Romania - part 2 Turda to Giughiu (border to Bulgaria)

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September 23rd 2007

Published: September 26th 2007

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jenny and ian

rom1

Romania here we come..

well here we go again...lets try and get up to date.. Ian in the cockpit again.

Seems like ages ago we last wrote. We left you in Turda in the north of Transylvania and our plan was to head south to the Saxon towns of Sighisoura and Brasov, see the castles and mountains of the Transylvanian Alps and then head due south to a border crossing to Bulgaria. We really would have like to have gone to the monastaries of the north and the 'rural idyll' of Maramures but this would have taken too long and unfortunately you cant do everything. In the end we spent over 2 weeks in Romania anyway and this was more than planned...jenny is craving that Croatian beach more and more!! 😊

South and East through Transylvania was really good terrain, rolling green hills and villages and towns seemed to have a little bit more about them than what we had witnessed in the Valley down to Turda from the West. The weather seems to be quite consistent in that it was reasonable in the morning (in that it wasnt raining) and started raining late lunch and didnt stop again!! did this every day

rom2

Jenny....cold again.....or is tt the vodka making her nose red?

for 2 or 3 days. We made the mistake the first day and had a horrific afternoon in the hills south to Medias, cold and wet, punctures and dogs. In one of my many zone outs (had, gloves, overshoes, waterpoofed up with hood on and in my own little world) i came up with the Stott scale of Romania dogs

1. Ignorer
2. Starer
3. Barker
4. Chaser
5. Biter

Jenny wanted to add Rabid biter on but i though that was temping fate a bit too much...

Started to get into the terriatory of Stottscale 3.barkers now...pretty unnerving so back pockets were loaded with stones 4 of em Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie (Ronnie left quite soon after , went after a right rough dog) and Joss joined the quartet.
Wow this country has a lot of stray dogs and the locals just don't seem to flinch at them.
The next couple of days we didnt make the same mistakes and got plenty of miles under our belts and sheltered in the afternoons. We are also now into another area of 'cycling prohibited signs'. One appeared on top of a long hill with no other turn

rom2

Quite typical Romania village...Borat would have been here but the rain would have wet his moustache!

off or any other way but to go back, it was raining and we were tired and we didnt even flinch at it...onwards. The next day we did 30 miles of 'cycling prohibited; roads and saw 3 police cars but they weren't interested in us. Seeing quite a lot of romany horse and carts racing up and down villages and old women bent over double pulling a trolley of hay or selling like 3 apples.
Sighisoara was one of the first 'tourist' type places we got to. Old town inside citadel walls and new town, communist tower blocks away down he valley. 'The planet' recommended a small homestay inside the citadel so we checked it out and it was good. Really friendly owners who apparently spoke english but said everything in Germanish a mixture of the two, bitte-please, bless them...i still have images of the wife trying to cajoule Jenny into eating some sausage thing at breakfast thet jenny clearly didnt want to eat!! Please, bitte, ees good, bitte.
Smart little place this with a lovely clock tower and small square which would have been really atmospheric apart from it was lashing it down and the local authorities had decided

Rom3

Ian cold this time. Top of the unnamed 1000m climb from Baius to Turda

to dig up the town, the whole of it!!
Oh and Vlad Tepes was born here...Its strange over here. We know Dracula right? he is the vampire with cloak and long teeth from films yes? well no. Not over here...the story is that Bram Stoker based the Dracula character on a Romanian hero (or villain?) called Vlad Tepes (The impaler) who was the son of a knight of the order Dragon) hence Dracula - son of Dragon. So when in books and thinks over here you see, 'birthplace of Dracula, Castle of Dracula, etc etc....its this Vlad dude. ...confused??? i was. Stoker set his Dracula in the North of the Country, not even in the Transv alps.
There was a bit of a statue of Vlad here... and a restaurant where he used to live. I was also thoroughly entertained by an English tour group - so out of place it was unreal...obviously our nationality was kept secret so i could continue my mirth at them!!mwwwahhhaahhhahhhahhhaaa

Next day we blasted it to Brasov. 75 miles cracked off before 4 o clock..thats good for going for the Ian and Jenny lazy arse in the morning gang. ..more rolling terrain, and

rom4

Descending the valley for 60 miles. Really impressive.

a small pass, more no cycling and more police not bothered, although i had visions of Carl and Rob 10 years ago with their police 'incident', when a cop car crawled past us directly next to a no cycling sign and i pretended to miss it by pointing to a really not very interesting hill to jenny!!
Got a load of abuse of a Roman taxi (horse and cart loaded up to the nines with people), throwing bread and rubbish at us as we passed..left a bitter taste in my mouth a bit as so far all had been without incident and friendly. Wish i had squirted them with water but hindsight is a wonderful thing and i just hurled verbals at them instead.

