Tim's Balkan Bike Blast 7 - The Danube and Serbia

Coming down from the Carpathians the heat seemed to increase with every hairpin bend. From a positively fresh 5C at the top it was around 30C by the time I stopped for a well earned coffee in Targu Jiu, just after midday.
I was down to just a t shirt and the summer riding jacket, shedding three other layers, which had not been enough at the top.
Still the coffee was good, there was a chance to catch a breather, have a smoke and check the net.
The bike was behaving impeccably.
So after 20 minutes it was onwards again.
There is a very different mentality on a journey when you turn for home. Somehow it becomes more urgent to complete the task, rather than enjoy the sights.
Still the sights made the task very enjoyable later in the day.

The next hour or so was putting kilometres under the belt.

Lunch was in a small town with a big church. I settled in to a good break with an enormous pizza and a few bottles of water, both to cool down and to refill the hydration pack.




Then onwards. The countryside was interesting and the occasional strange sight put a jolt in the smooth rhythm of biking bendy roads with little traffic.

Deep in the rural countryside, with cows and ancient Ladas grazing by the roadside suddenly there is the thump of a massive industrial complex. Chimneys as high as the surrounding hills. Dominant and deliberate, a callous communistic statement of intent.

It didn't seem to be working.
But on we wove and threaded, enjoying the bikers' breeze and the state of alertness. Onwards to Drobeta. Or

Drobeta Turnu Severin to give the town its full name. there were a few stops to confirm whether we were still on a reasonably quick route, especially on the outskirts of the town. There are few signs to other countries in lots of the Balkans. Few signs to indicate that other cities and cultures may lie beyond the next hill. And there are no major towns in Serbia on this part of the border.
But you are only going in wrong way if you need to take a particular route. If you need to be somewhere in particular.
On a bike, the bike is the somewhere in particular. Towns and roads are relatively incidental, you are where you want to be. Biking.

But there were signs indicating a border was close. here the border is the Danube. But its big. So crossings are few and far between.

The Iron Gates Dam generates some 20% of Romania's electricity. It is massive.
The photo is a cheat from Google Earth, but its about 1 km across.

Interesting no mans land for a border crossing. But there was little hassle on either side.

And once in Serbia the sign posts ran out so I had to check the map before even reaching the main road. Turn right and head upriver.

Then followed an extraordinary experience.

The road hugged the river. The road surface was good, so it was easy to keep up a good pace.
The views were wonderful, if sometimes eclectic.

 And there was very little traffic. In about 100 km I probably saw 100 cars and half a dozen bikes. It is extraordinary that such wonderful biking country has not been discovered by hordes more people. It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon, even though I was tired.

There were no bars, few houses, few signs, almost no tourist development at all. Quite extraordinary.

So mid afternoon I'd reached Veliko Gradiste, a small town, at least it seemed that way with buildings of more than two storeys and several petrol stations. It was time for a refill, for the bike and for me. So petrol, coffee and a snack was another chance to check in to the world and discover nothing important was going on.
The net is an addiction, so only checking a few times a day and putting it down to get on with riding is empowering.
There is still a need for self-validation, yes there are a few Likes so I must mean something to someone. But there is a life to live beyond posts and likes (though presumably this blog is an affirmation of both!).

from Veliko Gradiste it was time to head to Petrovac and Kragujevac. Not such friendly sounding places, but they were places marked on the map and occasionally on roadsigns as well.

Tim's Blakan Bike Blast 6 - Transalpina

Trying to find somewhere to stay in Alba Iulia was as good idea as any. It was just the idea was bad overall. There was nowhere.

I stopped at four hotels on the way, all full, all had cars rolling up asking for rooms. It was evening, the sun was setting, I was really tired, it was not looking good.

I stopped at a petrol station (with free wifi) on the outskirts of Alba Iulia. I fuelled the bike, added a bunch of snack food and a couple of beers to the bill which I paid by credit card, being very low on cash and started a web search. The usual sites had everything booked out, even round here. Then on booking.com I typed in Alba Iulia and saw a good hotel for a mere Eur 62, so I booked it, then tried to match the town map with Maps.Me. Nothing lined up. I asked the guys in the petrol station. No Via Roma in Alba Iulia. They pointed me west, towards Italy, that wasn't any help at all. Slowly it dawned on my befuddled brain, booking.com had brought up Alba, Italy. I'd booked and paid for a hotel room I was never going to use. Desperation makes you dumber.

