4* Luxury in Bialystok, Poland

13 August 2008

Wednesday 13 August 2008

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.

12 August 2008

Tuesday 12 August 2008

Our plan today has us travelling from Ramnicu Valcea, Romania to Bals also Romania and a distance of around 60 miles. The observant may note our continued adherence to choosing destinations with names amusing to the infantile mind.....

After a cracking breakfast at our very nice hotel, we hit the road slightly late at 09:30.

The night was disrupted several times by the fire alarm going off though we did the correct thing in not panicking.

However, following this by rolling over and going back to sleep may not have been the recommended approach......

The day started with blue skies and the promise of very hot temps. 33 degrees Celsius expected.

Made short work of the exit from Raminicu Valcea and hit Route 64 due south This is a secondary road on our maps and we were hoping for slightly less traffic than on the 'A' roads.

The first 15 miles or so passed in a blur of continuous industrial estate. The road being arrow straight and with very few hills.

We stopped at a small garage/tyre repairer/lawn mower servicer/motorcycle mender to carry out a little minor surgery on Disharmony II.

After half an hour, we were back in the saddle and beating out the miles.

We made our customary bum/fuel breaks at our preferred service stations on the hour, every hour during the ride.

The landscape returned to East Anglian degrees of flatness though the broken and rough road surface gave us plenty to think about.

Presently, we cleared the industrial areas and small villages/farmland took their place. Along the roadside, there was a constant line of hawkers selling the fresh produce of the area. If we'd been in the market for 100kg of aubergines or 2 dozen watermelons, we'd have been in luck.

In the main, the traffic was quite well behaved though we did have a couple of ignorant, bullyboy HGV drivers insist they use our bit of the road instead of their own.

Continued to dispatch the miles in the afternoon heat and eventually arrived at the town of Bals. This seemed to be another typical Romanian town built around a mega factory that looked as if it was falling down.

The question was asked; 'What do they make here?' and of course 'Balls!' was the answer (or at least we thought so).

We slow pedalled through throngs of workers finishing their ball making (aching?) shift, took a good look at the only hotel in town and made a bee line for the exit.

We continued on the E70/574-65 for a few more miles until a likely looking roadside Pension leapt out at us and demanded we stay. Who were we to argue?

Usual evening routine; checked in, ate ravenously and chilled until bedtime

Tomorrow should be our scheduled rest day but we are going to push onto Sofia in Bulgaria before stopping again. This means tonight is our last in Romania and we should be crossing the Romanian/Bulgarian border tomorrow.

Had a quick tally up of what is left to do to get to Athens and it looks like we've around 18 more days of cycling left. WOW!

Today a hot, grimy and at times ball aching (difficult for Tracey) 68 miles and a total of 265m of ascent. Total trip 2931 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

11 August 2008

Monday 11 August 2008

Normal service resumed on the weather front as we awoke to clear blue skies, sun and the promise of lots of heat to come.

The plan today has us cycling from Slimnic, Romania to Ramnicu Valcea also in Romania. A distance of around 70 miles and mostly on the main E81-7.

Now we were both a little concerned at returning to the main roads on a workday as we wished to avoid any repetion of the traffic horror show of last Friday.

A reasonable start to the day had us happily knocking out the miles due south on Route 14.

Within 10 miles, we arrived at the outskirts of the 'mega city' of Sibiu. To avoid the worst of any congestion, we took to the ring road.

Unusually, this went almost to the city centre and we got a good look at the walled city for which Sibiu is justly famous. Ahem.

Very busy dual carriageway took us beyond the outskirts and we picked up Route E81-7 south.

Anyone looking at the map at the start of this blog will see an eastwards diversion across Hungary and some of Romania. This was to avoid any unpleasantness further south in Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. It's good to be once again travelling in a southerly direction with the miles really counting torwards our ultimate destination.

The maps we have do not show terrain too well and we were pleased to find ourselves in a surprise gorge for most of today.

Despite the road not having a decent shoulder, traffic wasn't too much of a problem and in the main, reasonably well behaved.

Interestingly, the locals still seem fascinated by the tandem and we get lots of waving and pipping of horns. At one point today, we were running alongside the local train and it seemed as if all the passengers were waving us along.

We had great scenery with good cycling up and down rolling hills following the base of the gorge.

Towards the end, the gorge opened out into our first Romanian tat fest. We'd somehow stumbled on a local tourist resort complete with Soviet era 'Gulag' style concrete hotels.

The throngs of grockles going about their touristy business was a bit of a shock after the rest of Romania seemed completely devoid of any tourist activity at all.

