Eastern Europe - A late and extended edition

Hello beautiful readers. It’s been a long long long time since I’ve written. Thank you to everyone who's been so nice about this blog since we got back - it makes it all worth it. Having reread most of it now a lot of it could definitely have done with a good proof read... Ever since we got back this blog has been quite literally an unfinished chapter for me and it's been on my mind for a while to give it the conclusion it deserves - and I'm also worried that some people might think we finished after the last post - especially as it was quite negative (sorry Bulgaria). I'm going to do a few more posts to "finish it off" starting with a blog post I wrote ages ago whilst we were still on the road - not sure why I didn't post it at the time. There’ll be more to come – including some deep reflection(!!) and another Q+A. 

Drobeta to Belgrade - June 22nd to June 25th 2017 

We left Romania via the damn at Drobeta. There was a very highly advertised museum at the damn so we decided to make a visit. The entrance fee was $4, which seemed a bit steep, but luckily we didn’t have that much money and they let us in anyway. Mum would say the museum was fab, I’d say it had potential. The exhibits were about the Danube but were randomly arranged, not via geography or chronology. There were also massive stuffed animals everywhere. And everything was in Romanian. Eventually Mum managed to drag herself away from pretending to read the noticeboards and we crossed the border. Our first problem was the lack of place to change money, and the nearest cashpoint being 50km away. Why does this always happen to us? We scraped together a below par lunch and were eating it when a British cyclist stopped for some water. It turns out he actually lives in Lapland. Lapland? It turns out there are genuinely people that live there, and supermarkets, and pubs… (although champagne apparently is expensive). He works for Father Christmas in the winter and spends the summers travelling. He was very interesting, but he did tell us about a climb coming up which wasn’t such welcome news. The view from the climb was absolutely staggering. 

We’d heard a lot about the iron gates gorge and it lived up to all expectations. After this we headed to the small town of Donji Milanovic and found a cashpoint, a 5 euro hostel, some delicious food, and two Swiss cyclists. 

We had a lovely time with them in the evening and in the morning continued on Eurovelo 6. The road on the Serbian side of the sea is beautiful and free of traffic, unlike the Romanian side which we could see lorries barrelling along across the river. The gorge continued and was really stunning. What wasn’t so beautiful was the constant headwind. We’d been struggling against this since we left Bulgaria and I was seriously worried it would follow us back to GU9 (Phoebe from the present - turns out all my fears came true). That night we wild-camped by the side of a deserted river and woke up absolutely surrounded by cars full of fishermen – we were a bit stressed we’d stolen somebody’s regular spot. They were all very friendly. Thankfully they didn’t offer us any fish.

 We soon reached the capital Belgrade which we’d been looking forward to for a long long time. We splashed out on a really nice hostel and a private room. (Phoebe from the present - we actually booked at Bike Hostel Belgrade but when we got there it was run by three not very nice looking men who had literally never heard of cycle tourists. It was a 6 bed mixed dorm with no kitchen or anywhere to do anything. I kicked up a huge fuss because I'd been so excited about this rest day. Mum very kindly gave in - and I think she didn't regret it). The next day we separated as we had different priorities – I went to the Nikola Tesla museum and Mum went to some old churches. (Phoebe from the present - I read out this post on the phone to her and she pointed out she also did all the laundry and fixed the tent zip...). I always crave these separations from Mum and then always miss her desperately when they actually happen #tragic. In the evening we reunited for a Bicycles Take The Street protest during which we met the BBC correspondent for old Yugoslavia. Anyway all too soon it was time to set off again and we headed off on Eurovelo 6.

Belgrade to Budapest - June 25th to July 1st 

Eurovelo 6 is mixed – sometimes it’s beautifully segregated, tarmacked, and sometimes it’s a field.. or a motorway. 

