Driving the Transfăgărășan Solo | Europe's Most Amazing Road | Romanian Road Trip

Driving the Transfăgărășan Highway in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania - a road many describe as Europe’s best. On Route I discovered Poenari Castle, Vidraru Lake & a stunning glacial lake.

Months of planning led to an incredible day in the Carpathian Mountains as part of my Romanian Road Trip driving one of the most amazing roads in the world - the DN7C or as it is more commonly known the Transfagarasan Highway. It's often cited as Europe's most spectacular road and more locally the most beautiful road in Romania - having driven it I can say it's definitely a contender for both!

My Transfagarasan road trip also took me past Poenari Castle where I stopped briefly to explore the ruins of an old hilltop fortress which was once the residence of Vlad the Impaler. I then drove on to Vidraru Lake and Vidraru Dam - two magnificent sights to see when driving the awesome Transfăgărășan Highway. The Dam produces the lake and it’s easy to see what a wonderful feat of engineering it is.

My Romanian road trip continued passing lakes, waterfalls and spectacular viewpoints until I reached the Capra Tunnel and Bâlea Lake - the highest point of the Transfagarasan Highway and a place so remote it's closed to traffic for over half the year. From there it's all downhill, driving around hairpin bends and all the race-track style corners made famous by the guys on Top Gear.

From first reading about the Transfăgărășan Highway I knew I had to include it in my Romanian Road Trip, and due to the winter closing dates and extreme weather I had to schedule it for the first day - which turned out to be just a few hours before it closed for the winter season.

*Chapters*
📖 00:00 Intro (Pensiunea Dracula)
📖 00:50 The Plan
📖 02:16 The Transfăgărășan is OPEN!
📖 02:51 Hitting the Road
📖 03:17 Poenari Castle Hike
📖 06:29 Back on the Road
📖 07:14 Vidraru Lake & Dam
📖 09:56 Driving Through the Carpathian Mountains
📖 10:56 Ultimate Transfăgărășan Drive
📖 12:03 Capra Tunnel Ride
📖 13:55 The Beauty of Bâlea Lake
📖 14:30 Transfăgărășan Highway Construction & History
📖 15:59 Transfăgărășan Drone Shots
📖 17:10 What’s Next?

*More Info*
❤️ Don’t Forget to LIKE & SHARE if you enjoyed the video, they really help!
🎙️ Feel free to ask any questions! All FEEDBACK and COMMENTS welcome!!

*Soundtrack*
🎵 Afternoon Rush by The Grateful 7
🎵 This One by Sebastian Forslund
🎵 Bliss of Dawn by Frank Jonsson
🎵 Maybe We'll Get There by Alder
🎵 Last To Know by Pastis
🎵 Infallible by Frank Jonsson
🎵

[MattWhitingsEurope]

THANKS FOR WATCHING!! 👍 If you enjoyed the video please consider LIKING & SUBSCRIBING - they really help me out! 👍

[harryp]

Amazing autumn colors! The weather has definitely been on your side that day 🙂Congrats on your outstanding editing skills, this was very enjoyable to watch.

[jovsitalo]

Wow what an adventure! Looks so serene. Thanks for posting 😊

[WhenAdventureKnox]

I feel like I needed this video before I went to Romania in 2017. It doesn't help that when we went to the Transfagarasan road, there was some kind of event going on and there were 100's and 100's of people up there, lots of sponsorship banners strewn across the roadside, so we blitzed through it and missed most things in your video! I didn't know much about Vlad the Impaler until I visited Romania and was shocked to hear that he's often impale people along the banks of the Danube so as his enemies sailed up the river to invade, they'd be surrounded by 100's of impaled bodies - what a deterrent! Stunning shots from the drone once again!

[Watfordfc]

That is some road and scenery, we’ve booed Romania for March but just Bucharest as first visit so typical tourist things lol . Romania is a beautiful country and I can’t wait to see your journey . This really excited me when I see the video come up . Cheers

[shockandawe]

The road was built in preparation for a Soviet invasion to quickly move armies around. Hope it will never be used for it's intended purpose.
Thank you for visiting and showcasing Romania. Hope you had a good time.

[vicky-louh.]

Great video❤ I've been to Romania only a couple of months ago. I visited bukarest, brasov and the castle, but I didn't know about that road. :( Thank you very much for sharing that. I will remember to go there, if I come back to Romania one day. 😊

[OlgasBritishFells]

Very lucky to have made it just in time before the road closure, Matt.

[andreeas.]

Walachia( like Wales or wallonia)- technically the same meaning - place inhabited by latin speakers. A german exonimCh read lit like in Murdoch

[WITYTRAVELS]

Romania!! We will be vigorously taking notes. You should lift a bear over your head like the statue was lifting the lightning bolt. All the F1 experience is coming in handy here! Drone shots were 😍😍

[pureluck]

The road was built by the military to transport military tanks and supplies, lots of lives were lost, a huge sacrifice in amount of lives. But it's one of the greatest roads.
It is said that there were hundreds of lives lost only for building the dam and hundreds more lost building the road, it was built during the communist era and the dictator didn't put much value on human lives. There are portions of the road where they had to build it over/on top of excavators that got stuck and could not be "saved" and the dam was also built on top of old villages that the communists forced to relocate, it is said you can see the remains underwater if the diver is not afraid of the hugely sized catfish and whatever other monsters lurk the waters :) All except the size of fish could be found and verified on wikipedia and other sources.