Brasov was so different to elsewhere so far. 1 is is nestled at the foot of the mountains so has a fantastic back drop, 2, it has a huge central square and beautiful old buildings (Baroque apparently) so is like a czech town. Cafe bars - and we started to feel very relaxed and looking forward to our day off. The town centre is also about as far from a centre as you can get

rom5

Ian - Turda sign. comedy moment not to be missed. no more needs to be said.

as its in the arms of hills and at the edge of the town whilst all the new town sprawls onto the plain.
Stayed at the rolling stone hostel with some of our first English speakers for quite a while - which was nice in itself. I don't know how i feel about other 'travellers' i was quite interested at first to listen to what other people had done and were doing and then i just thought...you are all doing exactly the same thing...get on a train, or bus, 'travel' from major sight to major sight following a book - and then hang around a hostel telling other people. We stayed at the hostel 2 nights and im sure everytime i went to the common room certain people were there everytime ...ermmm yeah ive been to Brasov,...did you see the common room...oh yeah it was totally cool...what about the common room in Budapest? man that was the best!!...
probably been really harsh there, and we chatted to some really nice people and had a good rest (see i also felt like we deserved to chill out as we had just done 15 days on the trot and about 750 miles

rom6

Romania Carts and horses and donkeys...lots and lots milling around at mach 4

without a full rest day)
Had an ace first night there once i got over my phobia of other people - see this is what too much time with just jenny does!! xx
The hostel owner took us out to see some bears...apparently this time of year they come down from the hills everynight and go through the bins of suburbia eating for winter...we found a family messing around at some bins..wow...i thought this was incredible..3 little cubs and one huge momma..didnt expect them to be so big...apparently they can run at 40mph and dont like flashes so didnt take any photos. Great experience. Went to the bar that night and swallowed my opinions and socialised!! only joking there were some lovely people there and we had a good beer session with a couple of London Based ossies called justin and jusitna (no joke).

3 sights near to Brasov and seeable on an organised day trip are the old Royal Palace at Sinaii, an old Fortress on a hill at Rasnov and the unofficial (officially know as) Dracula Castle at Bran.

We planned to cycle to the latter 2 as there were on route and take a

rom7

More Carts. We cant get enough of them....

train 30 miles south to Peles (sinaii) ..sort of botched up the train a bit and got the wrong tickets and then the next train was ages and the buses were packed and would have had to wait 1 hr 30 as they were over subscribed...and to cut a long story short we fired it off and just relaxed around Brasov, went up a big hill for a view and to a crazily tacky 'Brasov' sign high on the hill like the Hollywood one. Tacky but strangely seemed quite a good idea and reminded me when i read that they intented to put one above Accrington on Hambledon hill - i say do it!!
good day actually and it was hot hot hot as well...jenny got sunburn on her new flesh from crash would healing!

Onwards.

Refreshed and stocked up from Carrefour ( it sometimes seems quite french here - with a latino language and many similar words merci is thanks) We headed over a couple of passes to Sinaii which is a mountain resort just the other side of the Alps, struggled to find accommodation as there was a Drs convention on and i got told off

rom8

Our old friend the cycling prohibited sign...

by locals for going ballistic at a yap dog (chaser) that had gone for Jenny and then me....they looked at me like i was in the wrong for lashing out at it and shouting ...ermm

Peles Palace was beautiful and i loved little touched on the tour like you rang a bell and waited to be invited in. Our tour guide amused me no end as she talked none stop, monotone, with jokes in with no emphasis on them...like she spoke no english and had learnt the words off by heart and had no clue what she was saying. Royal family here only lasted a few years and had 4 kings and queens. The first one was invited in late 1800s to rule (he was from germany) and the last one abdicated in the 50s when the commies were around) - bizarely he still lives in Bucharest and is 84.

Back tracked to Rasnov later on the day which again is pretty smart and a wonderful little hilltop fortress with an incredible backdrop, looking over the snow on the bucegi national park and out over the plains to the next block of Mountains. wow. Great setting for a

rom9

Impressive clock tower at Sighisoara

film. Think lord of the rings and one of the cities with the mountains behind. We had sorted accomodation out before hand at a campsite in a hut. Now we had been it huts before and they were fine, but we regretted this a bit. It cost nothing really so i was well impressed and looked ok at first but on further inspection it was tiny and just had 2 beds in...it was filthy, the roof was falling in on my bed...there were cobwebs and creepy crawlies on the floor....outside light and inside light didnt work and i dont know if there were meant to. The toilets were, well if anyone knows what Clarion house ones used to be like you know what i mean...if not imagine pretty bad and add a bit...there was a shower...cold and just a pipe from wall. The plan was to bat it out, cook, go for a beer at restaurant opposite later on and jenny could do her eyes etc in their toilets.

