Romania - it's been emotional

Flailed by hot dry winds,

covered in dirt, dust and sweat,

we struggle on, tired.

How many highs and lows can two people have in the space of six days ? Bucketloads.

Since leaving our cool, air-conditioned haven in Beska (Serbia)  last Thursday we have experienced extreme heat, battled horrendous headwinds, cycled through stunning river gorges, camped behind shrubs on the edge of a field and wallowed in luxury in a hotel.

Our hotel in Beska, Serbia - for a ludicrous €22 per night.

Hazy sunset, Beska.

We left Beska as early as we could after breakfast, heading for Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Even so, it was already 33 degrees Celcius by 8.30. Luckily we only had 60km to ride so we arrived before midday and spent the obscenely hot afternoon hours relaxing in the shade. It got to 40 degrees that day, but the good news was that it was expected to start cooling slowly over the next few days to the more manageable mid then low 30's.

Despite knowing that it was only forecast to be 36 on Friday, we decided to make an early start to get through Belgrade before too much traffic made it a nightmare for cycling. Leaving at 6.20am unfortunately wasn't early enough.

By the time we arrived in the city from the campground (on the outskirts) at 7.30 the streets were already teeming with cars and a nasty headwind was making itself felt. Signage, really quite good throughout the rest of Serbia, let us down in the city centre and we missed an important turn, spending an unfortunate hour meandering through the city streets until someone finally pointed us in the right direction.

We did however find a great little bakery right in the centre of town where we purchased some delicious pastries. These wonderful pastries kept us going all day. And a very long day it was.

Thirteen and a half hours after leaving that morning we pulled up outside a tiny restaurant with a couple of rooms to let, 105km from Belgrade. You do the maths, it's not pretty. Between Belgrade and Dubovac, for that was the name of this pinprick on the map, we battled ever worsening head winds, slowing us down to 9km/h at times (we usually cruise at about 20km/h).

We had planned to camp but the campsite marked on our map did not exist, so we had to continue an extra 15km along a dirt track, with a dust storm at our backs, until we found somewhere to stay. The air was extremely hazy from the wind and the Danube, quite choppy.

Dust storm across the Danube.

Dust storm, dead trees in the water and our cycle path.

We had a bit of a sleep in the next day and didn't leave until almost 9, with a good breakfast under our belts - hard sheeps cheese, boiled eggs, bread and jam with an excellent almost turkish-style coffee. Heading north and east toward the Romanian border unfortunately the head wind had not died down overnight, in fact seemed to have strengthened. Some gusts had us battling to stay on the road as it came in from the side. From the front it slowed us down to 7km/h at times. And then there was the huge hill not marked on our map – with a 12% gradient !

Bela Crkva, Serbia

Hills of Muntil Locva, Romania

To make matters worse we had to traverse east along one valley for 20km against the wind before turning around and coming 20km down the next valley in a westerly direction (luckily with the wind at our backs this time) just to reach a border crossing that we could use (the closer one was only open for locals). We relaxed once in Romania though, knowing that it is not just not illegal to wild camp (like in Croatia and Serbia) but that it is entirely legal to camp on public land.

Our next problem was money, the nearest ATM was in a town about 50km away, against the wind (you cannot buy Romanian currency outside of Romania) but we had forseen this and stocked up on food before leaving Serbia, so we could at least wild camp and eat.

And water – no taps or pumps visible on the streets of the villages (In Hungary, the pumps in the street were all bright blue, making them easy to find). Neil ended up asking a woman in a little one-roomed village shop for water and she gladly filled our bottles. And the next day as well, an old woman sitting outside her house in the village of Svinita helped us out with water.

In fact, we have found the Romanians to be even friendlier than the Serbians with their waving and their hellos. Though sometimes the horn honking can be a bit startling. We have not, as seems the norm with tourists to this country, included a photograph of horse and cart on Romanian roads. While we have seen (and even overtaken) horses and carts on the roads here (as we have in Hungary, Serbia, Croatia and Ireland), Audis are more prevalent.

Choppy Danube.

Hand-made haystacks, rather than machine made bales.

As we came back to the Danube from our 40km border crossing diversion we found the wind even worse than before. We struggled on as far as we could then made camp by the side of a field. We didn't sleep well that night because the wind did not abate one iota and the tent fly kept flapping noisily throughout the night. There was another stunning sunset with all the dust in the air and so many stars visible away from all the light pollution of towns.

