Well finally the time came and we could not put off leavıng Ohrıd any longer, nice though the lake may be. Before leaving we had purchased a small, very cheap gas stove and a couple of spare cartridges as our trusty MSR had once agaın decıded it needed a rest - the pump has gıven up completely as we knew ıt probably would, we just hoped ıt would last to Istanbul... (it was damaged durıng an attempted mutiny by Erika way back ın Slovakia when she lıt the thıng havıng faıled to notıce a rather large fuel leak.....). We had also [View Full Entry]

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“Its like Iraq; no war,…but war….” Yes, that’s right, we are in the Republic of Makedonija (the ‘Former Yugoslav’ one, though officially that title doesn’t exist inside the country…) - to the west of Bulgaria and therefore nowhere near Turkey or Istanbul! Home of the second best flag in Europe. Provocatively Bulgarians regard this place as ‘Western Bulgaria’ so no tour of Bulgaria would have seemed complete without coming here, also we had to get a package sent somewhere and Poste Restante doesn’t seem to exist in Bulgaria so Skopje seemed like a good bet. Confounded by a lack of roads [View Full Entry]

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"Come to Bulgaria, your cars are already here" - Bulgarian joke tourist slogan aimed at Western Europeans (though probably with an ounce of truth in it...) "No this is real natural yoghurt, its not your western muck!" - G in response to Erika asking if the Bulgarian yoghurt had gelatin in it. We finally left Vratsa on Monday, 6 days after arriving! G accompanied us on a great cycle out of the city and over the hills into the Iskar gorge. The hills around Vratsa are really beautiful - very white limestone rocks which shimmer in the hot sun. The last [View Full Entry]

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So - it has been a while since our last posting; for both good and bad reasons -we have been too happy and having too good a time to be bothered tying ourselves to a computer at times, and at others we have been too stressed. This is the way things go on the road however, as in life generally, there are up times and down, good and bad. We have been forced to change even our sketchy plans by circumstances we did not foresee or want, but more of this later. As usual we will continue the story from where [View Full Entry]

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We finally leave Brasov quite late in the afternoon after last emails to Robin’s parents arranging for replacement bank cards etc. We cycle for a meagre 13 miles but it feels so good to be cycling again and we find a lovely camp site near the main road but back up near the woods and a river. The land is for sale so this actually translates in Romania to a free camp site that is already well dotted with Romanian families camped for what looks like a good while, all with their own camp fires. We pitch our new tent and [View Full Entry]

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We've made it to Romania. This was one of the countries I was most looking forward to when I was planning to cycle this route. I had heard of great mountian chains, bears and dracula. It is so beautiful here and we are here in a heat wave, this part is not so good for cycling so we are rested up in Sighisoara, a beatuful UNESCO recognised medieval citadel and the bitrhplace of Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler. We finally managed to leave L'viv after struggling to fit the new local tyre I had bought there. The road out of town [View Full Entry]

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We've finally reached Eastern Europe. Robin and I had thought we would spend my birthday in Budapest, but we decided Hungary is too developed and in the EU, so visitable at any time. After meeting another intrepid Scottish Cyclist who was heading here we decided to follow his example and we are now in L'viv! Ukraine!!! Everybody in Poland looked at us in horror and said 'ohh Ukraine it is impossible!' when we told them that we were thinking about coming here. I can understand why they have this reaction and I think I would find L'viv very shocking if I [View Full Entry]

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Well the bears didn't get us. In fact they heard me coming for miles and were nowhere to be seen, but perhaps it was not just me being characteristically chatty- it could have been the thousands of polish tourists who take the cable car to the polish -slovakian border everyday! Yes the Tatra National Park on the polish side was absolutely heaving with visitors. However we had a great tactic (not really intended mostly because of having a leisurely large breakfast) of starting quite late and therefore being on the mountains when most of the tourist were leaving. The weather was [View Full Entry]

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Djen Dobri from Polska!! Although I said that the Czech Republic was my favorite country of the trip so far, it has been far surpassed by Poland, but who knows, maybe every new country we cycle into will be better then the last? Slovakia will have a lot to live up to... But enough about Poland for now, this blog must start where the last one finished, in Praha. After an annoying and expensive afternoon on computers doing the last blog and making a mess of downloading photos form the camera on a Czech language PC (we succeeded in copying the [View Full Entry]

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Well We thought it was about time you all heard from me and some of my thoughts on the journey so far. The cycling has got a lot easier even though i will never catch up with Robin, he does stop quite a lot to look at birds and this gives me the chance to catch him. My legs have got much stronger and my calves will never look the same again. I think we are eating enough too which is great and we have really enjoyed German bakeries and chocolate, but unfortunately last night I bought some non chocolate from [View Full Entry]

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