Up at the fortress i felt a bit dodgy...and thinking about it i felt off all day, and started to feel pretty awful on the way down till it became

rom10

Nice view from clock tower....

that i just wanted to curl up and lie down and i didnt care where..even if it was on the floor...

Cut a long story short we baled out of the hut and stayed at a pension near by, and im glad we did as i wore a furrow out going to the loo that night and was pretty rough for about 5 hours with some sort of fever.... jenny, florence nightingale, sorted it all out and moved bags and bikes etc. Next day i was soooo weak (yes yes yes Carl just like usual)...so i holed up in the nice room and had a day off from life!! Think jenny went to the shops and went back up to the Fortress in the sun and had some beers and read....the life eh!!
dont know if it was something i ate or drank or swallowed accidentally but i threw my water bottles to remove that risk (they had been starting to smell a bit)..

Next day we tentatively set off again..i still wasnt on it at all but wanted to get going again, Visited Bran, which i was expecting to be an amazing castle on the edge of

rom11

Bust of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) and his apprentice!!

a high cliff overlookng a pass....it was nice...and ...well nice....but bit of an anticlimax for me....
had a long pass now over to Wallachia and south Romania, was about 10 miles up and we just plodded away nice and slow, using that granny gear to its full. Wow i was so weak on the bike...is this what mere mortals feel like usually (DC?)

The road was beautiful. wonderful alpine meadows, impressive peaks on either side, sweeping bends, and old houses and churches...very very nice. We crested the pass and into a new region 'Arges' and wow what a change at the side of the road, still same incredible backdrop and vistas but the wonderfully well kept fields and meadows had made way to...well just litter and dogs routing around...seriously something needs to be done with that litter.

Mostly downhill now to the danube apparently!!... Jenny had a bit of a dog incident on a small uphill down the other side..i was faffing behind and heard a commotion in front and when i caught her up she was a bit flustered as 3 dogs had "got" her..uphill..she tells me she got to 13mph in a panic...thats pretty good going

rom12

Brasov town hall - or council house as they call it!!

up a pass!! new recruit for hillclimb team? They didnt even try to bother with me, must have been that manly frame and beady stare at them, holding Keith and Joss in either hand!!...

Next day i wasnt feeling great again and i made a bit of mistake reading the map, so what i though was flat and would take a morning to Curtea De Arges took a good deal longer and nearly killed me...the road cut across the valleys running south away from the Transylvanin massif....so it was relentless 4km up at 3mph (see i really was suffering) and then a tricky 4 km descent on dog watch, pothole watch and watching for loosing any of our luggage as the roads were pretty bumpy....then 4km up then 4km down...then...then then...there were about 7 of them and i was really on my last legs coming into town....
We found a hotel and did some of the sights...maybe it was as i was lethergic and lacking in energy but i wasnt overawed by it all here. The site of the princely court of the region from 13th century...there was a beautiful small cathedral here worth seeing, with the tombs

rom13

Paying by plastic sir. Why yes...as all the money is plastic!! great for games of bath poker.

of the first 2 kings of Romania (thats 50% of them remember - and 66% of the dead ones!!)....

Next day was also a bit of a battering for me...we were now heading down the plain to a crossing of the Danude, it was about 120 miles on the map so we wanted to do this in 2 days. First stop Ramnicu Valcea for lunch....again this was underestimated, 2 big climbs, 1 big section of missing road (???) just rutted track...then one 10 mile diversion onto a busy main main road...plus it was cold and raining all day...our 2 days to Bulgaria was not looking promising. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch as we could bring our bikes onto a veranda and in full view, it looked quite posh to be honest so we had decided if it was expensive to just have a coffee fix and go to mcDs next door...it was quite posh but the prices were rock bottom ...eating out in Romania is incredible and almost as cheap as going to the shop and having a picnic lunch.