Our next milestone was Novi Sad. As we cycled into the city we could see the remains of bridges bombed by NATO, surprisingly recently. We decided to have a quick look round the city before pushing on and finding somewhere to camp. We soon found some riverside pub things with massive gardens that we thought looked good for camping. We picked one and went and asked. They were fine about it and we pitched our tent before heading in for a drink. We were immediately set on by this very drunk man who gave us both a “beautiful present” of a sponge and a scouring pad each. He did give us a sponge that matched each of our cycling jerseys, mine was blue and mum’s was yellow. That was a nice touch. He then gave us each a fly swatter. After these “beautiful presents” he tried to persuade us to come back to his house were we could sleep in the lift! He did some great demonstrations of us going up and down all night. Sadly we had to refuse this tempting offer. He then tickled me and was shouted at by the owner of the pub. He moved away, only returning to try and sell us some ladies tights. We didn’t have much use for these. Eventually we escaped to the tent and were hit by a huge thunderstorm. I was absolutely terrified despite mum’s continued reassurance that lightening couldn’t strike us in the tent. Her explanation of the physics of this was very suspect and I've since done some googling and it turns out she was talking complete rubbish.

After we escaped from the clutches of the weird man and survived the storm we headed off again down EV6. EV6 was becoming more and more official as we got further west, and there were jazzy signposts marking the route, with philosophical quotes sometimes like “It’s not the destination it’s the journey”.  There were also route options, with unpaved being red, normal being orange, and bad weather being green. This led to some tough decisions (arguments). After we left Novi Sad we decided to go for the more direct route, having read Beth and Adam’s blog (Beth and Adam are the American couple who wrote incredibly detailed blog posts, we'd been following them ever since Azerbaijan and I really feel like we're firm friends at this point. They're especially funny because Beth didn't want to go cycle touring and hates it) – they’d found the red route very hard. The German cyclist we’d met had also told us about “the best ice cream shop in the whole world” and the red route didn’t go past it.. We took the green route and the road was horrendous – very busy and narrow and full of lorries, but the wind was behind us for once and we made great progress. The ice cream lived up to expectations (I think it was in a place called Odzaci). We had planned to stay at “Bike Camp Longtour” that evening, in a place called Sombor. The campsite was quite expensive but how could we not stay at a place called Bike Camp Longtour?? We were hoping to meet other cyclists there as well. We got the campsite which was run by a lovely couple and it was great. The wall was covered in messages from other cyclists, and they had great facilities (although weirdly not a washing up sink in the kitchen??) and we got great advice from the owners. There were two other French cyclists there which gave me an opportunity to practise my French for Erasmus, as we listened to the archers and cooked spaghetti bolognaise on a proper stove I was shocked at how quickly our lives had improved. The hard days really did seem far away.

When we left Sombor we decided to take a brief detour into Croatia (mainly just to say we’d been there). The border queue was very long with a lorry tailback for miles and miles (#brexit) but we got to skip this and were soon in Croatia. 20 minutes later we were at another very long queue to get into Hungary. Mum said we should have tried to get through Croatia without unclipping, but we did fill up our water bottles. We didn’t spend any money though. We got to Hungary and went to a cashpoint, and the classic moment when we had no idea how much was an appropriate amount of money to withdraw. How much is 100,000??? Anyway we picked a random number. Hungary was a massive step up from anywhere we’d been so far and the border town we were in (Mohacsi) was very sophisticated. Mum had been to Hungary back when it was a communist country (if she hasn’t told you this I’m amazed, also did you know she went Vegan for lent last year?) and kept making jokes about how all ice cream was 3 forint so we could go anywhere and they would all be the same price.  I quickly stopped finding these jokes funny. We had an ice cream that definitely didn’t cost 3 forint, and then decided to cycle to the nearby town of Baja. To do this we had to get a ferry across the Danube which went every hour, and after waiting for ages we made the terrible mistake of getting on the ferry without a ticket. The angry Hungarian attendant shouted at us to get off but we couldn’t wait another hour so I dropped my bike, left Mum to be shouted at, sprinted up the slipway IN MY CLEATS and bought two tickets. When I got back he was still very very angry but we didn’t mind. We weren’t really sure where we were going to camp in Baja but as we arrived we saw a line of tents near the river and joined in! It turns out wild camping is legal in Hungary! Happy days. We also met alovely Hungarian cyclist.