Arrived into Raminicu Valcea, a nonentity town and safely navigated our way to 'Centru'. To avoid any embarrassing (not to mention knackering) extra mileage, today we stuck to the plan.

Town centre was a bit short of obvious accommodation so Tracey popped into a local Travel Agent (Igor Cookski perhaps?) and found details of a nice hotel nearby.

In case anyone thinks we've gone soft and can't hack it camping, Romania is proving to be a bit like Poland in the shortage of suitable campsites department.

Checked in, settled down, ready for more tomorrow.

In order to make even better progress into Bulgaria, we're thinking of ditching our next scheduled rest day and going for the Bulgarian border the day after tomorrow. This will be a couple of days ahead of schedule and we can then decide if we wish to spend any of this time in Sofia.

Today a surprisingly enjoyable 71 miles and a total of 390m of ascent. Total trip 2863 miles. Spot the imminent 3000 mile mark!

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

10 August 2008

Sunday 10 August 2008

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.

09 August 2008

Saturday 09 August 2008

The plan today takes us from Huedin, Romania to Turda, Romania. A distance of around 60 miles. Obviously our destination was chosen primarily due to the comedic value of its name (tee hee).

Decent breakfast in our hotel, again waited on by the Romanian equivalent of Basil Faulty (don't mention the war...).

Hit the road shortly after 09:00 and we were pleased to see a lot less traffic, particularly HGV's.

Weather much cooler and overcast today. Almost had to button up as temps were down to a 'chilly' 24 degrees Celsius. During the day, the skies made a couple of rather pitiful attempts at unloading the contents of the clouds on us but in both cases gave up after a few minutes.

Followed the main E60-1 due east for 20 miles. Along the way we had the delights of two (yes two) killer 1:10 hills, the second followed by a fantastic long descent. In both cases, the lower temps. helped us reach the tops slightly less saturated than usual.

Just outside the town of Gilau (probably twinned with our local Council rubbish dump), we made a beeline for our newest preferred confectionery supplier; OMV.

Unusually, it seemed 10,000 people also had the same idea as the place was heaving.

We soon discovered there was a very well attended car auction going on in the field next door and we were witnessing a Romanian car buying frenzy.

This was good news for us, as OMV still had sufficient supplies for Miles & Tracey to gorge themselves on warm Pain au Chocolate CAKES.

After refuelling, we jumped back into the throng and made our way back to the E60-1.

Within a couple of miles, we turned due south at the nonentity village of Luna de Sus to pick up 'B' and 'C' roads to our destination.

Due to the high levels of traffic yesterday, we decided to give the less popular roads a go instead. This could backfire however as we've seen the lesser roads degenerate into cart tracks elsewhere. We shall see....

Initially the going was good and we revelled in our traffic free environment and enjoyed Count Dracula's back garden.

Unfortunately, the roads quickly started to disintegrate and after a few miles became little more than a rubble chute.

Along our route we had another of those nasty ascents, this one probably 1:8 and very broken indeed. More 3rd world than Euro zone. The broken surface conspired to get us walking as traction was a bit hard to come by even though we had the lungs for the effort.

We were keen to see a bit of 'real Romania', well we certainly got it today Just a few miles from the main drag had us transported to an almost medieval scene. Many horses and carts, rutted cart tracks and little villages cut off from each other.

We did smile however when we witnessed a chap chatting idly on his mobile phone whilst steering his horse and cart.

The 'road' occasionally improved for short sections but soon degenerated into rubble fields again. All this had us travelling at a super slow pace and bobbing up and down out of the saddle to try and avoid damage to both Disharmony II and our nether regions.

We quickly abandoned our plan to explore any 'C' roads on the basis that if 'B's were this bad, 'C's' would be impossible on a laden road bike.

After too long, we joined Route 75 (an improving 'B' road) at Buru. There followed a lovely ride along a deep gorge into the outskirts of Turda (apparently twinned with Baghdad).

The town improved as we cycled through the outskirts and we made our way to 'Centru'. Eagle eyed Miles spotted the Tourist Info. Bureau where we booked our bed for the night in a nice clean Pension.

An hour or so later had us chomping through our lovely dinner and talking Romanian recent history with the well informed and fluent in English owner. Just as well her English was good otherwise it would have been a very short conversation.

Today, total of 61 very rough though lovely traffic fee, cool miles and 575m of ascent. Total trip 2711 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.

05/06/07/08 August 2008

Tuesday 05 August 2008

Rest day in Eger, Hungary. No miles planned, no height to gain just lots of dossing and scratching of bellies...

Overnight, we had a rainstorm of mammoth proportions and luckily, didn't get washed away. We were surprised however, to see animals abandoning the campsite 2x2.

