Our room in Deva
Day 7 was a rest day in Deva. So we slept twice in the monastery in the little guest house. Fortunately there was a wifi router in the opposite building (the monastery itself). This is a foundation to help children. There are quite a lot of them, whose parents are missing or cannot afford feeding them or for other reasons they are here. Most of them (if not all) are Hungarian speaking.
Anyway, it was raining almost all day so we spent most of the time indoors – which was good for us. We did not like Deva much probably because of the bad weather. There was a castle on a hilltop (the famous “magos Déva vára”) but it was under construction so we did not visit it.
Thanks to Évi, Zsófi’s ex-colleague, we could wash our clothes, and could hang them to dry in our room to a self-made rope.
Starting from Deva
Day 8 started a little bit late, 10am instead of the planned 8am, but this is usual. 
We visited the castle of Vajdahunyad (Hunedoara) which has a smaller copy in Budapest. There was an entrance fee of 8 lei + 5 lei for taking photos! Fortunately I could go in and take a photo without paying, before the guards appeared. Then I told OK I’ll wait outside, Zsofi bought a half-price ticket.
Vajdahunyad
After Hunedoara we took the smaller road to Hátszeg – there was a smaller double-pass already. Zsofi was very proud that she could make it without difficulties. After Hátszeg the road was newly built and without much traffic, and on top of all that we had a good tailwind! But we had to face our first real pass, 759 m high.
Rains came and went, Zsofi was overtaking me because I stopped to take photos quite often. We liked the Carpathian landscape very much! Nice tiny villages, green grassy hills with scattered trees. Zsofi told that if at home we will get bored in Diósjenő, we can come here to live for a while.
Petrosani was on 600 m so fortunately we did not have to descend a lot before our next pass, which we planned for next day and is 1575 m high. We arranged a couchsurfing accommodation in Petrosani at a guy who came from the US to teach English here. He came here because he likes hiking – in the surrounding hills (Retyezát, Paráng, etc., above 2500 m high peaks) he can do that a lot.
Day 9 – we had to get up very early, at 6.30am, because the guy travelled to Turgu Jiu by train. It was raining and so cold that we stopped at an empty house (under construction) to eat. It was a good decision because the rain stopped and the sun came out to shine a bit – of course the next clouds came very soon. After Jiet, there was a nice gorge, Zsófi told that the landscape is unreal, just as if we were in a tale.
The sign told it!
The road quality was quite bad but we could avoid the holes – by car it would have been more difficult. By the way, we only counted 8 passing cars this day.
Weather changes here in the mountains every minute. There was snow on the ground at already 1000 m altitude, and it was snowing before the pass, which was enough to Zsofi to call it a day and have a half rest day again at a house. We were invited to this house by people who stopped as they passed by, and told us that they saw us near Hátszeg on the road. We got a free hot chocolate and when we were just about to continue the pass (the house is on 1200 m), they told that we could sleep here as well. “For how much?” “50 Lei total.” “OK.” It was 1.30pm but because Zsófi had a knee-ache and she didn’t wanted to cycle when it was snowing, we decided we’ll spend the night here. The original plan was to camp on the hill between two passes (and among bears) at the lake Vidra on 1300 m.
We got a small rooom with a fireplace inside, they quickly made fire (I had to patch the openings of the stove with mud to avoid smoke in the room), and we fell asleep for 3-4 hours. We should have slept these 3-4 hours in the morning, our bodies knew it. Now it is quite warm in the room as I write this. We could also have warm showers. The electricity was turned on from 7pm to 10pm only. So we quickly charged every device. There is no mobile signal here so maybe my mom thinks the bears ate us.
We had cooked pasta and had some bread for supper, but we are already longing after normal food (meet, rice, etc.). Tomorrow will be a tough day with 130 km until Ramnicu Valcea, where a CS lady waits for us.
Yes, your mother worried a lot about you! The red tracking-line had disappeard at 10:30 AM and from that time on I knew nothing about you till the next morning. If I had seen the map of Tamás about the GMS coverage, I would’t have worried.
The next day I didn’t worried when your tracking-line had disappeared because I saw on the GSM coverage map that there hadn’t been any signal. Well, the case wasn’t this but your tracker run down. 
Zsófi! Nem tudom milyen típusú térdfájásod van. Párszor nekem is volt, és olyankor heteken keresztül tartott. Egyszer aztán rájöttem, hogy az alapos nyújtás hiánya miatt lehet… Másik, amire azóta nagyon vigyázok, hogy sose fázzon a térdem. Azóta rendben van, szóval neked is csak ezt tudom javasolni!
Egyébként jól nyomjátok, szép helyeken jártok. Csak így tovább!
Take care and have fun!
Köszi Csabi! Igyekszem nyújtani. azt beszéltük, hogy pihenünk 1 napot valahol. 3-asba már csak nagyon ritkán váltok, hogy ne erőltessem. Csak nem értem, mert a jobb lábamnak semmi baja, izmok is jól vannak, csak ezek a béna térd…