After we left Baja we decided to divert off Eurovelo 6 and head for Lake Ballaton, which Mum had been to many years before (did you know she went to Hungary when it was a communist country?). As we left Eurovelo 6 we went from seeing lots of cyclists, to none. We were making much faster progress along the roads rather than the bumpy path though. The weather was rubbish and the wind was howling against us. HOWLING. We realised we’d missed the supermarket closing time, we had no food, nowhere to stay, and the weather was shit. I was not happy. We saw a pub advertising takeaway pizzas and decided to buy one. The sky was a deep dark ominous black with the wind whipping around us. Mum took the opportunity to have a beer whilst I brooded just like the sky. We tried to beg the pub to let us camp but they kept saying it wasn’t safe. Instead we ventured into the wilderness, found the first possible spot for out tent not too near any trees and pitched it as quickly as possible, chucked all of our stuff in and then it started raining as if the world was about to end. Another night of wondering whether Death Was Approaching was not what I needed but we survived again and set off. We got to the lake and entered a completely different country full of rich tourists. We had a delicious kebab which brought back the turkey memories and found a really nice hotel to stay at. The feeling of having a shower and spreading out all of our stuff and not having to put the tent up after camping for a while really is unrivalled. It turned out there was a cycling race finishing in that town that day so we went to watch! It was very exciting. I had a nice roadside convo with a man who told me all British cyclists were rubbish. I wouldn’t have minded but that’s just not even true.

The next day we had a sick tailwind due to our direction change and absolutely hammered it to Budapest. We spent another classic day not doing touristy stuff because it was too expensive – but we did do lots of free sight-seeing, and made the obligatory trip up the castle to try and find Mum’s guidebook she’d left there on her previous trip (Did you know she went to Hungary when it was a communist country?). It wasn’t there. Another thing we saw were the dancing fountains on the island. Would I sound uncultured if I said they were my favourite thing about Budapest? Probably.

Burgas to Drobeta - A tale of two countries

June 15th - Burgas to Rish - Up up up up up up.
The day got off to a terrible start when about 100m from the hotel Mum's water bottle fell off her bike and a car behind us diverted its path to run the bottle over. They then laughed as we looked at the ruined water bottle splattered all over the road. We were both then in a terrible mood which wasn't helped by the hot, busy city exit, with frustrating cycle lanes ending on motorways. Eventually we got out onto the road we wanted to be on, and it was not a fun time.. Turkey's nice wide shoulder had disappeared and the road was busy busy with lots of truck traffic. These trucks were driven by mean Europeans who thought nothing of pushing us off the road. I'd been so excited about being back in Europe but it was mainly shit. It was also raining. We were also climbing. Every town we went through was pretty depressing - honestly people in Bulgaria are all in a bad mood. There were some road safety signs with the message "Drive carefully. somebody loves you". I wish they said "Drive carefully, somebody loves the cyclists you just nearly killed". Eventually we got to the top of a hill, diverted into a forest and set up camp.

June 16th - Rish to Razgrad - Bad Bulgaria
Today (I'm having real problem with tenses, sorry literary readers (including a published author)) was pretty similar to yesterday and we were (are?!) getting sick of the busy roads, and of Bulgaria in general. The towns were all dismal and people were (are?? Why is this such a problem today?) just not at all friendly. Frequently people would slow down in their cars and just deathstare. Mum was enjoying practising her Russian again, (she's apparently been reading Anna Karenina in Russian so is obviously pretty pro) but nobody was giving her anything back. It was mainly agricultural land so the scenery wasn't exciting either, although there were beautiful fields of wild flowers.

We decided to do as many miles as possible to get out of Bulgaria ASAP. Bulgaria really is terrible towns sandwiched between a massive wild camping site. This means we could just pull in as it got dark, and we found a beautiful place. We still haven't (right I'm switching to present tense) been able to methylated spirits which really limits our cooking options and makes evenings pretty miserable, but luckily we have the kelly kettle (massive shoutout to El for being a LEGEND). Life always looks a bit better with a cup of tea, and it also means we can cook very quick cook pasta which is what we had tonight (??? I'm having a shocker). Anyway, it's always nice staying in a wild camp site where there is no chance of being discovered, it makes it a good night's sleep.

