The first few days on our trip across Europe were mostly smooth sailing and uneventful, but things were about to change. On the latest episode of my podcast, the roads get rougher and the journey becomes more interesting as we continue our drive east.
It started at a highway rest stop in Germany. There we were, driving 11,000 miles on a road trip to Mongolia, and who do we meet but a group of young Mongolian tourists on a journey of their own across Europe! We posed for a photo, of course, and asked them to write "good luck" in Mongolian on our vehicles.
After a night in Vienna, we crossed into Hungary and then Romania, and things started to feel different. The highway abruptly ended, and we turned off onto a local road that took us through small villages where we dodged potholes and passed old ladies in babushkas returning from the market. Thinking back later on, we all agreed that this was the moment our adventure truly began!
We took a drive through the mountains of Transylvania on the amazingly scenic Transfăgărășan Highway, which the TV show Top Gear once called the best road in the world.
We tried some of the local delicacies...
At a roadside stand, eating grilled corn and polenta with Romanian sour cream
and enjoyed the local music.
But lest we get too comfortable, our car started having radiator problems in Bulgaria, forcing us to pay our first visit to a mechanic.
Listen to episode 7 to follow along as we continue our journey and hear what happened:
-- Scott
