Road trip to the Transfagarasan
July 2009
Thursday 18 th July
Excitement and trepidation.
I set off for Harwich at 7:30pm, arrived about 8:30 and joined a bunch of Dutch HD riders returning from a jaunt. Loading and strapping down of bikes was pretty efficient. The evening meal was very acceptable and then I had an early night for an early start.
Friday 19th
I was very efficient about getting up and getting breakfast but got stuck in a massive lift queue when the time came to return to the bike. Consequently I found my bike looking very lonely on the car deck when I finally got there...
I didn’t really plan my route to Dusseldorf and actually ended up taking a slightly longer route than necessary. I just went vaguely eastish then took the northern ring road around Rotterdam (should have gone south really). To fix this I went south on the A50 and arrived in Dusseldorf well ahead of train boarding time. I wandered around but didn’t find much of entertainment value. When I returned to the bike I met up with a crew called “Ride with us”. They were heading for Croatia and also using the train. Run by a nice, helpful couple, originally from Croatia now working out of the UK. They gave me some very useful advice.
German efficiency failed and boarding was patchy and slow. Having ridden the bike on to the carrier (low roof!) I was left wondering what to do next, as was everyone else. People drifted towards the passenger platforms with no guidance and by some strange process we all managed to find the correct platform where we waited for our carriages to arrive... Once aboard I quickly stowed my gear and went to the catering car but the seats were already all gone and were clearly going to stay filled, a pretty poor system, and lesson for the future? Bring food. There is no useful signage and the catering attendant didn’t really try to communicate. I did manage to order some food to carry back to my cabin – a somewhat precarious undertaking. The food itself was actually quite good.
The journey during the evening was pleasant as the railway followed the Rhine for a good distance. I crashed fairly early, hoping to wake refreshed in Italy the next morning.
Saturday 20 th
Woken an hour before arrival (the train is running 40 minutes late) with an acceptable continental breakfast delivered to the cabin. There was just enough time to ablute, dress, eat breakfast and pack before the train pulled into Bolzano. I was a bit slow getting off so I had a helpful German passenger shouting “Schnell! Schnell!” at me. More hurry up and wait. Once off the train there were absolutely no signs or instructions to let you know what to expect or where to go. We wandered like an unsherpherded flock of sheep until we saw the unloading ramps. Having drifted over it became apparent this was the correct place and once again had to wait whilst the vehicle portion was shunted into position. Naturally the bikes were last on and last off... I finally retrieved my bike and was off, waving goodbye to my new Croatian pals.
I spent a short while warming up on the SS12 before joining the motorway to Brenner and Innsbruck. It was a long day, but pretty easy, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and finally Vienna. More than 360 miles, but it was fast riding. Sadly it was wet, wet, wet. Most irritatingly the bike dropped to 1 cylinder after passing through standing water. I limped through the rain for some miles and eventually the bike reverted to a twin, which was nice. I actually managed to arrive at the hotel In Vienna directly and efficiently, I was rather surprised.
Got booked in, changed and out on the streets quickly but I didn’t really have a lot of time left so didn’t manage to find anything really interesting. I did find a very nice but startlingly expensive restaurant. I can still feel the pain in my wallet.
Sunday 21 st
Breakfast was taken in the cafe over the road. It was half the price and twice as good as that offered in the hotel. The cafe was run by an excellent chap who made one bad mistake, he mistook me for an American. I mean, seriously?
Today was a relatively short ride. I took lunch in a petrol station, a rather good curry in a bun affair. I got to Budapest about 3pm, much more interesting than Vienna. I spent a little time in Pest, but much more time in Buda. There is a ridge upon which sits most of old Buda, the castle previously and now the presidential offices and the national dance theatre, amongst other bits and pieces. The old town is well worth a visit. The castle is down to its foundations, but these are still visible and in the process of being restored.
I found a fine Hungarian restaurant where I was served with local dishes. Sadly I can’t remember what they were! Very fine though... After I’d eaten I wandered back into Pest via the suspension bridge. The bridge is courtesy of William Tierney Clark. The only other example of his suspension bridge work is over the Thames at Marlow. I have now walked across both. Finally before returning to the hotel I found an excellent little bar devoted to film and rock stars (principally Marilyn Monroe and Elvis).
Monday 22 nd
The run from Budapest to Romania was pretty straightforward. On arrival at the border my passport was checked twice. Not because I was particularly dodgy but because one customs man wandered off after checking my passport and another came on duty before I had put it away. I moved away to avoid a third passport check and stopped to adjust various bits and pieces. I was immediately accosted by a beggar on a pushbike who cleaned the screen of my bike. Yes, really. He then stood and expected payment. Clearly no, no and no does not translate well into Romanian. I kept saying “no” whilst stowing various bits of gear, slowly accumulating a ring of Romany types. I ignored them and rode off.