Another stunning sunset

Up with the sunrise on Sunday morning and off early into the breach once more – this headwind thing was starting to wear us down. The prevailing winds along the Danube are generally downstream and this upstream gale had the river a mess of white capped waves and a churned dirty brown colour. Sunday morning was the worst yet.

We arrived in Moldova Noua to find an ATM and at least get some local currency. Luckily one of the two machines was working. From Moldova Noua the river swells into a bulge and the wind coming over the water was tremendously strong – we were held to 6km/h for the parts of the road that faced into the wind – which was a lot of it, seeing as we were following the river downstream. 

Leaning into the wind, trying to stay on the road

However, we were now in the Portile de Fier (Gates of Iron) National Park and the road closely follows the river through some very narrow gorges. The steep hills on either side began to offer some protection from the winds. They were also stunning to look at. Almost like cycling through fjords but without the pine trees. 

Self photo in the Iron Gates

Iron Gates National Park

On the Serbian side, the road continues through 18 tunnels where the rocky hillside is too steep but on the Romanian side, the road winds right by the river nearly the entire way from Bazias near the border to Drobuta-Turnu Severin, a distance of about 130km. There are many problems with landslides so some stretches of road are currently under repair – both the road surface and the chunky bulwarks against the cliff faces to keep stones and dirt from the road.

Dogs everywhere, waiting, hoping.

Finally on Sunday afternoon the wind started to ease and we decided to treat our exhausted bodies to a rest in a B&B. Except that none that were marked on our map seemed to exist. So we plodded on and on and just when we'd almost had enough, we came across a Pensiune (B&B). The Cabana Delfinul was so restful we decided to stay another night and have a proper rest.

Our room looked over the Danube and our balcony had even better views up and down the river. The strong winds calmed to a gentle breeze and we had a lovely day on Monday relaxing, eating, reading and practicing our Romanian (a lot easier than Hungarian – sort of a strange mix of Italian and Russian).

Fisherman, seen from our balcony

From our balcony, a view of where the river narrows into 'the boilers'

Leaving this morning, farewelled by one of three resident dogs.

This morning we left after our breakfast omlettes and coffee (a cooked breakfast is one of the great advantages of not camping, unfortunately we can't afford to do it all the time) and headed along the river to a couple of steep hills which took the road away from the narrow river straits which create 'the boilers'. This part of the river also forms the barrier between the Carpathian Mountains in the north from the foothills of the Balkans in the south. Hills conquered, we ate our picnic lunch in Orsova along the riverbank of the port town before continuing.

The other side of 'the boilers' - if you look closely you can see a large cruise boat.

Decebalos, last Dacian king (1st century AD)

The next stretch of road was marked on our map as being busy with traffic, so we were prepared for the trucks and cars. What we weren't prepared for was a slight headwind and cycling next to a 50m drop with only a low stone bannister between us and oblivion. Every truck that goes past blows you just a little closer to that scary edge...

Anyway, we made it to Drobeta-Turnu Severin and when Neil suggested that perhaps we stop early (it was only 3pm) and see how much a hotel he'd seen signs for, with internet, would cost us, I agreed. He must have been able to see my still shaking hands. The Tudor Hotel cost us a very reasonable €45 for bed and breakfast and our room is larger than some tent pitches we've stayed on lately.

Dirty cyclist a bit lost in the plushness

So here we are, in Drobeta-Turnu Severin, only 935km upstream from the Black Sea. From here we are heading hell for leather across the flat lands of Romania until we reach the Black Sea. Don't expect to hear from us for a couple of weeks...

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words - Gabby; most photos - Neil

Phew !

Car fumes up my nose,
I feel sweat run down my spine -
summer cycling fun.

500km in six days, battling hills, strong headwinds, bad roads and intense heat ! We seem to have gained a new level of fitness lately - it certainly beats the pants off the 5 weeks we took to cycle the 1040km from Dublin to Noisy-sur-École back in March and April.

Today we are relaxing in Beska, Serbia (about 70km northwest of Belgrade), our first day off since leaving Budapest last Thursday. It has been a week of cloudless though hazy skies, temperatures closer to 40 degrees Celcius than 30 and it looks set to continue well into next week.

