Transfagarasan and Transalpina in a low car

[carspath]

Hi everyone,

Have any of you driven from the UK or Hungary onto the Transfagarasan and / or the Transalpina in the last 18 months and if so what were the road surfaces like ?




1 ). In 2017 I planned a 6 day stay in the region to repeatedly drive both these routes , but cut it short after 4 days for the reasons below , and am wondering if things have improved since , especially as plenty of roadworks were being carried out then .

So the Transfagarasan in particular was beautifully surfaced for 95% of the route , but there were truly massive potholes for about 2% of the drive and lesser but still significant potholes in the remains 3% .

Both routes were blissfully empty , especially if you started early , making them truly joyous .

But the potholes were very well hidden until you were almost over them …… much more so than the potholes in the UK , maybe because of the fact that the tarmac was freshly laid and the black of the surface and the potholes were identical . Perfect but lethal camouflage.

Even being very vigilant , but enjoying to the full what these 2 roads offered , it was only going to be a matter of time before a wheel was inevitably dropped into one of the potholes, so after those 4 days we decided not to try our luck any further .

So my first question is what the roads surfaces are like now , especially for a low car ?



2) . The roads through from Hungary to the 2 Trans roads were pretty awful in places . For about 3 hours we had to drive at 3 mph over almost dirt roads .

Are the access roads any better now and has anyone got any recommendations for a route through Hungary and Romania to these 2 Trans roads ? Especially for a low car .

Romania was great … people , food , Painted Monasteries, bears , Draculas castle etc , but for me the 2 Trans roads were the highlights and I would love to repeat the trip if the road surfaces have improved.

There was a huge amount of roadworks going on in 2017 , so there was reason to think that things might have improved since then .

I am posting this here because I am thinking of going in a low car .

Thank you

Edited by carspath on Tuesday 25th July 16:28

[carspath]

Bump .

Any PH supercars done this trip recently ?

Hoping to repeat it again very soon if the roadworks have improved access and safety …. So any info gratefully received .

[johnnyreggae]

Maybe there's something about the state of the roads in the general road trip section

[carspath]

Hi jonnyreggae ,

It was good advice to try other sites

I have , and the latest post on Tripadvisor ( from earlier this month ) states that the road surface is now terrible , and driving the Transfagarashan would be a great way to destroy a car,s suspension .

I,m glad I did it in 2017 as the road surface sounds much , much worse now .

[paulmnz]

I did it last year in a ferrari... Hungarian roads where fine... Romania has some terrible roads near the border, but also some great new dual carridgeway.

Transfagarasan has a fairly bumpy surface but you can 'enjoy' the road by keeping your wits about you and avoiding pot holes. Transalpina was excellent, did Transfagaran north to south and and transalpina south to north... the northern part of the translpina had more road surface issues but neither where a problem...

[carspath]

Hi paulmnz ,

Thank you for this info .

What you are saying would be exactly in keeping with what we observed driving to and from and on the two Trans roads - a huge amount of roadworks were ongoing back then .

I just might have the opportunity of meeting one of the legendary italian car designers , so Romania has been swapped for Turin for now , but your info about driving these two roads in a low car has been noted for the future . Thank you .