Biking Archives - Page 80 of 99

Final day of cycling on The Danube Bike Trail – Constanta to Tulcea

Posted on October 23, 2013August 26, 2021

This was my 28th day of pedalling on The Danube Bike Trail. With today’s 93.5 miles it made my total mileage from Cambridge to be 2,996 miles of which 3,071km was on The Danube Bike Trail as outlined in Book1, Book2, Book3 & mostly Book4 (I stayed in Romania) of the Bikeline series

It started by going through all the ghost summer holiday towns all wrapped up for the winter. At Navodari you actually get a short & bumpy stretch of real bike track 🙂 then onto long straight but hilly roads all well made & pretty quiet though pleasant enough villages. You eventually hit the nightmare stretch of Highway 22 for 14km before turning off to Jurivloca. straight into a roaring headwind. I’m not sure quite why this area has such beautifully kept roads & pavements. Must be to do with the all the wind farms I guess.

It started to get late by the time I reached Agighiol so I skipped the big detour and went straight to Tulcea, which is just as well as by the time I arrived it was pitch black & my front light ran out of battery 🙁 coupled with AroundMe failing, by sending me the long way to the hotel where I was told it was full! they were lying of course but I had already spotted The Hotel Rex so that’s where I ended up pretty well exhausted.

I hadn’t spotted any places to stay except maybe a pension around Enisala so it’s a pretty long day.

All the time in Romania I haven’t seen ONE E6 cycleway or any navigation signs for The Danube bikeway

Here’s my Strava and some pictures

Strava_Ride___Constanta_to_Tulcea

Day off in Constanta

Posted on October 23, 2013May 28, 2019

Tuesday 22nd October

After yesterdays tough ride from Silistra on the Bulgarian)Romanian border I decided to take a day out and luxuriate in mv somewhat faded 5 star accommodation.

I managed to get the data sorted with Vodafone on my iPhone, I think it broke because I tried calling the UK on my Romanian number. This wasn’t allowed so basically I lost my data plan. £9 later I walked out with another 1GB of data all working.

I went into a few travel agents, but they all laughed and thought I was nuts wanting to return to Budapest on a boat 🙁 The town itself is one hell of a mess with all the pavements torn up whilst they are laying miles of ducting for cables, interestingly using masses of labour rather than diggers. Took a lot of effort to find a coffee shop but worth the wait to find Zoomserie and it’s yummy ice cream & pleasant staff after a haircut it was back to the hotel.

In the afternoon I took myself of to the docks & Pier 31,the grain terminal. Fascinating to see the huge queue of trucks waiting to unload the corn alongside the hundreds of rusting, disbanded railway wagons. I spoke to the manager who rang the shipping company but it was all no can do. I pottered off to the ships that were loading corn up. One was off to Izmir, i suspect if I had $150 to thrust in his palm I could have had a lift, but didn’t fancy Turkey just yet. The other boat was of to Pakistan. It’s interesting and I feel you can travel this way but you need hard cash in your pocket & your stuff with you. Another time maybe…

So basically there seems to be no straight forward way to get a boat back up The Danube from Constanta. Tomorrow I continue to find The Danube,

Some pictures of the day are here.

Day 27 on The Danube Bike Trail – Silistra to Constanza & The Black Sea

Posted on October 21, 2013August 26, 2021

Well I made it to the Black Sea at Constanza, 80 days after leaving Cambridge having cycled 2,900 miles or so in total. I had a 2 week break in Les Gets and another 2 weeks in Hungary.

Today was real tough from getting a once over on the Schengen Agreement by the Bulgarian border man (and no neither Romania or Bulgaria are in the Schengen Agreement) to deciding to go off road through Ostroy when the main road wasn’t busy at all. Then the real roller coaster (yesterday was a warm up) not helped by me trying to beat some club cyclists out for a bit of hill training. Culminating in the totally horrendous traffic from around Clocarila into Constanza. In fact it’s probably best to miss Contanza and cycle up the route from Ion Corvin to Cernavoda, unfortunately it isn’t clear there is any where to stay on that route. There looked to be a pension in Ion Corvin.

Following on from Hola and prostitution yesterday, today it was all Hello’s although i did see a Spanish registered car with an elderly madam obviously striking a deal with the shop owner where I bought my lunchtime beer.Later on Highway 3 leading out of Murfatlar individual girls were out in force..

After a full 10 seconds pondering over the price I settled on staying at Ten Hotel with a view over the industrious port & The Black Sea. Not sure what’s next in my trip apart from recovering here tomorrow and then riding North to see The Danube Delta.

Here’s todays Strava and a few photos

Strava_Ride___Silistra_to_Constanza

The roller coaster ride from Giurgiu to Silistra on The Danube-less bike trail

Posted on October 20, 2013November 21, 2019

After my Romanian regulation cheese omelette for breakfast I departed leaving the smelly bathroom behind. Fortunately, even though Romania is Catholic, all the shops were open so I was able to stock up with choc bars & fruit. Isn’t it strange how France had a revolution to remove priests from power but to this day keep their shops closed on Sunday’s.

The first stretch was the dual carriageway to Bucharest which is actually better & safer riding than the country roads, the lanes are wider. After leaving the highway it was back onto a country road that was more like a roller coaster with its 10% ascents/descents. Wending my way through many small villages, were interestingly I was getting greeted with Hola rather than hello, which made me smile after Colin’s post yesterday about Romanian prostitutes in Spain.

The villages are now definitely more prosperous (only 60 k m from Bucharest) no garbage on the outskirts, fewer horse & carts and even a few quad bikes today. Although the hoses are virtually one continual ribbon development. Although be warned straying from the road can lead you into serious mud & mess.

No cafes today so had to settle for beer & crisps the crisps were 2 lei (40p) and 500ml of beer 3 lei (60p) which was pretty good, you can imagine the moans when I hit The Haymakers again 🙁

Finally saw The Danube for the first time today on the ferry over to Silistra which is just in Bulgaria. AroundMe found the Danube Hotel & Resorts for me, which is just as well as it was getting cold & dark when I arrived having biked just shy of 100 miles.

Here is the Strava (Excludes the ferry and he bit in Bulgaria) and a few photos here. Strava_Ride___Giorgio_to_ferry_Silistra