Travel planner: The Transfagarasan, Romania's high altitude winding road to greatness

To all adrenaline addicts out there, to seekers of the extreme, to lovers of the great outdoors and nature enthusiasts, I will abruptly start with one simple recommendation: drive on Transfagarasan, one of Romania's most spectacular mountain roads. The 90 kilometers of twists and turns between the two highest peaks in the country will, without any exaggeration, take your breath away. And indeed it made quite an impression on others too, as the area is sometimes used as background in foreign movies. In August this year, Sharon Stone and Andy Garcia filmed for their most recent movie, 'What about love', at Arefu, a village on the Transfagarasan route.

When preparing for this trip in the Fagaras mountains, make sure you have plenty of space on your camera as you will want to capture every moment of it. There is still time to plan a get away on this route, which partially closes during winter time, usually in late October or early November, and normally re-opens at the end of June next year.

The Transfagarasan journey is not only a trip through nature at its best, but it can also be a good trip through history. This road, which was built for military purposes and which connects Transylvania to Wallachia, Romania's historic regions, was built between 1970 and 1974, during the rule of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceaușescu wanted to ensure quick military access across the mountains in case the Russians ever invaded. So the road was built by the military forces- we have them to thank for this amazing route, and why not, even the dictator himself. Imagine building this road done nowadays – how long would it take? And would it be done at all? Four years in the 70s for this incredibly difficult to build road, which needed 60 tonnes of dynamite to carve a passage through rock and crag versus how many years so far for the Transylvania highway? Built mostly in a plateau region, and not yet finalized?

Going back to the road, driving from Sibiu – or Sighisoara, reveals the most spectacular part of the road first, so it's worth starting there, if you have a choice. The road starts close to Arpasu de Jos – where you will also enjoy a spectacular view of the mountains you're about to climb, at over 2,000 meters – and goes up rather fast – and when I say fast, I only mean 40 kilometers an hour, which is the legal speed, and frankly the safest speed to take the curves.