I’m looking at a map of Europe and trying to work out if there are any European capital cities where you can reach the sea or a high mountain range within a couple of hours. I assume you can do this in Lisbon, Rome, and Athens but I’m not sure. I know you can do it in Bucharest – for the last few weekends I’ve been testing it out – and this is one of the reasons I love the city. Romanians often say they are blessed by geography but cursed by their politicians, and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to escape the unbearable summer heat by basking in the sea or enjoying the cool air of the mountains.

Last Saturday morning I was deeply engrossed in writing my travel book, an activity I do every morning, and I told myself I wouldn’t eat until I had finished writing. It was a lazy morning and I didn’t finish until midday, when I went out to buy some porridge. Stepping outside was like going into an oven and I thought “why not go into the high mountains?” So as I ate my porridge (with milk and brown sugar) I checked the train times on www.cfr.ro and by 14:00 I was on the personal to Sinaia. By 1730 I was 2000 metres above sea level, enjoying the cool air (14 degrees celsius) and wishing I had brought some warm clothes.

I have been to over 25 countries but I only know a handful of capital cities where you can get into the high mountains so quickly (Lhasa and Kathmandu spring to mind). I stood on the top of the world and let the cold wind blow the summer heat out of me. But where was everyone else? I was the only one in the cable car up, apart from the grumpy operator, and there was nobody at all on top, just a couple of massive dogs that looked at me without interest.

Not only can you get onto this mountain range really easily but you can walk between the two cable car stations (Sinaia and Busteni) in about two to three hours. If you were better organized