Ate a very nice breakfast provided by the owner of our chosen Pension and made a reasonable start leaving around 09:15.
Our plan today is to cycle from Turda, Romania to Slimnic, Romania. A distance of approx. 50 miles.
Weather very overcast and a little chilly. Within a few miles, the clouds started to dump their contents for just long enough to soak our extremities, Gore-Tex protecting the important bits. The heavy rain shower was short lived and cleared off after half an hour or so....damage done.
We made short work of the Turda one way system and found ourselves riding east on the E60-15 towards Ludus and then onto our turn off point of Iernut.
The road initially followed the valley bottom and we had a brilliant tail wind pushing us along at warp speed.
We made a couple of refuelling stops at the customary hour and 2 hour marks At the first, we each had a mega Twix. At the second we shared a bag of mini croissants which qualified as our portion of CAKE for the day.
We turned due south onto Route 14a at Iernut and though the road was marked as an 'A' road on our maps, it quickly degenerated into a broken up bump fest. Not quite as bad as yesterday though it reduced warp speed to cruising speed.
The riding was once again in fantastic countryside, very varied though the towns and villages looked as though the American Infantry had called in airstrikes....
The road rolled on and up. We had a total of three significant ascents to a maximum altitude of 550m. Each of the climbs were gradual and zig zagged their way upwards.
At the top of the last climb, we stopped for coffee and crepes at a nice café. Shortly afterwards we were joined by 2 German cycle tourists who had been on the road for 4 days.
We chewed the fat with them for an hour or so before heading off to complete our last 10 or so miles into Medias.
After a fantastic descent, we scuttled around the Medias by-pass and so committed schoolboy/girl error number 1.
We were expecting accommodation on the outskirts of town and we were somewhat disconcerted to find......nowt.
Our choices were either to retrace our steps and go into the centre of Medias or peddle on. We chose the latter.
Bad news. There was the sum total of the square root of naff all for the next 27 miles when we stumbled across a suitable Pension in the small village/town of Slimnic, Romania.
Our day was a little longer than planned and we were very pleased to finally find somewhere to stay.
Despite this, we had a really good days cycling and Romania may well have redeemed itself after the first day's nightmare. We shall see tomorrow.
Today a more than intended total of 81 very enjoyable miles and a whopping 930m of ascent. Total trip 2792 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
