As I only planned to walk 20 kilometres today, I enjoyed a leisurely start, picking up a pastry from the "brutaria" (bakery) nearby, to go with a few other items for breakfast. It was a spiral of hard, flaky pastry with stuff inside that had little taste, mashed potato I wondered? I was disappointed as I had hoped it would contain cheese, like a Greek pastry that looks similar (but tastes better). I made a similarly unfortunate choice last night for my desert to follow a large slice of pizza. Of course my problem was that I could not read the labels, I just point randomly at stuff.
My walk began by leaving the suburbs of Ilia, by houses with roses planted outside, now passed their best. Then across the flat plain of the River Mures on a road over a railway line and motorway, by fields of grey maize and sunflowers awaiting harvesting, but looking rather damp after last night's rain.
Bacea village stretched along the road I was following, strung out along a valley. The condition of the single storey, red roofed houses in these settlements varies. While some are distinctly ramshackle others are well maintained with baskets of red geraniums hanging from their verandas. However, there is a general air of untidyness in these villages. Maybe it is the chickens running around or the randomly parked cars. All the villages have a well, often protected by a roof and trellised sides, although they are little used now. They also have a church with a spire and an adjoining collection of gravestones.
Leaving the housing behind the road turned to gravel and climbed up through trees; beech, oak and thorny acacia. There were flowers in small roadside meadows that I tried to identify. My App identified them as yellow Helianthus, Mullein and "Butter and Eggs" and white Soapwort. Two aged tractors passed me pulling narrow trailers filled with chopped wood. The trailers were similar to those I saw in Bulgaria, although there they would have been pulled by a horse.
Coaja was the second village of the day, a scattered group of houses. After Coaja the trail deteriorated. What was once a sunken track was now blocked by brambles, branches and the like, for most of its length. By following barely visible paths through the surrounding areas of long grass I was able to keep close to the correct route, crossing a ridge into the next valley, where there was another group of scattered houses. After admiring the peppers growing in the garden of one house I continued to battle my way through the next section of overgrown path. On the top of the next ridge it improved by some hayricks and a field of wild flowers, but the track that followed was a mess of cow prints, their hooves creating pockets filled with water on the muddy morass. I was pleased to leave whichever way the cattle were going, although I continued on a track that was overgrown where trees were absent, or periodically blocked by fallen trees when in woodland.
Finally reaching a road I walked to the village of Visca, where I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing a shop, which was due to open in a few minutes time. Once the owner arrived I sat down to an ice cream and fizzy cherry drink.
Visca stretched along the road for a considerable distance. I left it on a track climbing steeply up the side of the next ridge. As Visca was my planned destination I was looking for a place to camp. I selected a spot on a promontory of grass, that was almost flat. The red roofed houses of the village are below me, from where I can hear the sound of a chainsaw and the inevitable barking dogs as I type this on my phone.
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