June 17th - Razgrad to Romania - Is everyone drunk here?
We left Razgrad with the aim of getting out of Bulgaria which we achieved. Yay. I feel like I shouldn't really do anymore Bulgaria bashing on this blog so I won't... We managed to make it to the border bridge and crossed over to Romania! The border officials smiled at us! What a relief. Not all of Europe is horrible! On the other side of the border we met two French walkers who recommended that we stay in the hotel in the border town as there weren't many other safe places in Romania. This annoyed me a lot because how could they possibly know that? Anyway we ignored them and rode on throughout Romania. Everyone was really really nice, but they were also really drunk. Literally everyone. Frequently cars would drive past and we'd get a whiff of ethanol out of the window. Lots of people stopped us and were very friendly, in a very drunk way. We had a tailwind which we knew was rare so we decided to cycle on for as long as possible. It then started raining so we looked desperately for a wild camp site, but it was all farmland and not hopeful. At the start of this trip this would have made me a bit stressed, but now I really do know it will all be okay. After the disastrous first night in Morocco I'm pretty sure it can't get any worse. We eventually found a field of chopped down reeds(?) and decided to camp on there. We put up the tent in the rain. We ate sandwiches in the tent listening to the rain on the roof. I made a cup of tea in the rain whilst Mum took this arty picture.

 We fell asleep listening to the rain on the roof.

June 18th - Romania to Corabia - Does it always rain here?
We woke up listening to rain on the roof. We ate breakfast listening to the rain on the roof. We packed up our bags in the rain. We discovered the reed stems had formed tiny knives and made lots of holes in the bottom the tent whilst listening to the rain on the roof. We took the tent down in the rain. We set off in the rain. We rode allllll damn day in the rain.

Romania is very different from Bulgaria, you can definitely tell it wasn't in the USSR. Mum just told me it was. I've done some googling and I'm still not really sure. Anyway the Romania we saw is all pretty villages with flowerbeds and a bench outside every house. Despite the rain, everyone was sitting on these benches, most of them drinking beer, even as early as 7:30 (AM). This makes for a cheerful atmosphere. Eastern Europe women are great. They've all got really dirty faces and none of them wear any shoes. They're so unselfconscious and it's fab. Romania really does feel like going back in time - horse and carts everywhere, we were practically in a Thomas Hardy novel. As Mum said "I am Tess". We stopped for lunch in a bus shelter and were joined by two other cycle tourists, one of them a Cardiff grad living in Bristol! They had just met each other and we had a nice lunch despite the torrential rain.

Actually our lunch was a bit substandard because the bread went seriously downhill after we left Turkey. Mike and Luce had both stayed in the same cheap hotel an appropriate distance away and their positive reviews and the continuing rain convinced us - we headed there ASAP. Once we got there we dried everything out, had showers and went to the hotel restaurant. They only had pizza, and it was only $1. This is far too cheap for a pizza but luckily hunger is always the overriding emotion for us. The restaurant was absolutely crammed - but everyone seemed to be working there? They were also all eating? The world is a strange place.

June 19th - Corabia to Rast - "Why is there always something to be frightened of?"
We were convinced there was going to be a hotel breakfast in the morning, but went down to the bar to find the remains of everyone's meals the night before. This made me feel a bit sick. Anyway we cracked on with yoghurt and muesli and got back on the road. It quickly started raining again and I was very miserable. It really isn't nice cycling in the rain. You'd think after 22 years of parenting, Mum would be good at pulling me out of these slumps in a motivational and inspiring way. No. She normally says something along the lines of "oh for goodness sake phoebe stop being so bloody pathetic", which at least changes my emotion from sadness to anger. Anyway the rain stopped in time for coffee.

 We had coffee on a picnic bench next to a roadside memorial. Along these tiny country lanes there are a worrying number of roadside memorials and they're all very extra, with massive photos and gravestones. It turns out we chose the wrong bench as lots of people came to visit this memorial, looking scathingly at us as we made a literal fire (kelly kettle) next to them. For lunch we stopped by a well, which Mum played with. Suddenly people came rushing out of their houses to tell us we couldn't drink it. We've been drinking well water all the time in Romania so we weren't sure why this way. We didn't even need any water but we were unable to communicate this and they all went back into their houses and brought us out a bottle, then sat with us while we had lunch. One young man (maybe 25?) got out his phone and showed me a video of a dog appearing to drive a tractor. It was sort of funny, but it turns out it wasn't his dog or his tractor. He was crying with laughter, and he'd seen it lots of times before... After this he showed me a video of a group of youths beating up a man with dwarfism. This made me cry, but not with laughter. It was genuinely incredibly traumatic. I hope I managed to at least slightly awake him to the ethics of this, but in reality I think he just thought I was a party pooper. The sun actually came out in the afternoon and we had a nice ride.

