The European through road 80 is not short, but busy. The opening of the parallel motorway is planned to be this month. Bad luck!
In exchange you can cover lots of kilometers on this road. Early in the afternoon we’ve already made 100 and turn into the hills to the mineral baths.
Is it due to the placebo effect or not, anyway we soon feel better after 15 minutes in the 35 degrees warm healing water.
Now we’re having dinner at a Turkish restaurant, but tomorrow we’ll first go to Greece for one or two days.
Yesterday we were at the place where it happened. A little over 10 years ago, my university friend Onur was killed when he slid on a wet road into the opposite lane where he graced an oncoming car, crashed into a tree and died tragically
Today there was the most beautiful and hopefully already the most dangerous route so far. Riding along the huge bays which the dammed-up Danube forms in the Carpathian Mountains is truly fabulous!
So beautiful that me too, I have pushed my bicycle at some point ;-)
Here’s the delayed post of yesterday, due to infrastructure. Today we went by train to the starting point of the journey and to the end point of the journey of 2012, Vrsac in Serbia. That means stopping twice a while longer for passport controls of Romanians and Serbs. From Vrsac we finally started, 45 kilometers southeast on dead straight roads, once again to the Romanian border, again two really friendly passport controls. Then 50 kilometers across a bad mountain in order to save us from 45 km of earth routes with crushed rock.
Finally holiday
I load the bike, then I cycle to the Lindau motorway. There Pauli and his father pick me up and take me to Memmingen Airport. We wrap the bicycles into cellophane and hand them over at the bulky luggage counter. We fly to Timisoara in Rumania, there Liviu picks us up with his van - means of transportation number 4. He drives to the center across the villages because both of us must share the co-driver’s seat . Suddenly we are right in the middle of a flock of cows. Why, for whatever reason didn’t I dare to jump quickly onto a cow- that would have been number 5!
At the beginning a few speeds measured today.
The squatty German travelling cyclist with 20kg of luggage at an incline of 7%: 7 km/h
At the beginning a few speeds measured today.
The squatty German travelling cyclist with 20kg of luggage at an incline of 7%: 7 km/h
The mean common Bulgarian mosquito at an incline of 7%: 11km/h
The mean common Bulgarian wasp at an incline of 7%: 14 km/h
The common and uncommonly mean Bulgarian mountain dog at an incline of 7%: 25km/h.
Briefly on the main artery road, then a farewell to the Danube and down to the quiet by-road into the Balkan Mountains to Montana. No way. As a start the road is quiet and well paved, but after 20 km there are the hordes of lorries which cut short here.
Fortunately they drive in a very foresighted and thoughtful way, according to Pauli presumably because they are used to the tootling along of the still frequent carts. The utterly bad road and the not at all soft hills only put the icing on the cake so that we finish the stress today after 90km.
Continental breakfast, then to the only bicycle shop in town. This one fortunely has got the fitting saddle clips for Pauli’s bicycle. Let’s forget about yesterday’s drama with umpteen kludges.
A customer in the shop knows the best way to Vidin, through Serbia and across a huge island in the Danube. Again a splendid scenery defended - luckily for us- only by shy and skinny dogs
Finally in Bulgaria, country number 7 of nine on our way to Turkey.
Once again a low-priced Grand Hotel, for dinner to a weirdly loud and overcrowded folk festival.
At the beginning a few speeds measured today.
The squatty German travelling cyclist with 20kg of luggage at an incline of 7%: 7 km/h
The mean common Bulgarian mosquito at an incline of 7%: 11km/h
The mean common Bulgarian wasp at an incline of 7%: 14 km/h
The common and uncommonly mean Bulgarian mountain dog at an incline of 7%: 25km/h.
That speed however he can’t maintain for a long time and he also lets himself push away by friendly Bulgarian car drivers.
