June 20th Ciocarla to Constanta

June 20^th  Stage 60 Ciocarla to Constanta  34 kms

Setting off from the railway crossing at Ciocarla it was difficult to believe that in an hour or so, all being well, of course, I would have completed the entire crossing of Europe from Galway in the west of Ireland on the Atlantic seaboard to Constanta in eastern Romania on the shores of the Black Sea. Nonetheless, I was holding my breath, sometimes literally, as truck after truck thundered past me on the 17 km straight and undulating stretch to the main  road junction after the Danube to Black Sea canal. Still, all went well as I turned on to the four lane highway, leading after 15 kms or so into Constanta, and it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared. Traffic was relatively light and kept its distance. Curiously, even now one or two

people would cheer me on. Only on one section where the road bifurcated to Tulcea and I found myself forced  into the middle of the road did I feel uncomfortable. I paused at the pilots boat, named Constantia, hauled up beside the road to indicate the entrance to the city, for a photo stop, and then it was unexpectedly easy plain sailing the final five kilometers to our hotel on the Boulevarde Decembre 1918, from which Katherine and I walked, with the bicycle, together down to the decrepit, once magnificent but now very sad, Cazino, on the very shore of the Black Sea. Mission well and truly accomplished. It remains to explore what appears to be a fascinating city tomorrow and then to go home.

34 kms 671 kms from Severin. 4736 kms from Galway

June 19th Calarasi ferry to Ciorcarla

June 19th Stage 59  Calarasi ferry to Ciorcarla 103 kms

Only 133 kms to Constanta and the thought was at the back of my mind as we took the ferry across the Danube that perhaps I could do that distance today. However, I knew that the final 30 or so kms would be the most difficult so I wasn’t counting on it.  I was, nonetheless, spurred on. Off the ferry onto a short, narrow stretch of Romanian territory that is sandwiched between the floodplain of the river on my left and a rusty old barbed wire fence separating me from the unprepossessing apartment blocks in Bulgarian Silistra on my right.  But I was soon out into the countryside proper along a road which was really quite hilly and very beautiful. I took advantage of the extensive views from the top of each rise to take my last look at the Danube which, after the Dervent monastery, would curve away in a northerly direction not to be seen again unless one went to the delta which, in our case, was becoming less likely. I felt a little sad though to be leaving it after so many

thousands (literally) of kilometers but the riding was uplifting with a welcome variety of open plain, thick woodland, dusty villages and enormous vineyards. I joined a young couple both of whom, although still only in their mid twenties would very soon become fully fledged judges but I think they were a little embarrassed

that I was riding much faster than they were and conversation was difficult, in any case, on the hills.  The curious renovated (reconstituted?)  Tropaeum Traiani monument at Adamclisi delayed us for a while but the

curator there was not quite so effusive as Mr Sapca had been at Sucidava and we were left to simply gaze in amazement at the huge tower which is clearly being turned into a major national Romanian site – not that there was anyone but ourselves on this beautiful, hot, summer’s afternoon. I was still going very strongly after 100 kms but by the old railway crossing at Ciorcarla and after a couple of near misses with fast moving trucks we stopped for the night, excited by only a the few kilometers left tomorrow to reach the finishing post.

103 kms  637 kms from Severin; 4702 from Galway

June 18th Ulmeni to Danube ferry after Calarasi

June 18th  Stage 58  Ulmeni  to Danube ferry after Calarasi  69kms

I am hoping that by conserving some energy with another short stage today I will have the strength tomorrow to do all, or most of the remaining 132 kilometres to the finishing post in Constantja. As we had stayed the night at the ferry crossing, having not got as far as I had hoped yesterday, and needed therefore to get back to Ulmeni, I rode, what would normally have been the final 15 kilometres of the day around Calarasi, first thing in the morning whilst I was fresh. This section, I have to say, is dispiriting. The road, dead straight for a number of kilometers, runs alongside an ugly waterway with the gaunt silhouette of Calarasi, its iron towers and its gantries, stark against the skyline. The ubiquitous fishermen and even the shepherds and goatherds did little to mitigate what was essentially for me a very bleak urban landscape.  And then there was a short section of  the main road to Bucharest busy with heavy lorries.  Better to ride this part in the morning, than in the afternoon when I might be tired and more prone to carelessness..

At Ulmeni we took a coffee in the shade outside the magazin mixt, the owner bringing out a couple of stools from his living room for us. I think I could have sat there all day but there was work to be done if this were to be the penultimate (or virtually penultimate) stage of the entire long journey. The day was more or less uneventful. I rode slowly trying to take in as much as possible. I was particularly impressed by the gardens, all of which are cultivated with vegetable plots, and/or orchards, sometimes with vines. Householders take over the space between their front fence and the tarmac to grow potatoes and other vegetables. Flowers abound. Many of the mostly small houses are lovely, neatly cared for. Today appeared to be fence painting day, whole families getting in on the act. Despite the heat which continues unabated I felt fresh at the end of the day when we enjoyed ourselves watching life on the wide river, in particular a huge barge, perhaps the biggest we have seen, literally inching its way upstream against the current, with the grey tower blocks of Silistra, which is both Bulgarian and Romanian, on the far bank of the river, acting as the background.

