Travel through a fairytale land on a vintage train ,,Mocănița,,in Apuseni Mountains
Hello everyone
I hope you are ok, here in Romania in the last few days we have some hot days with temperatures over 35 degrees, I know for some of you who visit my post this temperature may be normal, but for us it is quite hard.
This past weekend we had a choice between two options, one was to go swimming at a spa and the second option was to go to a mountainous area where the temperatures are not so hot.
Yes, I chose the second option to go to the Apuseni Mountains area and visit many beautiful sights, today I want to take you with me to the land of ,,Moților,, and take a ride with ,,Mocănița, a very old train that runs on a non-electrified railway line pulled by a steam locomotive (unfortunately today's trips were made with a diesel locomotive the steam one having some defects).
How did we get to the,,Mocăniță,,?
Already as you know very well we live in the west of Romania from here we had to go by car to the city of Câmpeni, more precisely to the train station in Câmpeni.
The route we followed was the easiest one Arad-Valea Muresului-Deva(A1)-Brad-Abrud-Câmpeni, you can follow other routes but we decided to take the one presented above.
What is,,Mocănița,,?
The Mocanita is a train that runs at low speed on a narrow track, and if we are in the warm season its carriages are uncovered (if it is fair to say so) the first runs of the Mocanita are said to have been somewhere around 1912, it served the inhabitants of this town who wanted to travel to neighbouring towns or counties.
Today this Mocanita is only used for tourist purposes, it also has a period of operation.
Evidence of the passage of time over these trains.
The Mocanița's operating schedule.
The Mocanița runs only between 8 July and 10 September (as we can see on the poster on the official website) on the route Câmpeni-Cărpiniș (Abrud) after the hours indicated there (more details here).
From what we saw on the spot most of the seats in the Mocaniță were booked online, the lady selling tickets told us that we were lucky to get free seats now in high season.
The price of a Mocanița ride cost 25lei/5euro/person.
Let's get on board and let ourselves be carried through fairytale places.
Psss I couldn't help but get on the locomotive to see what it felt like at the helm.
And so slowly began the Mocănița's journey to its final destination, most of the route was through the woods, past freshly mown fields (you can't imagine how good freshly mown hay can smell), the animals grazing quietly, everything seemed frozen in time.
I want to tell you a detail about the specificity of this area of the Apuseni Mountains, people's houses are very scattered on the hills they are not as we are used to one next to the other.
The round trip with breaks takes about an hour and a half.
At the end of the line, in the courtyard of a house you can buy cheese and dill pies (Moțești pies) made by local housewives and relax until the train driver sets the platform.
I saved that for last.
My dear followers and visitors, I hope you enjoyed this trip with this vintage train and if you ever visit Alba Iulia and of course the city of Câmpeni, do not hesitate to put on the map this objective which can be an amazing experience.
If you liked what you saw and read here please don't forget to give a LiKe, Follow, reBlog or a Comment, for all this I thank you, and until the next post I say goodbye.
P.S. The attached pictures you have just seen are taken by me with my mobile phone, and the text is also designed by me.