So into town I went, moving on. Somewhere near the centre were two young German bikers who were just setting off to ride at night, which seemed very strange, but hey. They pointed to where I should be able to sleep 'undisturbed'. It was some medieval and Roman fortifications.

There were a few cars parked in this precious monument, I put the bike in a quiet spot, half hidden by a long-parked camper. As it was now dark I could scramble up the grass covered battlement and find a small dip in which to settle down.

It was dry  the raingear and padded bikers jacket worked as a base. I put the sleeping bag on top, took off the bike boots and used them covered by the tank bag, as a pillow.

Top tip, to reduce boot pong, liberally put talcum powder in the boots. 

Time for the beers and barbeque crisps (a little luxury, as crisps are little used in Italy so the flavours are limited).

It was blackout, no phone or iPad as I didn't want to be spotted by anyone who would object to a vagrant biker. But I was dog tired so drifted off quickly.

Sleep was fitful as people left the area steadily over the next couple of hours, but I kept my head down, out of the headlight beams.

Sometime in what seemed like the middle of the night a couple of cars arrived and there was music and load chatter. I was keeping my head down, imagining all sorts of book or film plots and really hoping this was not a drug meet where they started killing each other then eliminating witnesses.

It was not to be. A couple of hours later they were doing doughnuts in the car park park and roared off. I snuck a look at the time (well covered by the sleeping bag). It was 2 a.m. Dew was starting so I dug into the tank bag for an emergency blanket, which was really a glorified large sheet of tin foil, carefully folded. This keeps the heat in and the dew out and is an excellent piece of survival kit.

By 06:30 a cockerel had started up, dawn was breaking and I was cold. Time to benefit from the hydration pack, with its mineral salts, pack up and selfie. 

And off to the same petrol station on the edge of town for two bigs cups of hot tea and a wifi fix. Once warmed it was on to the Transalpina. Another famous road.

It started simply, as had the Transfagarasan. And wound steadily up a gorge into the mountains. As we climbed higher it got colder. I'd started cold and already had five layers on. None of them fully insulated but nevertheless a fair amount.

It wasn't enough. 

The scenery was gorgeous, Alpine (probably hence the name) with lots of plants and birds and rocks and things, but this was not a song by America. Just the road was deserted.

The river rushed and bounded, the road wound and climbed. It was glorious biking. Then boom, there was this...

 

and the Tiger deserved a rest.

 

... which it got, while I walked about to stretch the legs.

Then onwards and upwards and it got colder. Down to 5C. I was eager to find somewhere to stop, which took about another 20 minutes.

It looked friendly and set up for tourists. I needed a couple of minutes to get the helmet off and stumble over to a shack for some powdered herbal tea. Which didn't feel bikery, but it was the largest amount of hot liquid I could get quickly.
I was still shivering when I finished it.

I spread some of the wet gear on the bike and warmed up in the sunshine, enjoying a cheroot and watching people arriving, almost all from the south. Presumably that's where the tourists came from and the northern section was almost deserted that early in the morning.

Just behind this stop was a large gypsy camp. Romanys in Romania.

And the road kept climbing. After the camp the trees stealthily disappeared, to be replaced by traffic, mainly coming from the other direction.

And the stopping points got filled with photo snappers and picnicers, strollers and families enjoying the sunshine and open space. And the views.

It was warmer, even up here more than 2 kilometres high. 

So I enjoyed it, pottering along and admiring the view, and the people.

And steadily winding downwards to find a town with somewhere for a very well deserved lunch. I was hungry.

Tim's Balkan Bike Blast 5 - Transfagarasan highway

This was the day set to ride one of the most famous highways in the world. Made for petrol heads.

But of course I started by being confused about the time. Normally I wake up around 06:30. Its just something I do, semiautomatically adjusting for summer and wintertime, but the first day in a new timezone can be confusing. Especially if you don't realise your modern technology automatically resets itself.
Whatever the iPad and the smartphone said it was definitely an hour ahead in Romania. I knew this. Since September last year I've been to 18 member states of the EU, unfortunately not on the bike, but on a plane/taxi/hotel/taxi/plane conveyor belt.
This was visiting EU Member States, to help them spend our European taxpayers money more efficiently. It's interesting and rewarding and tiring. But you get used to new places and different timezones. But I did not realise my technology had reset itself over the wifi and I was on actual time, not Central European Summer Time. So of course I could have napped for an extra hour.
But I got up because it was going to be a big day.
With a slightly thick head I did some stretching/yoga, which for me really helps my balance on the bike. It is a lot easier with a YouTube video of some overly fit and supple female asking you to 'breathe into the intensity' (pain) and 'just put your foot behind your head', or some other completely silly concept. To get through tis takes a particular kind of stubborn. The ladies don't seem to mind the feedback, which is normally a rich mix of Anglo-Saxon and other west European.

