After a noisy night (other guests and traffic) we enjoyed a lively breakfast at our Pension.
Seems each day, they tally yesterday's sales with cash receipts and they were a bit short.... There followed lots of shouting, banging and crashing as a solution was 'negotiated' which resulted in us being served by a tearful and clearly very peed off waitress. Oh dear.
The plan of attack for today has two major milestones:
1. We will be crossing the border into Bulgaria
2. We'll be clocking up our 3000th mile of the trip
Our intended route takes us east
along the E574 into the city of Craiova
then south along Route 55 to Bechet
on the Romania/Bulgarian border.
The border itself is a bloomin great
river (i.e the Danube) and we're not
yet sure how it will be crossed to get
into Bulgaria.
Assuming we can cross, our
intended destination is Orjahovo just
over the Bulgarian border.
We set off under clear blue skies, rapidly climbing temps. and with a favourable tail wind.
We bashed out the 10 miles into the centre of Craiova and dodged the rather manic car drivers to find our way through onto Route 55.
Craiova looked to be a nice town and differed from the others we've seen in Romania as it didn't appear to be falling down.
We then had approx. 40 miles of riding on pretty, quiet secondary road through small farms and villages.
The surroundings became rougher and more basic the further south we rode and it was clear there wasn't a lot of money about.
We saw more horse/cart/donkey activity during this 40 miles than anywhere else on our travels (so far).
The downside of the areas poorness meant a shortage of suitable refuelling stops for Miles & Tracey. This meant we hit Bechet with only a single stop under our belt, no CAKE and 55 blummin miles on the clock.
We found our way down to the riverside (another flipping 5km) and were relieved to discover a pukka RORO ferry operating to the other side.
Interestingly, it seemed only commercial traffic was using this ferry and we were once again surrounded by the hated HGV and the ignorant fu....errrm truckers who were in charge of the beasts.
After a straightforward crossing we cleared both passport control (seems the Bulgarian's haven't got the idea of open Euro borders yet either) and a biatch of a hill into Orjahovo.
First impressions weren't good, followed by similar for second, third and so on.
Despite this, we gave the town every chance to produce suitable accommodation which it singularly failed to do.
After a quick bank and lolly stop, we made our way out into the Bulgarian countryside and onto Route 11 hoping to find something suitable by the roadside.
Riding conditions were good with fantastic (Euro donated) road and lovely bumpy scenery. Unfortunately, the condition of the riders was deteriorating fast and we needed to stop for the night.
During a rare pop and choccy break at nearly 80 miles, we were given the nod of a motel in a nearby town.
Never has a bee line been so bee or line like and we were off like a shot.
Shortly afterwards, we were standing outside a very unlikely looking building sporting a dog eared 'Motel' sign.
The saying 'Don't judge a book by its cover' couldn't have been more apt. The room was very nice and the restaurant provided a pleasant meal following Miles' animal and french fry impressions as our Cyrillic reading skills are a bit limited.
Retired to our room somewhat full, knackered and relieved - in equal measure.
We were also a bit chuffed with ourselves having escaped Romania in one piece and clocked up our 3000th mile of the trip.
Today an extremely hot and a little nautical 83 miles and a total of 585m of ascent. Total trip 3014 miles.
More Southerly ramblings to follow.
Back soon. Miles & Tracey.
