The vehicles used are a pair of caleches - small carriages with four or five seats including the driver, pulled by a pair of horses. Luggage (and feed for the horses) will be moved on daily by vehicle.
Day 1 (Saturday) - Fly to Bucuresti Otopeni airport, where you will be met and taken, via a restaurant, to the railway station. Depart around 10:30pm by sleeping car train.
Day 2 (Sunday) - Arrive at Cluj-Napoca, an historic Austro-Hungarian city, around 6:30am. You will be met and transferred to the mountain village of Lunca Ilvei to meet your hosts, Julian and Angelica Ross. (You could take an express train from Cluj to Lunca Ilvei instead, in which case you would be collected from the station by carriage and pair.) Lunch then make a short afternoon trip by carriage in the tranquil Carpathian forest. Dinner and a night's rest in a local guesthouse.
Day 3 (Monday) - Travel by caleche through the timeless Carpathian forest to the Borgo Pass. Enjoy a picnic lunch by a rushing stream, and see the original road, built by the Romans and used until the early 20th Century - the route Bram Stoker described. Descend to the picturesque village of Poiana Stampei for the night.
Day 4 (Tuesday) - Travel on by caleche, past the historic Habsburg spa town of Vatra Dornei, to the village of Ciocanesti with its traditional wooden architecture where the night will be spent.
Day 5 (Wednesday) - The route takes us on a side-road and into the heart of the Hutzul region, home to a people who still speak a unique part-Ukrainian dialect. We climb up to the remote mountain horse stud at Lucina, where accommodation is provided. The stud was breeding horses back in the 16th century, and still breeds the rare Hutzul horse, a primitive breed of great historical interest.
Day 6 (Thursday) - From Lucina, travel through the pastoral Hutzul country, with its low hills, farmsteads, meadows and forests, to the village of Carlibaba where we stay for the night.
Day 7 (Friday) - We travel over the Rotunda pass, using a little-used road built in the late 18th Century for Empress Maria Theresa, still with original cobblestones in some places. We also see the former Romanian-Hungarian border near the summit, with old fortifications. A century ago there was still a gendarme post at Rotunda to deter bandits and highwaymen! We descend into the valley, beneath the towering Rodna mountains, and return to Lunca Ilvei. In the evening, hear local musicians play traditional music from various parts of Romania.
Day 8 (Saturday) - Spend the last day exploring Lunca Ilvei, with a number of visits possible, such as to see the blacksmith who still makes many items by hand. Around 5pm, depart by train for Cluj-Napoca, from where a sleeping car train departs for Bucuresti at around 10:30pm.
Day 9 (Sunday) - Arrive in Bucuresti at 7.30am in time for breakfast and transfer to the airport