Made a late start for a change and after breakfast, Tracey visited the local facilities (river) to bash some clothes on rocks... Well, she did a load of washing at the campsite sinks.

Whilst this was going on, Miles was giving Disharmony II some much needed TLC. Unusually this involved the replacement of yet another drive chain, the last having worn out in less than 1000 miles.

Luckily, we were able to pick up another replacement in a bike/chainsaw/computer(?) shop passed en route yesterday.

The amount of drive train wear is testament to the hillyness of the terrain we've been passing through and hopefully, the tandem's appetite for parts will reduce now we're passed the Tatra's... Maybe....

The afternoon was spent turning....both the washing on the (Miles rigged) line and our bodies as we dossed about in the tent.

Dinner was taken back in the town at the same restaurant we ate at yesterday. Sadly, overnight the quality had nosedived and the food and service were very disappointing. Miles had a near (alcoholic) miss when the waiter (dumb of dumber fame) delivered the devils brew instead of the more acceptable alcohol free alternative.

Watched a bit of a Hungarian folk festival as we sauntered back to the campsite munching on ice cream.

Got back to the campsite and bumped into a couple of Kiwis doing their world tour. They'd driven their camper van from Taunton, all over the UK and arrived in Eger via the scenic route. Had a good natter and it was nice to have an English speaking interlude for a change. Also turns out, they live in the same one horse town in NZ (Nelson) as another couple of Kiwi friends of ours...small world.

Back in the saddle tomorrow.

Wednesday 06 August 2008

The plan today is to ride from Eger, Hungary and finish in Debrecen just short of the Hungarian/Romanian border. Total distance of around 80 miles.

Awoke early due to our Polish neighbours (apparently) packing and leaving before dawn. When we emerged from the tent, we were disappointed to find, they'd just gone for the day.

Met another couple of cycle tourists at the site who had travelled from the Netherlands via Austria and the Danube. Their plan was also to cycle to Debrecen though over two days.

Packed up and left the campsite around 09:30. As usual, we had a bruiser of a hill to start our day.

Found the exit from town easily and stopped en route at our new favourite service station (OMV) for daily supplies. Happily, this did include a goodly ration of high quality CAKE.

In climbing temps. and sunny skies, followed rolling secondary roads 2501 and 2502 to Mezokovesd, Hungary.

Just outside Mezokovesd, we collected our second puncture of the trip which Miles fixed by the roadside. Not bad going, 2 in 2500 miles though shhhhhh, don't let anyone hear that....

From Mezokovesd, we followed secondary road 3305 to a mini RORO ferry at Arokto. Lovely countryside, nice villages and zero traffic. Brilliant cycling


As we left Arokto, we came across a couple of cars stopped in the road with the owners engaged in an intense discussion. It transpired, the ferry was out of service as the river was running too high which stopped the essential RORO bit.

A bit miffed, we turned tail and retraced our hard won steps to pick up the next viable river crossing.

More lovely countryside and ace cycling later, we found ourselves about 30 miles from our starting point though having cycled 65 miles to get there! Hmmmmmm.

We rejoined the main Route 33 which led all the way to Debrecen. En route, we bumped into our Dutch compadres whom we met this morning. They had managed a paltry 30 miles and were planning a stop at the next town.

We also stopped short of our intended destination at a campsite in Hortobagy, Hungary. With the extra, unnecessary mileage we clocked up a total of 93 miles and the extra distance to Debracen would have pushed this into the 130's.....too much.

Dinner was had at a nice restaurant across the road and we sampled our first, genuine Hungarian Goulash. Unfortunately, this was accompanied by a Frenchman with verbal diarrhoea.......

Today more hot and not so amusing unnecessary excess miles. Total 93 miles and a pretty flat 145m of ascent. Total trip 2514 miles.

Thursday 07 August 2008

Today we plan to reach Oradea in Romania from our starting point of Hortobagy in Hungary. This is an expected distance of 65 miles and will see us chalk up our 9th country of the trip.

The day started well when we met a nice Swiss couple at the campsite who regaled us with tales of their 3 year odyssey to Africa and Asia in a 6 wheel drive armoured ex-prison van. As if this wasn't enough, they did it with their 'new' 2 month old kid in tow!

Very interesting stories, these two made the cycling Swiss couple we met in Finland look sane....

Unfortunately, too much chat had us on the road later than planned and at nearly 10:00, we set off into the morning heat and sunshine.

Our first 25 miles or so due east had us making up yesterday's shortfall to Debrecen. The roads were flat, arrow straight for 10's of miles at a stretch and accompanied by the most evil headwind known to man.

