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