Via Transilvanica

 Via Transilvanica crosses Romania from the northeast, starting in Putna, all the way to the southwest, at Drobeta-Turnu Severin and the Danube. The trail passes through 10 counties, divided into 8 cultural-historical regions, covering a total of 1,600 km through diverse natural and cultural landscapes.

Nickname, El Camino from east Europe.

Starting point, Putna (monastery), north of the country.

The Putna monastery is a Romanian Orthodox monastery; as with many others, it was built and dedicated by Stephen the Great (and holy).

Stephen won 34 out of 36 fights, most famous one in 1475 at Vaslui when 

he had between 49k-50k people and 20 canons against 100k-120k turks + 12k mountain men.

End point of the Via Transilvanica hiking trail is Drobeta-Turnu Severin.

From north Bucovina you go through Vatra Dornei (also a ski resort) surrounded bt Bistrita mountains

 into Transilvania, near Bistrita (called 7 citadels by germans :))

then as you go south you have Sovata resort with Ursu salt lake and thermal springs,

then a bit to south - west Sighisoara, old town formed by sasi (german craftsmen) looks like a medieval city even today

there are in the region many nice villages that have fortified churches (7 are UNESCO...)

More to the south west you get into Terra Dacica, where most the ancient archaeological stuff is, from geto-dacians onward,

via goes near the Mures river, near Apuseni mountains

and it then goes south near Retezat mountains

to Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, 

and then even more south , Resita

and through some almost empty or/and hard to reach villages, one, Lindenfeld, with no habitants anymore, past Baile Herculane (oldest thermal springs resort) 

before reaching

THE END