69kms 534 kms from Tismana, 4599 from Galway.   

June 17th Guirgui to Ulmeni

June 17th Stage 55 Guirgui to Ulmeni  79 kms

Another difficult day in the heat, especially as today I felt very tired indeed. The first 9 or so kms up the E85 towards Bucharest were not as bad as I had feared they would be and there was even a cycle lane of sorts to distance me from the traffic. Then just before Plopsoru I turned off onto the quiet side roads for some delightful cycling across mildly undulating countryside and through small vineyards and villages which certainly appeared to be more prosperous than the ones we had grown used to. We were, after all only 60 kms or so south of Bucharest.  Prundu was especially attractive with roses in full bloom flanking every street and young saplings which in a few years time will provide all the shade that anyone would need.  We took a welcome coffee sitting outside a small shop, greeting the children on their way home from school, watching the world go by, not unlike most other people in these villages to be honest, before enjoying one of the few shady sections of the route in a tiny national park some half a dozen kilometers further on. A local man passed on his bike and insisted we accept a couple of peaches each and then took the live snails he had been collecting in the woods and wanted us to take a supply of these too! Incidents like this were happening all the time. We have been delighted so far by the open friendliness of the Romanians. By the time we arrived in Oltenita (73 kms) I was tired and a fascinating but rather unnerving funeral procession that we became caught up in with the body of what must have been a local dignitary judging by the size of the procession in full view in the open coffin did little to improve our spirits and after only another 6 kms we called it a day in the village of  Ulmeni.

79 kms  465kms from Severin 4530kms from Galway

June 16th Turnu Magurele to Giurgiu.

June 16th  Stage 54  Turnu Magurele to Giurgiu.  116 kms

Today was probably the most difficult of the entire journey from Ireland: 116 kms in 34 degrees and little shade. The riding, however, was pleasant with virtually no traffic whatsoever until the final three kms in Guirgui itself, and the experience of riding through village after village, encouraged by young and old alike, was much as it has been for the last three hundred kilometres since we entered Romania in Severin. Zemnicea was nowhere near as gloomy as we had been led to believe although it is true that there remain a fair number of gaunt buildings, gaping and unfinished after the earthquake of nearly forty years ago, and the town has its usual quota of sad, derelict factories. However, we found a delightful park in the town centre with shade to eat lunch, and there are definitely worse towns that I have been in!

I rode some distance today with a delightful French couple of our age from Brittany who, when they reach Constantja will have satisfied a retirement dream, and we hope to see them again, and Stefan, somewhat younger, who has been all over eastern Europe but who worried me somewhat when he told me that he had had to use his ultra sound weapon against dogs every single day; I confess I am afraid of dogs but I was unable to buy an appropriate defence mechanism in France or Switzerland. So far I have been troubled only by a few small yapping beasts , quite easily outpaced by a spurt of acceleration. Stefan told me that a whistle is equally effective and I do have one of those. I will make sure it is handy tomorrow; I certainly do not want to push my luck.

I was too exhausted in Guirgui to take the trouble to pedal the extra distance to look at the Friendship Bridge which, I think, I really ought to have done, or even gone further and driven over the bridge to spend the night in Bulgaria in Ruse which, by all accounts is a far more interesting city than Guirgui. To be honest, there is only one objective now: to get to the Black Sea.

116 kms, 386 kms from Tismana, 4451 kms from Galway.  

What a difference I’m finding in this section of the ride. The roads are quiet, there are no difficult ,big towns and with only one, well paved road to choose from there are no route finding difficulties. So I travel along at an average of 60 kms , careful of all the bikes and horse drawn carts but having time to look around, enjoying the fantastic flowers on the verges,  and the long views across fields of sunflowers, maize and wheat to the distant Danube.  

