I woke up at 9pm feeling relaxed. We spent again some time in the garden having breakfast, drinking coffee and talking with the grandmother of the family about their traditional costumes and the way of their weave. She showed us photographs of herself dressed in those costumes. Her grandson asked if we could take some pictures of him on our motorcycles. So we did and promised to send him the photos when we would return in Greece. We left at 10.30pm paying the price of 80 Ron. That was really a low price!
We rode for 20km passing trough the villages Albac and Scãrişoara until we reached the village Gãrda. There we took an earth-road leading to the entry of cave Peştera Gheţalul (ice-cave) or Peştera de Scãrişoara (cave of Scãrişoara).
To reach the cave you can also hike a path of 2 hours duration or rent an off road vehicle.
It was not an easy job to climb the mountain riding a Yamaha FZR600. Anyway we succeeded to cross about 10km and arrive 100 metres from the entry of the cave after less than an hour with a lot of attention and patience.
For shake the next group of visitors, would enter in the cave shortly. We paid for the tickets (5RON per person) and got some rest.
This cavern is one of Europe’s 10 that contain ice from the Season of Glaciers. In fact it was created when all mountains around (Munţii Apuseni) were covered with ice. It was discovered by one Austrian in 1863. It is estimated that the age of its ices reaches 3.500 years. The temperature inside the cavern during winter drops down at -7 ºC and during summertime reaches up to + 1 ºC. Going down the steps to the entry of the cave, we felt immediately the difference in temperature. As soon as we reached the entry, we had the feeling of being in front of a refrigerator! The cavern is separated in 4 departments. Only one is visit able. This department is separated in tree rooms. The flooring is frozen by an ice layer of 26 metres!!! The more impressive room is the "biserica" (church). It gained the name by the frozen stalagmites that remind holy church. The orange-yellow light with the emerging water vapours give a particular character in the space... The conducted tour in the cave lasts around 30 minutes. This is regulations by the University of Speleology of Cluj, for the protection of the cavern. Visiting the internal of the ice-cave was a very interesting experience.
Riding down again the mountain with a lot of patience and effort we arrived fortunately without any problems back at Gãrda. We left for village Lunca riding for 70km on the provincial street 75. The landscape was dominated by the green colour, while the road was crossing the mountains. But again the paving was bad and full of patches.
At village Lunca we entered the national street E79 (113km) which however didn’t resemble to national street. It was a rather narrow of bad quality street but it was crossing a beautiful forest. As soon as we left Brad behind the quality of the street got better, following direction towards Deva. We crossed the mountains Munţii Metalifeti, where there are mines of gold and silver from antiquity. We left Deva, and at the node for Hunedoara we followed direction for Alba Iulia riding on 68V for 14km.
The main city of Hunedoara has no interest but it allocates an impressive castle of gothic architecture. Unfortunately it was late enough when we arrived (7mm) and the castle was closed. We decided therefore to stay in the neighbouring lake Lacul Teliuc (7km) and visit again the castle next day. To reach the lake we followed the plates to Cinciş. Because of the high temperatures all pensions, hotels and rooms all round the lake were occupied by the city’s residents. So we were kind of forced to stay at camping Madelina (60RON/room of 3 beds)… that with the difficulty it provides essential.
We also had an interesting incident at the barbecue where we had our dinner. The householder of the barbecue and the pension named “Flora”, could speak some Greek because she used to work in a Greek tavern in Germany. Thus we had the opportunity to have a pleasant conversation half in Romanian half in Greek, before going to bed.