Croatia was full of interesting contrasts. Elegantly decorated old buildings next to very incomplete newer ones; wineries and green rows of vines interspersed with dry fields of ripe corn and drooping sunflowers; the sickly sweet odour of decomposing bags of rubbish, dumped overlooking sublime national park forests; cheap food and expensive accommodation.

As we came through Vukovar, a port town on the bank of the Danube, on Monday, we could see the holed and blackened ruins of a not so old water tower, left to commemorate the savage fighting around Vukovar in the early 1990's. The seige of Vukovar, also known as the Vukovar massacre, was the most damaging seige since that of Stalingrad in WWII. Many thousands of people were killed or otherwise 'unnaccounted for'. There is a large memorial outside the town.

Vukovar tower hanging over new buildings.

Ilok, old fortifications overlooking the Danube.

Hotel Dunav, Ilok - right on the bank of the Danube (Dunav in Croatian).

Past Vukovar we were surprised, unpleasantly in the hot afternoon, by a number of steep hills that were not marked on our maps. We are using the Huber Verlag official Euro Velo route maps and generally they are pretty good but we find that the quality of mapping varies from country to country.

The French ones were very good. The Hungarian maps had no distance markings at all. And yesterday afternoon, several kilometres after Novi Sad (in Serbia), we followed a road that was marked on the map as unpaved but should have been marked as extremely rough - on some of the hills the dirt and stones were so loose the bike tyres could get no purchase and we had to push.

Although re-entering Serbia yesterday brought a few pleasant surprises too. Nowhere since France have so many people waved, yelled 'hello', beeped their horns (in a friendly manner, not a 'get off the road' sort of honking) and smiled at us. Another pleasant surprise was the cost of an hotel. We are currently staying in the largest building in this town - a huge old plaster wedding cake affair from some bygone prosperous era - and paying €23 per night for the two of us, with cooked breakfast thrown in as well.

My turn to cook - making a tuna and kidney bean salad in the hotel room.

Sun sets behind the last hill of the day.

Hot hazy sky over Beska.

And hearing a Midnight Oil song blasting from an outdoor café in Novi Sad was a bit bizarre but certainly brought a smile to our faces.

And the road signs - every junction of the cycle route brings more amusing quotes...

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words by Gabby, most photos by Neil

Sign of the times

At crossroads they wait,
each pocketful of wisdom
guiding us deftly.

*
words and images by Neil

Everything's peachy

Cloudless, pale blue sky,
hot winds blow across the plains.
We ride into them.

We enjoyed a lovely couple of days in Budapest, relaxing, wandering around the old and not so old parts of Buda and Pest, sampling the cuisine, looking about. Unfortunately because the weather was so warm we didn't try lagos, a Hungarian deep fried dough that we had been hanging out for. We did try some Hungarian red wine though and it was very drinkable.

Fisherman's Bastion, near Buda castle.

Fisherman's Bastion from the inside.

Really cool froglike building on the Buda side.

Neil on the Szabadság hid, Pest side behind him.

Szabadság hid.

Fovam ter food markets - all the paprika varieties you could ever need.

Pest, another of many fabulous buildings.

Thursday morning as we cycled along the Danube through the city, the sun shone off verdigris roof tops and spires, promising another warm day. Summer certainly came to us in Hungary, we've had nothing but hot sunny days for more than a week now ( the only rain or storms, at night). And as we head further east, through Croatia and Serbia, it is only going to get hotter. We've seen the forecast.

Riverside cycle path through Budapest.

We're rich ! It was bamboozling working out the Forint to Euro rates.

The ride south from Budapest was a bit of a marathon, not just because we covered 95km but because the majority of it was on really badly potholed paths, into a headwind. We learnt a new Hungarian word that day - uthibak. That was the road sign that came just before each stretch of ridiculously potholed road, accompanied by a big exclamation mark.

Not finding any campgrounds anywhere near where we wanted to camp, we wild camped between the dike that the cycle path followed and a stretch of poplar trees. It was lovely and peaceful to be camping in the countryside again.

Early morning, sun not quite over the horizon, a heavy dew still on the grass.

Looking down from the dike top at our camp - note the lovely bike path.

But Friday was to be even worse - hotter and windier. We gave up after throwing ourselves into the wind for almost 60km and gave ourselves the afternoon off. At Szeliditó there was a tiny ramshackle hotel/campground at an old lake resort where we camped in the shade of more poplars for the princely sum of  €5 (1500 Hungarian Forint) - cheaper even than the cheapest camping in France (€7).

