies. After they left we got some salmon and avocado toast and pizza for lunch from Insieme Ristorante before we could check in to our apartment.

We had two full days in Sibiu, spent mostly eating and relaxing which was so nice after our two big hiking days. The apartment also had a washing machine which was so perfect since the vast majority of our clothing was in desperate need of a proper wash. When we did do an activity it was walking around the old town admiring the architecture. Many buildings had attic windows that were shaped like eyes. We also saw the Bridge of Lies, an old bridge we walked both under and over with colorful buildings lining the street above.

The apartment came with amazing breakfast from Pasaj restaurant. It included tea, coffee, soft bread, butter, jam, varieties of cheese, salamis, vegetables, and dips. It was such a nice treat, as breakfast is usually where we try to save money and just get yogurts. Nick and I went to the smaller square and the larger square in old town. Both were cute and had many restaurants. There were fantastic views from The Council’s Tower of old town.

For lunch we had more amazing pizza from Tango Restaurant, followed by gelato. The Saint Mary Cathedral was also very nice. We were not dressed properly so we admired it from the outside. Our final dinner we really splurged as the free breakfast helped save some food budget. We went to Jules Home Restaurant and split the burrata, trout, beef cheeks, and chocolate mousse. It was good we went the last night, because if we had had more time there I definitely would’ve been bugging Nick to go back.

We liked Sibiu a lot, but since we did not have a car we could’ve been there less time. The area is amazing with beautiful hiking and incredible castles fairly nearby. It was not the first time on our trip in Romania that we felt like it would have been a much better experience if we had rented a car and made it a roadtrip instead. It just gives us a good reason to come back.

After our breakfast and a long lunch we made it to our bus stop about 1 hour early. Originally scheduled for 2:45pm, our bus ended up not arriving until after 5:30pm. Instead of getting into Timișoara at 7:30pm it was 10:00pm, which was a little brutal. Nick made a good point, though: that any logistical issue that can be solved by just waiting is a pretty good problem to have, all things considered.

In Timișoara the weather was so unbelievably hot. We spent one afternoon walking around to see the main areas and I was suffering. Nick handles extreme weather much better than I do, that’s for sure. We visited two old squares in nearby neighborhoods, Piața Traian and Piața Plevnei, with a quick stop at Millennium Church in between. Then we headed to the old town center for the highlights: Three Holy Hierarchs Cathedral, Piața Victoriei, Piața Libertății, Piața Unirii, and dinner. For dinner, we enjoyed some Pljeskavica before stopping at one of the many gelato shops for dessert.

At 5:15am, we left our little apartment and started the walk to the northern train station for our 6:00am train to Băile Herculane. The train was super slow and ended up being over an hour late to arrive at our destination. We walked along the highway, leaving the cool old train station to check in to our hotel for the night. The hotel had lots of sunflowers in front and some of the hiking areas in the distance in the back.

I was not feeling like doing a hike that day as the views did not seem to be worth hiking up a mountain for. Instead, Nick and I walked 13 miles all around town, which was plenty of steps for me. The town is considered one of the oldest hot spring spa locations in Europe, and there were so many abandoned spas/hotels. The most beautiful/notable is the Băile Imperiale Austriece Neptun (Imperial Austrian Neptune Baths) which was built in the 1880s. Part of our walk along the river passed right by it. We also saw the statue of Hercules. Nick enjoyed a full body soak and I soaked just my feet in the nearby public hot springs down by the river. Mici was our last meal in Romania, which felt like a perfect way to end our time before catching a bus the next day to Bulgaria.