So I stretched and showered and packed and dressed and slobbed around till 9, because I knew the hotel did not serve breakfast till 9.
It was 8.

So I want back up to bed and lay down for half an hour, but hunger won. So I got up, loaded the bike and set off to find somewhere else for breakfast.


The main square was slowly waking up, with backpackers imitating zombies as they faced a complete lack of anything to do but amble around, staring at uncomprehending buildings that stared back silently.

Maybe because it is in Transylvania, but in Sibiu nowhere serves breakfast before 9 am.

No early riser cafés, no dingy bars, no cheery greetings.



Having discovered the backwaters, byways and even the main roads around town, after half an hour cruising around on the trusty Tiger I ended up back at the hotel and enjoyed a big breakfast.

The bike was parked in one of those semi-legal, but not in anyone's way, places on the edge of the main square. If an overly keen official had spotted it while I broke the fast, they had not bothered with a ticket. Presumably the only way of extracting money from an Italian registered bike is to tow it, but that would not help tourism.

The road out of town was easy and I followed the signs for Fagaras. Presumably the Transfagarasan highway ended near there, though Google and MapMe said it was before the town.
There were no signs so I stopped in Fagaras, realised where the highway had actually started and rode back the 20 km to the petrol station (with free wifi) where I'd seen a large group of bikers, some 30 minutes before.

There were still no signs for one of the best known biking roads in Europe, (which was not registered as such on Google Maps) but the petrol station guys knew.
I still asked a couple of people over the next few kilometres, as it seemed quiet. Then the signs started, Biker Friendly Rooms they said, in English. That helped the confidence.

And the road steadily went countrywards. Winding towards the looming Carpathian mountains. Steadily leaving behind places that are on Google maps.
No settlements, just a road winding into the misty mountains. It reminded me very much of the Rohtang Pass, deep in the Himalayas, which was towards the end of a huge adventure with Alex Pirie and Nomadic Knights and in a blog last year.


The road was a lot more Eurotourist than the Rohtang. The trees disappeared, the mist got heavier, the curves curvier and you were almost expecting bagpipes hidden in the mist to start calling for your surrender.

Top Gear really liked it. Although it was more for racers than Adventurers, it was fun and interesting.


And cold, and as we got to the top, busier, much busier.

The fun of a bike is that you can skip up queues. Abbishek Bellie, Nomadic Knights outrider and sweeper upper showed us how to just keep going. India was good training for Romanian tourism. 

There were a large number of English registered cars. A mystery explained a couple of days later. And as soon as there was a photo opportunity, or a place with parking, then the newly enabled, car owning, citizens of Romania were taking full advantage of a summer weekend to explore.

Soon after starting the climb with the famous curves there was no high rev roaring, just bobbing and weaving through the traffic. But the views when the mist cleared were stunning, however I was more intent on living the experience than recording it.

Close to the top the traffic was completely jammed. I edged through a flat part where lots of stands selling sausages and souvenirs lined the road. It was an absolute clusterfuck. Soon after was a tunnel, which marked the top, and once through the logjam the road was pretty open, going my way. The other way was solid traffic for several kilometres. It is easy to imagine the thoughts of the drivers and passengers imprisoned in their steel boxes, in a tunnel, without lights, or phone signal, at altitude.
The other side of the tunnel was a fire station, dynamited into the hillside. Presumably with medical experience as well. The emergency service for this highly remote spot. It seemed like very sensible planning.

My brother called while I was heading downhill. A late birthday chat. The reception was intermittent but tolerable. It was good to talk and highly amusing to think I was chatting through a motorbike helmet some 2,000 metres up the Carpathian mountains in Romania. Cool.

The way down was slower. It is harder going down than up on a bike. It takes longer to slow down and brake. Like skiing, the skill is being able to slow down and stop. Speed is easy, staying safe is more challenging. I far more enjoy riding uphill than the downhill. But you do get the views going downhill.