When it was time to camp we found a field by the side of the village.

June 20th - Rast to Burila Mica - Hornets are not nice campmates
We woke up in the morning because an old couple were weeding the sweetcorn at 6 AM. They were very cheerful and unfazed to find two "turistas" camping in their fields. We weren't sure why they were quite so keen to weed so early but there you go. Soon after we set off - the rain started again. The landscape wasn't really changing much but it was very enjoyable riding.

We had stopped for lunch when a policeman came and talked to us, and then drove off and came back with three chocolate bars each! They were traditional Romanian, and of course were very alcoholic. It rained on and off all afternoon as we meandered through farmland along the river. We cycled as late as possible, intermittently trying to buy methylated spirits to cook on. This led to some very funny conversations, including one pharmacy where they really seemed to know what I meant - and then came back with Vitamin C tablets.. When it was getting dark we stopped to camp in a field near a village. We weren't very hidden but at least it wasn't active farmland. We cooked, and then a massive buzzing insect started flying around me. I swatted at it and Mum gave me an irritating lecture about not aggravating it. Suddenly we were surrounded by these massive insects, which we thought were hornets. We reckoned we might have camped over a nest and packed up supper stuff as quickly as possible whilst doing complicated dance moves to keep them away. Once we were safely in the tent they all swarmed around, hitting the fly sheet and making lots of noise. We were pretty safe inside - but how would we get out?

June 21st pt 1 -Burila Mica to Donji Milanovic - Into Serbia .
We set off early and made good progress to the border town of Drobeta. The road to Drobeta is a european trunk road and was very busy - we expected this as all the other cycle tourists we'd met had warned us. We stopped for a coffee in the city and then passed through, into Serbia!

Istanbul to Burgas - Gulë Gulë Turkey

June 10th - Restanbul

We started the day in the best way - with a breakfast buffet. After that we walked into town and hit the tourist sites which was a lot more restful than usual - maybe we're getting better at this? I don't think it's possible to see Istanbul in a day and we definitely didn't manage. We did get a bit of the flavour of the city though. 

June 11th - Istanbul to Yassioren - From "the worst place in the whole world" to one of the best 

We’d decided to leave Istanbul via ferry as everyone we’d ever met had said it was horrendous to cycle out of. We chose to take the Bosphorus Tour boat, a tourist trip up the bosphorus river. Most holiday makers just sit on it all day (ahhh to be a holiday maker) and enjoy the views, but we got off around half way up at a place called Saryier. The ferry left at 10:30 which gave us lots of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, and… fight with the hotel owner about the price. On their website it’s quoted in dollars, but they gave us a quote in euros, and wanted us to pay in lira. It was all very complicated and their main technique was to do a lengthy sum on the calculator and hold a number at us. In the end we paid what we knew we had to (we booked via booking.com so it was v legit) and left. We caught the ferry by the skin of our teeth and settled down to enjoy the ride. It was awesome seeing Istanbul by boat – it really is massive. It was specially cool seeing Europe and Asia on different sides of the river. During this journey the crew came round selling these delicious looking creamy things. Practically everyone bought one and obviously I did too. It turns out it was slightly fermented sour yoghurt. What a disappointment. I can’t imagine anyone selling that in the UK with anything like the reception it was having. Eventually we reached Saryier and had to get off the ferry. The road was immeadiately the nicest road we’d been on for a long time. It was so nice to be able to enjoy the countryside without lorries whizzing past. It soon all went to shit though as suddenly the road was only lorries. Waste disposal lorries. With dust spilling out of their (??). The road was covered in dust mud and we couldn't breathe from all the congestion. It was hilly hot and miserable. As Mum said "This is the worst place in the whole world". Eventually we managed to find a turning and got off the road - wherever it went. By this time it was getting pretty late and we were looking for a campspot. The wild exposed terrain was not great for camping so we pulled into a village and asked if we could camp in a school garden! The English teacher spoke just about English to communicate and said it was fine to pitch the tent, so pitch the tent we did! We definitely were the village attraction, with probably the entire population coming to talk to us. Quite a lot of children actually got into the tent, and didn't want to leave at all. When it came to breaking Ramadan time two different families brought us massive suppers, and we'd had a very late lunch so even for us it was a bit of an effort to finish. Don't worry though, we managed it!! Everyone was so nice to us. 

