Euro E2E - The Route
Friday, 15 August 2008
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
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.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
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.
Monday, 11 August 2008
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.
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