Similar to coming down the strange pass in Bosnia, the trees steadily appeared, it got warmer, there was more of a green colour and life became more gentle. At every wider space or clearing in the woods, cars were parked and families were picnicing. The growth of tourism in Romania must be staggering.

Not so many touring bikes were out but whenever I saw them there was a friendly biker wave, or a toot of the horn. It is friendlier in Europe. Driving on the right means the throttle hand is on the far side of the traffic. So you can wave, or raise an index finger, or come out with a biker/rapper hand gesture friendly greeting. In the UK you gesture to the pedestrians, or cars you pass, in Europe it is fellow bikers. 
And  they were a friendly bunch. 

I found somewhere to stop for lunch, deep in a valley.

Weirdly for somewhere on a famous trail, but not so weird because we were deep in the countryside, there was no wifi, but the food was good and most welcome.

Burning through my precious cash reserves the salad and barbequed chicken seemed the closest I was going to get to biker ballast.

And it was onwards and downwards. 

The signs for Dracula Camping seemed a little ambitious, this may be Transylvania, but it is the edge of it. Then the source of the publicity became obvious with another logjam of cars and coaches.

High on the hill above (only just visible in the selfie) and only reachable by some 1,460 steps, was the run down castle of Vlad The Impaler. But it seems anywhere with a castle is claiming to be connected with Dracula. 

Still it seemed fun and could not be missed, though the selfie took only a moment, as you can see the helmet and Harley shades stayed on.

At least it was getting warmer, so eventually the bike gear came off, right when I took the first right, after 20 km, ready for the journey back to Sibiu. I got the right right, but took the next right too early.

I had hoped to ride the other massively famous road, the Tranalpino, but ended up on a road preferred by tourist coaches. The countryside was often lovely, but it was a constant stream of traffic, which requires a different riding style (filtering - or overtaking when possible) if you are ever going to get anywhere.

The great part of a friendly and respectful relationship with a Tiger is that, when asked, this beast just goes. The acceleration is glorious. I was a lot heavier than normal on the throttle and the brakes, but we had a job to do. get back to somewhere where we could bed down for the night.

It was late afternoon when we wearily sidled in to Hotel Weidner again, only to be told they were fully booked . As was every other hotel in Sibiu they knew. No worries, TripAdvisor and Airbnb and Booking.com were ready and willing, and told me everywhere else for at least 50 km around was booked.

But there might be somewhere in Alba Iulia, near the start of the Transalpino, on the edge of that 50 km totally reserved zone.

That seemed a good idea....

Tim's Balkan Bike Blast 4 - Timmy in Timisoara

The cash machine asked for my PIN number. Normally this is simple. Even though my bank card doubles as a credit card, in a cash machine you put in the bank number. 

Up came my name - Welcome Timothy Wills, push, push, select, select. 

Sorry try again.

Welcome Timothy Wills, push, push, select, select. Munch, munch. Bye bye card. 

Inside the bank and after a 5 minute queue I managed to summon up enough sign language that the cashier understood. I volunteered my passport, she retrieved the card. Then handed back my passport and kept the card.

I had no idea what the problem was. She found a manager who spoke English. He explained that the card company needed clearance from my bank as I had input my PIN incorrectly three times in a row. Now that was confusing. How do I get the Welcome Timothy Wills with a wrong PIN?

I managed to slip in that I had worked in Frankfurt 20 years ago with his new Chairman (well far more like for Jean Pierre Mustier who probably has a dim recollection of me as a troublesome individual who may occasionally be useful). Still it gave me enough kudos for him to be happy to chat and give me the branch fax number for my bank to send an OK to. 

He then showed me the machine that would convert cash Euros to cash Lei, so I changed 100 Euros, hoping that would suffice for 3 days in Romania.

I set off for a late lunch to refuel while digesting the wrong pin issue. Multitasking between ordering food, getting online and phoning the bank I managed to still appreciate the sunshine and the food. The bank was very good and explained that outside Italy the card only functioned as a credit card, so I had to input the credit card pin. Problem uncovered.

They would send a fax to release the card and inform the credit card company. That was a big relief. I guess I was not the first customer confused by this.

The only additional challenge for me was that I had no idea what the credit card pin was, since the secure letter with the details was completely indecipherable and I never wanted to send the card back to resolve the problem. I'll wait for the new one later this year.

