Tuesday, 2 Oct: Curtea de Arges - Craiova

I was feeling a little better and we decided to leave town and get some mileage. The first goal was to get to Targu Jiu some 160km west, where there are stone sculptures of some famous Romanian guy. To get there we had to pass through a town called Ramnicu Valcea, which is only 30km west. However, the road wsa “broken” as the sign said, and we had to go southeast for 30km up to Rascov (near Pitesti – bigger city), and then head back up northwest for another 40km.

Anyway, we continued on westbound to Targu Jiu and stopped along the way at a monastery called “Horezu”. This was the real deal for once. Unlike previous monasteries, this one had the nuns and monks and their leaving quarters and the whole shpiel. What we always saw up to now was just the central prayer building/church/whatever.

An important point is that a few km before the monastery, we stopped at a joint called “Pensiune Evrica”, which the best soup I’ve had up to that point! The bread, however, was really bad and there was a starving dog there, who benefited greatly as I fed him about 10 slices or so.

We arrived in Targu Jiu around 17:00. Checked out the whole sculptures stuff, which was by no means magnificent… The museum itself had already closed, so maybe we missed all the good stuff…

Finally, we continued to Craiova (80km south). It was already dark and the drive was not easy as Romanian roads are one lane in each direction, have no shoulders, and are not of the highest quality. In this particular instance I had suicidal folks also walk at the edge of the road and drive their bicycles. In all cases they had no lights and were wearing camouflage so as to make avoiding running them down nearly impossible.

In Craiova we yet again ran into difficulty finding a place. We were lucky once more as someone who had made a reservation failed to show up and we got their room. The hotel was extremely well located at the very center of the city. Its restaurant had the first or second best soup (ciorba) I’ve had in Romania, with the other being the one I had for lunch. I suppose I should designate today as “soup day”.