An overpowering smell of drying clay permeates the small outhouse conjoining a textile workshop with a road-side cafe. We stop briefly for a bite to eat, to stretch our weary legs from a week of traversing the Transylvanian highlands, and to leave the rest stop, apparently, with more than we’d arrived. Two hand-thrown glazed dinning dishes and a rather large hand-spun Romanian carpet now protrude from the boot of the rental car, partially obscuring the rear view mirror as we continue our journey south.

His hammer obliterates the small shard of metal, literally removing the composite from existence. Smiling with a purpose, he picks up a long thin piece laying by his side and starts repeatedly beating one of the ends, his eyes now clouded over with a Jovian frenzy. As he pulverises the metal it begins to emanate an orange glow. Over and over he pounds the malleable material, turning and twisting until orange turns to red, red to white. Lifting the smouldering filament, he flips a cigarette from hand to mouth and proceeds to puff away using his hard-earned lighter. A gimmick that I’d easily watch all day long.

The painted egg museum didn’t really keep me entertained, in fact it was more of a walk-in walk-out affair if I’m honest. Catherine was still inside ogling the Faberge collection whilst listening to the monotonous audio guide. She has a patience I’ll never possess. I instead walk the length of a live railway line laying adjacent to the museum. The sturdy tracks are bracketed either side with ornate blue-green carriages, evidently parked there since the 1940s. They lay in the still air, derelict and forgotten, yet there’s movement inside, a curtain flutters and a loud gruff voice echoes from somewhere within. I discover the carriages have become living quarters for the less privileged and their animals, a zoo of those whom are no longer welcome anywhere else. The tracks outside are peaceful, the sun is hot so I sit on a derelict platform edge and people watch for an hour or so. This place is idyllic beyond words.

Stopping briefly at the base, we look back and take in the past few miles of sweeping down-land. We’ve already climbed a thousand feet or so, the small forest-lined winding roads chocked with running water, fallen trees, and flocks of sheep. Now tittering above the forest line, the grand vista of the lowlands takes our breath away as mountain grass turns to mottled forest to yellow field land to the blue beyond. Yet looking ahead we see promises of a twisted and steep ascent to our final goal; the glacial mirror of lake Bâlea. A gently flowing alpine stream gurgles and cuts the narrow valley in half, lush green carpet curving up either side to steep rocky walls peppered with brown bushes and the occasional mountain goat. Two cyclists pass us on the flats, they shout and wave, double down, and continue waging  their own battle up Romania’s infamous Transfagarasan pass.

The clearing in the forest ahead is a perfect ambush spot for a brown bear, or so we’re told as we climb towards the national park plateau an hour south-west of Brasov. The going is easy at first, long dwindling national park routes funnelling tourists past bird watching spots and large colourful maps. But then we take a steep right turn and begin to climb up towards the dark forests nestling below the plateau grasslands, and beyond to the ice-capped peaks of the Carpathian ridge. Hours pass as we traverse the depths of the forest, occasionally spotting large claw marks raked deep in to tree trunks, some old, many new. We reach the ambush clearing and take a well earned breather, drinking cold elder-flower cordial as we sit on the earthy buttress roots of a tree only last night upended by the mother of all bears. Worms and insects still squirm in the loose soil. We set off again on our trek through the forest, the tree line eventually thinning out to sparser woodland, and at last, the plateau. Emerald-green belts of alpine grassland lay strapped to the rounded hillside, dotted with lily-white flowers, perfect grazing ground for the nomadic alpine cattle and the occasional Carpathian brown bear.