Preparations were underway in the village for celebrating the Hungarian National Day on August 20. We didn't stay for the celebrations but on our way out the next morning saw every man, his dog, bicycle, horse and cart on the way into town for the big day.

Instead we decided to try a different approach to the bumpy cycle path and minor road problem - ride down the highway, almost empty of traffic for the public holiday. We made good time on the lovely smooth surface, the wind having abated a little overnight. Even a 10km diversion down bumpy dirt tracks (due to lack of signposting and vague mapping) couldn't stop us from cycling 105km - the longest distance we have done in one day before and the first time we've made a century.

Neil playing with the camera as he rides along.

Another drive by shooting.

That was yesterday, we camped across the river from Mohács, intending to catch the ferry over the Danube then cycle south to cross over into Croatia. However, we missed the ferry this morning, by about two minutes and begrudging the hour's wait, decided to cycle on the left bank down into Serbia first, then cross over the river on a bridge into Croatia.

So we headed toward the border of Hungary and Serbia, stopping at the last village in Hungary, Hercegszántó, to fill our water bottles at a tap in a park. The tap didn't work and we were just about to continue on when a man who had been playing football with his wife and young son in the park invited us to follow him to get some water. He lived over the road so we went into the cool shaded courtyard of his house, filled with flowers and plants.

He only had one or two words of English so he beckoned us in calling for his sister "angolul, angolul" (angolul means English). She came out, hands covered in dough from baking, to translate. So we had this multi-sided conversation with her asking questions about us and our trip and then relating them to assorted family members in Hungarian. When the man's mother heard we were cycling to Istanbul, she hit herself in the chest in shock. When she heard that we had already ridden from Dublin she almost fell off her chair, smiling hugely the whole time.

Our water bottles filled, we made ready to leave and we were bade to wait a moment while the sister (the only name we got was the son's - Zoran) went off and came back with a plastic bag full of ripe white peaches. It must have weighed about 2kg. We thanked them profusely in English and Hungarian and gave Zoran a kangaroo pin.

Unfortunately, by the time we stopped for lunch the ripe peaches were a little worse for a couple of hours travel in a pannier - but delicious none the less.

Serbian Euro Velo 6 signs - read the fine print...

Hmm, life is hell. Lunch by the vines, shaded by a walnut tree, on a hill in the Croatian countryside. All that's needed is a cool breeze - yep, there it is.

The bag of peaches, looking considerably less full than when it was received.

So tonight we are in the lap of luxury, in a B&B in Bilje in Croatia, just outside of Osijek. We have air-conditioning (and boy, did we need it when we arrived mid afternoon), wi-fi, and a private bathroom. Why ? Because there are very few campgrounds in this part of the country and wild camping is illegal (possibly because of the still extant minefields dotted about the place, but I think it's mainly paranoia about gypsies).

More hot weather to come, so plenty more early starts ahead...

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words by Gabby, most photos by Neil.

Ahoj and Szía

Amber sun glints off

dragonfly's translucent wings -

among wild flowers.

Ahoj and szía – meaning hi - are about the only Slovakian and Hungarian words we've been able to get a grip on so far. Though we've spent less than a day in Slovakia and nearly a week in Hungary, our grasp of Hungarian remains abysmal, our only confident additions being kérem (please) and kosonem (thank you). It's embarrassing but it seems that the harder we try, the more the words just slip through our grasp. To our defence, apparently Hungarian is one of the most difficult languages to learn for an English speaker.

We left Petronell-Carnuntum bright and early Friday morning with clouds swirling above, undecided as to whether they should allow the sun through or not. We had a light shower of rain just before leaving Austria and by the time we stopped for lunch in Hungary the sun was blazing bright.

Quick break for a bite to eat just before leaving Austria for Slovakia.

The deserted Slovakian border looked like a soviet-era relic, a big unattractive angular concrete ediface, now peeling and grafittied over. We passed smoothly from Austrian bike paths to well maintained Slovakian ones, the main difference being that we could no longer decipher the road signs or billboards.

Having decided to bypass Bratislava, we stopped for a quick look - the impressive old castle dominates the skyline, clearly visible from the other side of the Danube - then cycled on, along bike paths nearly all the way to the Hungarian border. 