So with lunch over (paid for with a different card) it was back to the bank. Along with half the town it seemed. The queues were long and slow moving. Luckily the manager saw me and about 5 minutes later called me over to then need 15 minutes of form filling before being able to give me back the card.

Greatly relieved I loaded the kit on the bike, checked the vague direction to get out of town, weaved through the traffic and only had to stop to check directions a couple of times before being on the main road east.

Well, the current main road east.

Which was through the countryside. 

That had different modes of transport.

There is an EU funded motorway under construction and sections were usable. 

I stopped early to refuel and started chatting with a proper biker who was smoking close to the pumps. As usual wifi was free, like almost everyone under 40 he spoke excellent English and he invited me to Biker Party No.9, some 100km closer to the Transfagarasan. His girlfriend came out of the shop and was very encouraging, again in excellent English. The only challenge was there was no accommodation and it was due to get down to 5C that night. He gave me the organiser's number and they set off.

However impractical, it seemed a fun idea and this was an adventure.

YOLO, you only live once.

But the number was answered by one of the few people who do not speak English, or German, or French or Italian. So I never went. It could have been fun, it could have been a disaster. But there was enough to get on with.

The main road wound across the country, with hills appearing and getting bigger. Clouds arrived and a couple of hours later, and well past wherever Biker Party No. 9 was, I pulled into a petrol station ready to put on the raingear.

Another young biker couple were there. We chatted about routes and rides. They had just come back from Italy and lived near Sibiu, which was my destination. The Dolomites was too crowded so they had tried a few other roads and were heading home. They offered to ride together but I was feeling solitary and anyway set off in the wrong direction from the petrol station. A couple of minutes later I realised the error but they were gone.

The next stretch was motorway. New and little traffic, but getting steadily wetter.

The fairly new tyres kept the Tiger stable and solid and it was easy to keep a steady 130kph, which is quite enough for me. Though I would be 'in the zone', overtaking and glance down to find I was at 150 kph. It was raining so slowing down was a simple choice. I even took it.

The worry about riding in the rain, apart from grip, and wet, is that a bike helmet does not have windscreen wipers. So your vision quickly deteriorates. I have no idea whether it is the design of the Nolan N43, or that I was going at speed, but the raindrops cleared themselves in steady horizontal streaks. That was a big moral boost.

An hour or so of motorway driving came to end and we were diverted back to the main road. The traffic was clogged up and my overtaking was prudent. So it was slow progress. By the time I got to the centre of Sibiu it was pouring.

The raingear was excellent, I was sealed like an astronaut, but you have to stop and ask people stuff, like 'Do you have a single room?' At which point you have to park the bike, lift the visor or even take off the helmet, get wet, get back on the bike.

I ended up circling the town, stealthily but not efficiently, and ended up in the restricted area in the centre. I parked next to an ancient arch with multitudes of umbrellas leading their owners into packed groups ready for a public concert, which was being set up.

Through the arch was Hotel Weigner. That looked promising. They were totally full apart form a single room way at the back. Perfect. The receptionist took pity on me and showed me how to get the bike into the main square to park in their locked up courtyard. That was another blessing. She said to sign in once that was done.

This was all going pretty well.

I unloaded and signed in, stupidly paid in cash and went up for a shower. The only part about stupidly paying in cash was that this was a chunk of what I had managed to change 

in Unicredit, Timisoara.

Still on we go. After the shower the rain had stopped, so I got dinner outside on the edge of the big piazza. The waitress tried to bring a menu, but I just asked for a beer and something local. That was the right choice. The beer disappeared quickly and the local dish was cabbage wrapped rice and stuff, which was very good washed down with a perfectly acceptable local red. All this to the sound of the public opera on a very large stage.

The opera finished at the same time as dinner, so I walked back through the arch to the dance-off on another stage there. Around the edge of that piazza were more bars, which was a perfect place for a smoke and a people watch, but I was tired.

On the way back to the hotel, a young lady asked if I had a cigarette, in German, that was just an excuse for a far more intimate conversation, which rapidly became an offer of 'zwei maedchen' (two young women). That was definitely not going to be a good way to end the evening and I managed to successfully cover the remaining 50 yards to the hotel without further ado.

The hotel seemed deserted, which was fine as I managed to remember where the room was and was asleep about 5 minutes later. 

Waking up was confusing, not least because of the time.