Whilst waiting for Richard to arrive  I’ve spent a lot of time spotting the storks’ nests and interestingly noting that that the mass of branches and twigs also seem to be home to countless small birds who have added their own pieces of soft grass or hay and spend the time going in and out whilst the stork and 3 chicks perched on top, take no notice whatsoever.  Katherine

June 15th Stage 55 Bechet to Turnu Magurele

June 15th  Stage 55  Bechet to Turnu Magurele  80 kms 

Back to Bechet in the car to ride the 45 kms into Corabia which was mainly remarkable for our visit to the Roman ruins of Sucidava just before we entered Corabia.  We were resting in the shade when Mr Dimitro Sapca, the curator of the site and the sixth generation descendent of a famous revolutionary Sapca insisted on showing us around.  And very interesting it was too. Not only were we captivated by Dimitro’s enthusiasm but he showed us some interesting things, but nothing perhaps more interesting than the well which we accessed through a door, down 18 metres of steps to a delicious pool of cool sweet water.  He claimed, and I am sure he is correct, that the well is unique in Europe. We went to his house to collect more fresh water from his well before continuing the ride into Corabia past the huge but utterly derelict textile factory on the outskirts into the tree lined centre of the small town which though distinctly unlively seems to us to be very friendly.

But we had to hurry because another fierce storm was brewing and I tore along the completely straight road into Turnu Magurele but not before the rain began.  Our hotel was immediately next door to the cathedral of Saint Harlambie with its curiously spiraling towers where the wedding march played at least twice;  As at Sremski Karlocva in Serbia we appeared to have hit upon the wedding centre of this part of Romania. We enjoyed sitting in the park in the early evening with all the locals en famille, and especially the children enjoying the play parks, of which these southern Romanian towns seem to be well supplied.

80 kms  270 from Tismana 4335 kms from Galway

June 14th: Cetate to Bechet

June 14^th, Friday,  Stage 54 :  Cetate to Bechet  105 kms.

 

Back early this morning at the long straggling village of Cetate and very quickly covered the first ten kilometers to Maglavit where I saved myself at least 12 kms, not to mention the hassle of riding through Calafat, by taking an excellent short cut which brought me out at the surprisingly lively village of Poiana Mare on the road which eventually would take us to Corabia some 140 kms away. With hindsight maybe we missed something very significant in Calafat because, coincidentally, today was the day, according to the BBC, that the bridge over the Danube to Vidin in Bulgaria was opened after, someone told us in our hotel in the evening, a wait of four years. In fact, he clearly didn’t believe it had been opened today.

The next section of the ride continued in much the same w

 ay as yesterday;  For nearly a hundred kilometers I cycled through quiet villages, greeted everywhere, even by the women or girls whose job, it seemed, was to look after the geese in the narrow space between the front of the house and the road, all day long. Goatherds and shepherds are similarly employed. There are animals everywhere: stray dogs which, thankfully, so far, have been no danger, pigs sometimes wandering in the road, scores of horses tethered by the roadside grazing on the fresh grass which, it seems, has been left particularly for them, and in Bistret, and its two neighbouring smaller villages, for example, close by the lake
Bisteul, we counted at least fifty storks nests on the tops of the electricity poles. Occasionally a newish car would scream past, scaring the wits out of everybody and watched by locals shaking their heads but mostly life in general and traffic in particular was very sedate. Village after village passed with stretches in between which felt remote but weren’t really, and which often gave quite extensive views over pasture to the distant Danube. Eventually, I came to Bechet where traffic was a little heavier and after a long day I decided to load the bike into the car and drive to the well- placed Hotel Sucidava on the very banks of the Danube in Corabia, although not before, a large group of men who, observing me crawling on the ground to look beneath the car, had put my mind at rest by assuring me that what I had thought to be a leak was only the air conditioning. They were
though most helpful. A very satisfying day which brings us even closer to our destination in Constantja.

105 Kms Total from Severin 190. Total from Galway 4355. 

June 13th 2013 Dobreta Turnu Severin (Tismana) to Cetate

Thursday, June 13^th 2013.

Dobreta Turnu Severin (Tismana) to Cetate 85 kms

Stage 53

 
Back at exactly the place (just above the village of Tismana some thirty kilometers from Severin) where we finished cycling last September the day’s riding started with a climb over to Burila Mare. The views from the open summit over the Danube and across to the hills in Bulgaria on the other side were splendid and I was soon in fine form. There is so much of interest. I was myself the object of interest, lots and lots of people spurring me on with encouraging shouts and waves, children stepping into the road to give me high fives, old folks sitting in the shade outside their houses cheerfully waving. It was tremendous and a great boost to the spirits. Traffic was very light as the road wound its way attractively through simple quiet village after simple quiet village, although some villages were not so quiet, some folk appearing to have a penchant for playing local music extremely loudly from amplifiers at the front gate; Maybe not surprisingly the horse and carts were a great attraction. I would come up behind them frequently and spend a moment or two smiling a greeting at the children in the back and then, overtaking, wave cheerfully to the mother and father perched on the seat at the front.
  Farmers ploughing with horses, working wells in every village, storks nests perched precariously on the tops of electricity poles and many of the houses, though often in need of maintenance nonetheless had beautifully tended gardens and were brightly painted.  We retreated after 85 kms in the face of a black storm in the village of Cetate, returning by the main road to Severin.

85 kms. from Tismana - 4,150kms. from Galway