Bratislava castle, from the opposite side of the Danube.

Just over the border, cycling on (rather bumpy) roads, Neil calls out from behind (it being my turn to take the map and lead),

“How do you say 'hi' in Hungarian ?”

“Szía”

“Deer!”

“No, szía, like see-ya”

“No, deer – on the right”

There were three russet coloured deer grazing peacefully, or had been, now they were looking rather startled at our yelled conversation, in the fallow field between corn crops.

After a couple of hours spent on a mixture of very potholed roads, deep gravel paths and the occasional decent road we arrived in Lipot, and halted at the lovely peaceful campground between two lakes off the Danube (called the Duna in Hungary). After our dinner of pasta with tomato and tuna sauce we relaxed over a couple of cups of Hungarian red wine (a very cheap one, which was actually pretty good) and watched the sun sink behind reeds at the lake's edge, and the full moon rise in the other direction. Then the mosquitos arrived.

Cyclists welcome ? Slovakia-Hungary border.

Saturday was our first full day in Hungary, spent mostly on cycle paths (which were sort of smooth) and roads (which were mostly smoooth), with a couple of really rough sections on extremely bumpy and potholed roads just to test our mettle. Just before lunchtime, passing through Gyor, we happened upon a festival of some sort in the (very attractive) main square. It looked to be a bit of a medieval fair with costumed dancers and a really cool (very) old fashioned merry-go-round. 

Main square in Gyor.

My sort of fair ground ride !

This wasn't the worst by any means.

The food stalls looked and smelt fantastic too, but we had already bought our bread and cheese so we continued (eventually, after a wrong turn and some help from a couple of locals) out of town where we ate our picnic in between corn fields beside the bike path. We stayed that night in Komárom, a spa town, where there was also music happening, of a different sort. We were treated to Tom Jones and Beatles covers, some in Hungarian, some in English, until late into the night.

Komárom is twinned with Komarno on the Slovakian side of the Danube (they were one town until separated in the redrawing of boundaries after the first World War) and there we crossed back into Slovakia on Sunday morning to cycle among wild flowers (and the occasional goat herd) to the ruins of the Roman fortress of Kelemantia. 

Across the Slovakian plains to the Visegrád mountains

A stone map of the larger Roman garrisons of the area.

Wildflowers in front of the ruins of Kelemantia.

We have seen many relics of Roman occupation in the area - for a couple of centuries the Danube was extremely important as the boundary of the Roman empire. Of course there have been many civilisations along the Danube from early stone age times and one of the things I regret not being able to see in Vienna (on account of the Natural History Museum being closed on Tuesdays) was the Willendorf Venus, a tiny stone fertility figure found by the river about a century ago.

Cycling through the flat plains of rural Slovakia, alongside fields of hay and corn, wild flowers and occasionally forest, we could see in the distance the blue mounds of the Visegrád mountains gradually coming closer. Then, about 10km before the town we saw the green verdigris dome of Esztergom's basilica, rising above the plains with the mountains as backdrop.

Esztergom basilica, from the bridge between Slovakia and Hungary - and it's not even called the Friendship bridge !

It had been our intention to arrive in Esztergom early in the afternoon, in order to explore the historic buildings of the town. We arrived early enough, making good time in the heat, but it was so hot by then that all we wanted to do was relax in the shade. So we did. Only rousing ourselves to move to go and see the spectacular sunset over the river.

Danube sunset.

Looking upstream from Esztergom.

From Esztergom, the Danube curves around the 'Knee of the Danube', changing general direction from west-east to north-south because of the bulk of the Visegrád mountains to the east. So, riding out from Esztergom on Monday, early because we knew the forecast was for an even hotter day than Sunday, we were treated to lovely scenery all around as the river curved between foothills. 

It's only 9.30 and we're sweating already !

As the hills faded into the distance behind us we began to pass more and more riverside cafés, bars and restaurants, boat ramps and beaches (some of them even sandy) as we got closer and closer to Budapest. To avoid unnecessary headaches, we elected to stay at a campground a couple of kilometres north of the city centre and catch the train in to sightsee on Tuesday. It is so much easier not having to negotiate city streets searching for information and accommodation with the fully laden bikes.

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words by Gabby, photos by Neil except for the pretty wildflower one