June 12th - Yassioren to Vize - "This is the worst town I've ever been to in my whole entire life" 

We had lots more free food for breakfast and then set out on our way. European Turkey and Asian Turkey have completely different landscapes and the European side of the Bosphorus is mainly rolling farmland which is a nice change.

 For lunch we were on a desperate search for Pide which is delish Turkish pizza. Sadly the search was fruitless so we settled for Moussaka (which is still incredible). The food in Turkey is all amazing but pretty samey - I think that's especially true of Ramadan. I was hoping for things like pita bread and hummus and falafel but they only seem to be available in hipster cafés in touristy places. Anyway we got to a restaurant and the owner phoned the family's English speaker. This is pretty common and usually the person can't speak any English at all and has been lying to everyone. This presents a problem for us as we try not to give them away. It turns out this dude actually not only spoke English, but lived in Coventry! We had a nice chat and at the end of our lunch the owner of the restaurant told us the man had paid for our meal!! This is absolutely classic of Turkish people. After this lunch we headed further towards the Bulgarian border, and went through a horrendous town. Everyone stared at us in a horrible way, and suddenly we were in a different country again. The women were all wearing burqas, which we haven't seen at all in all our time in Islamic countries. Lots of men directly asked us "how much" and blew kisses and made inappropriate gestures. I was back to hating Turkey. We did find this amphitheatre. Eventually we managed to find away out of the town and found some deserted ish looking farmland to camp in. We did go past this amphitheatre 

June 14th - Vize to Bulgaria (just) - Back in the EU! ! ! !

The Bulgarian/Turkey border is on top of a mountain range - who knew? The climb was very gentle though. In the last sign of civilisation we went to a small supermarket and the owner tried his absolute best to upsell as much as possible - in a very friendly way. Most of his suggestions looked absolutely revolting (dried grey fish) but he did convince us to buy some aubergine pesto which was delish. We managed to make it to the top of hill (just) and crossed over the border into the EU. WOOOOOOOOOO. Seeing that beautiful blue with those nice jazzy stars made me soooooo happy. We stopped at the first petrol station and asked if we could camp, and the petrol station owner said no without even looking up from his phone. Mum tried to wash her face in the bathroom and the woman kicked her out. Everyone was ignoring us??? I'd often craved this in Turkey but now it felt so cold. Is this what the UK is like? We cycled down the road and camped in a small forest. There was practically no traffic. 

June 15th - Bulgaria (just) to Burgas - We meet our second favourite ever German Daniel 

We were rolling down the hill into Burgas thinking how weird Bulgaria is when a German cycle tourist called Daniel caught up with us. Bulgaria is full of neglected Soviet apartment blocks and everyone was drunk. At one point I got chased by a drunk man with no teeth on a folding bike. Luckily he wasn't drunk enough to forget that he was going to go back up the hill... We were enjoying the descent when a German cycle tourist called Daniel caught up with us. We're predisposed to like Germans called Daniel and we liked this one, 

He'd learnt English by listening to political podcasts and was much more up to date than we were. We got into Burgas and went to a restaurant for lunch, and he said that not only was it the first proper meal he'd had on the trip (he eats dry bread and drinks milk) but also the first restaurant he'd been to for over 10 years!  He was saying in hotels every night so he clearly wasn't short of cash. I don't really understand people who don't prioritise food in their daily lives - but cycle tourists? What is there to look forward to apart from eating? Everyone we'd met in Bulgaria seemed to be mean!! Without exception. The waitress was really snappy and had lots of scary piercings. After this we checked into a cheap hotel for an afternoon off, and Daniel continued up the coast. We spent the afternoon trying and failing to do jobs, cooked in a disgusting kitchen and went to bed..