Brillaint...ready for the start for the plain now. We were quite apprehensive about this..1 the

rom13

Brasov, nestled under the Transylvanian Alps.

dags were getting worse and most of them were full on number 4 chasers 2 this is the heart of the Roma country we hear so much about and get warned constantly about, 3 quite a busy road and we still not sure of the opinions of motor users to us. All through this country we get honked...this is usually by a car coming up behind..i have tried to work out what the honk means...it is either 1, hello, you are a bit different on a bike how are you? 2. watch out im coming dont sway into the road 3.A warning for traffic behind that they are overtaking something and to beware or 4. get out of my way...now.
I actually believe its a mixture of all 4 but the type of honk is always the same...got quite a few aggressive type honks from big big lorries who clearly didnt want to have to slow down to wait to overtake as there was oncoming traffic aswell but its like "what do you want me to do..stop and wait at the side of the road for you to pass?? " not sure what they expect but i think its just

rom14

Council house again..but check out the sign on the hill in the background....wow

not being used to tourists..
Also there is a tendancy here to overtake into you...that is to say traffic coming towards you dont count you as worth waiting for to overtake and come head on into you at mach 4 on your side of the road, at first i was abusive, then shrigged my shoulders like what do you expect us to do? in the end we just didnt react but i suspect there are an awful lot of southern romanian cars with my Salivary DNA down their wing...

oh yeah..i now want a Dacia 1310...there are millions over here and can fit 12 people (it seams) inside.

Riding south was pretty dull, next day wasnt raining and we did 90 miles to get to the border town, through loads of little roma villages with the usual carts and old people milling about and only a small bar at the side of the road. Just kept alert through the villages as most folk were friendly but everyso often one tried to be a bit of an idiot. One guy was showing off to his mates by jumping out in front of jenny (who was in front as

rom14

Peles Castle in Sinaii. Impressive location.

i sat on her wheel for 3 days!! haha)...i got him back by squirting him with (valuable) water and this shocked him a bit...brillaint...his mates laughed their heads of as him...had a few stones threw at us buy some kids after we had passed but in the norm ok..probably less hassle than riding in the uk on a club run to be honest!!

bad news was although we had pushed it to get to the border crossing and a ferry, it didnt exist...neither did the one in the next town 35 miles away and this meant another big day to get across the border...we had about a 50 Rom left (10 quid) and had to stay on the Romanian side of the Danube...The town was Turnu Magurele, a decent sized place but we did worry a bit about finding somewhere to stay, we struggled the previous night in Dragasani and ended up blowing a load of cash on somewhere not very good and my bed smelt of sick a bit (why is it always my bed that is dodgy jenny?)
Found a hotel which was totally out of place in this town, The town didnt seem like it had

rom17

Rasnov Fortress and fantastic views behind.

much but the hotel was massive and 3*. Way more that 10 pounds though so it was on the credit card!!...it felt like a dream but we met 3 german cyclist here...actually cycling...i though we were the only ones in this country on bikes. They were following the Danube all the way from Belgrade and were a breath of fresh air as they were really positive and smiled all the time ( and of course spoke exceptional English...) i stalked them a bit as i didnt believe it when jenny said there are 3 cyclists in our hotel..They had amazing maps aswell with roads rated on busyness and surface and towns with amenities. ( a bit like mick berrys 200 mile route sheets!!) Gained quite a bit of knowledge off them for the following days ride to the bridge at Giurgui - Ruse (Bulgaria).
We were knackered for our final - final day in Romania and set off quite late after making most of the inclusive breakfast as cyclists are know to do...
To be honest it was an amazing day....the sun was out again, the road was beautifuilly quiet. Some lovely views of Bulgaria and the Danube - and

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Rubbish....shocking in such a beautiful location.

the folk were incredible friendly - like unnervingly so at first. First village we were greated by loads of kids saying hello, or bonjour, or Hola and this continued all the way ....amazing.....some spoke English, some french, some spanish...i dont think they klnew what they were saying as they didnt respond to our questions or responses as we rode past...it was like being a celebrity - and it wasnt just the kids...adults, youths, women,...men in bars....wow.
We though the Germans must have been in front throwing out balloons and sweets to them!! haha...
We actually caught the Germans up, (still amazingly happy- and they had been stopped by the police!) i loved these dudes and they reminded me i was on holiday and other people actually did this sort of thing as well with no problems....
I spoke with a dutch couple a few days later who had done the same ride , Belgrade to Ruse on the Danube banks and i think it is a popular route, they met some Austrians on tour doing the same thing so that was 4 groups on two days. Hence ( i think ) why everyone was so friendly, probably a bit more

rom21

Descending the pass...great backdrop...we went down there!!

used to us freaks in lycra on bikes with big bags and strange part tans!!..

Crossing the border was simple if not the most picturesque crossing ever of the Danube and we arrived late into the first town in Bulgaria - Ruse. Bulgaria...what adventures do you hold. It seems different here already.

missing the Romanian folk music though which is on 3 channels constantly over there....it is brillaint.

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