Having skipped breakfast due to the chatting, we arrived at the outskirts of Debrecen a bit knackered to say the least.

We easily navigated our way through the town and the homing beacon must have been functioning as we shortly found ourselves standing in front of the biggest Tesco store we had ever seen

The old adage of never shopping whilst hungry should have been applied as Miles emerged from the store 30 mins later with two carrier bags laden with sugar filled goodies.

After double helpings of CAKE and a litre of pop each, we felt both a little queasy and re-energised in equal measure.

Recharged, we hit the ring road to take us towards the Romanian border.

At this point we also turned due south and away from the spiteful headwind we'd 'enjoyed' from the start of the day.

Due to the unfeasably long place names now, we adopted our own system based on peoples first names.

En route to the border, we visited, Mike, Sara, Derek, Betty and Peter. These towns all have names with at least 20 letters in them and many syllables. Too much for our addled brains.

We reached a real country border for a change. Romania only joined the EU in 2007 and clearly have not got used to the idea of ceding sovereignty to the Eurocrats in Brussels.

We were asked to produce our passports by a real live customs official and then demonstrating a modicum of humour, he asked for the papers for Disharmony II.

'On yer bike' would have been an appropriate response but of course we were too polite.

During the run out of the border zone, there were hundreds of HGV's stacked ready to be processed through the border.

Again, our new Romanian cousins haven't quite got the idea of open borders and reduced bureaucracy between the EU member states. Perhaps they'll get the idea in a year or so and make all their customs men redundant.

In busy traffic we made our way into the outskirts of Oradea. This part of the city looked really grim with several closed down, rust coloured industrial plants peppering the route in.

As we followed the signs for 'Centru' and dodged the traffic, we stumbled across a respectable looking and alleged 4 star hotel.

Before you could say 'bugger me, that looks nice', we were booked in and lounging in our room.

DISASTER!!! At this point we discovered we'd left our UK to funnyeurojohnyforeignerdodgyelectricery adapter in a previous hovel. Double drat!

OK. Necessity being the mother of invention, in short order, Miles had fashioned a 'work around' from a hotel table lamp and some insulating tape and he now sports a very fetching frizzy hairstyle.

Dinner was had in the very pretentious hotel restaurant and was actually quite nice though we were served by a Mr. Bean act alike.

Later we had a double doh moment when we realised we'd 'lost' another hour by passing into the Romanian time zone. Mind it felt more like 50 years at times......

Today more hot, flat, straight and bum burning miles. Total 71 miles and 120m of ascent. Total trip 2585 miles.

Friday 08 August 2008

With the big miles of the past couple of days and having missed an hour's sleep, we started the day feeling a little jaded.

Breakfasted at the hotel which was a splendid affair.

Shortly afterwards, we were amused to see a couple of businessmen 'parting company' with their economic overnight companions.

The plan for today is to dispatch the 60 miles to Huedin, Romania and in fact in the middle of Transylvania.

Left around 09:00 into the bustle of the Oradea rush. Thankfully the rust coloured architecture of yesterday had been replaced with some lovely Baroque buildings which was much better.

We got our heads down in very hot temps. and very heavy traffic. We've notice an immediate change in HGV driver behaviour, the Romanian's being very aggressive bordering on witless at times.

The villages we passed through were more run down than we'd seen elsewhere though the scenery was very pretty. We also saw our first shoeless beggar children of the trip and the whole place had a bit of a depressed air to it.

Though the HGV drivers did their best to force us into the shrubbery, the public at large were very welcoming and beeped and waved as they passed by.

About halfway to our destination, we met another pig of a hill and gained over 600m up a 1:10 hill in the midday heat.

We were both dripping (and gasping) as we crested the summit though the descent down the other side was surprising free from HGV intervention. Unfortunately this did not last long.

We carried on fighting the heat and trying to keep on the white line at the side of the road to avoid any HGV aggression.

A little later, this proved our undoing when the bike dropped off the edge of the tarmac and spun back across the road spitting it's precious cargo of Miles & Tracey off in the process.

Fortunately, we seemed to be in a rare non-traffic bubble and we somehow avoided getting in anyone's way.

After rolling around a bit, we scuttled to the side of the road. We then tended a bit of first aid to poor Disharmony II, checked each other out (not necessarily in that order) and got on our way.

As we arrived in Huedin, we were both equally unimpressed and cycled straight out of the other side.

We then found a roadside hotel for the evening that was better than it looked.

Checked in, showered, changed, ate and slept.

Today more hot, traffic infested (and at times acrobatic) miles. Total 65 miles and 655m of ascent. Total trip 2650 miles.

More Southerly ramblings to follow.

Back soon. Miles & Tracey.