Within 20 yards another loony leapt out in front of me waving a huge wodge of cash. I tried to run him over but missed. Maybe 100 yards down the road was a right turn with a 30kph speed limit. The reason for this became apparent as I approached the bend and saw the lorry on its side in a jack-knife position just short of the houses lining the road. As I went round the bend I could see a queue of heavy lorries waiting for customs blocking the other side of the road. Rather than waiting cars were now coming down my side of the road straight at me. At this point I thought “Oh my God, I’m going to die here”.
The motorway had degenerated into a simple 2-way road with very heavy lorry traffic. In between the lorries are suicidal car drivers attempting to make a little progress. Fortunately I was on a bike and managed to carve through the nutters.
It started to rain, again. The rain became a veritable waterfall. I detected a leak in my left 2 nd and 3 rd fingers. Otherwise my gear was holding up very well. The rain inside my helmet was a little irritating though. There followed a long drag to the toilet that is Arad. Well, it certainly smelled like one anyway.
There was a diversion around a part of Arad. Shame there weren’t any signs! Fortunately I could navigate by the moss on the lampposts and found the road I wanted. Once out of Arad (and I never want to go back) there followed another rather dull drag to Sibiu. The rain on the way was so heavy it hurt. It was laugh or cry time. Laughing was preferable. I was getting tired by now and Sibiu’s charms rather passed me by. The car park was public by the hotel, but some security guards were looking after the hotel’s slots. I felt reasonably secure.
On entering the hotel I find I am double booked. How? I have no idea. This was an expensive night. I was, by now, too tired to venture out so stayed in the hotel. I think, however, that I had seen everything of interest in this town just trying to find the hotel. I ate in the hotel whilst being serenaded by two strange men. It was mildly amusing. The waiter was a very nice chap who tried very hard to be helpful.
Tuesday 23 rd
Getting out of Sibiu was pretty straightforward. Just follow the signs for Bucaresti. I didn’t want to go to Bucaresti immediately so had to peel off for Brasov. On the road to Brasov is a right turn for Balea Lac on the DN7C. This is the whole point of the journey. The Transfagarasan loomed. Then the clouds came down, sod it. I managed to get ahead of the weather that was blowing in from the North and enjoyed mile upon mile of hairpins. I stopped to take photos and got overtaken by the weather but fortunately was now near the top. After creeping round a few more bends a tunnel appeared. I was flagged down by a guy in a car but as we couldn’t communicate the conversation was abandoned.
Going through the tunnel brought me to the other side of the mountain and clearer weather, indeed sunshine. Having stopped in the first col on the way down I was given coffee but a delightful English couple who had spent most of the last year wandering Europe in their camper van. I left their company in heavy rain, thunder and lightning. The lightning was striking the mountain top just above. There followed a long winding descent spoiled in places by the road being heavily potholed. In fact the right fork seal blew. A light moment was provided by the herd of sheep ambling their way across the road.
Once off the mountain the road winds towards Pitesti through small villages. Along the way I spooked a horse (which was uncomfortable for the people in the cart), got chased by dogs and warily avoided the bulls grazing by the road. Once through Pitesti it was a straightforward dash down the A1 to Bucaresti. The traffic in Bucharest is quite simply insane. I got lost and had to get directions. The hotel was simply superb. There were pictures of Prince Charles on the desk glad handing the folks there so definitely “upper class”.
I took a taxi to the “historic centre”. The driver was holding a phone to his ear, using one hand (occasionally) to hold the steering wheel. He would let go of the wheel to change gear, adjust the radio and pick his nose. He would only put his hand back when the car was about to collide with something. He had more faith in his driving than I did as he also did not bother with a seat belt. The “historic centre” was a little disappointing and grubby. I did, however, find a nice little restaurant where the owner pretty much decided what I should eat, it was excellent. I did not particularly enjoy being serenaded by the band with “My bonny lies over ze ocean”.
Wednesday 24 th
Up late this morning, pretty tired from yesterday. I was thinking of wimping out and having a short day, but the sun was shining so it’s off to Brasov. As the road climbs towards Brasov the villages look progressively more attractive. The town of Predeal is positively pleasant and wealthy. The shop there sells Millet gear (expensive!). There is a Hollywood style BRASOV sign high in the hills visible from here. Pretentious?
I thought Brasov itself was fairly unremarkable and didn’t stop. However, the point of coming this far up was to take the E574 to Campulung. This road was great. Good surface and fantastic bends. The heavy lorries provided an interesting challenge. It was a little bumpy in places but that did not detract from the ride. Unfortunately the section from Campulung to Pitesti was very bumpy and not much fun. I’d still do that road again, however.
The road from Pitesti to Craiova was unremarkable. The journey was spoiled by an atrocious thunderstorm that was striking lightning so frequently that when I stopped for petrol the attendant wouldn’t sell any. I waited an hour or more. The rain abated somewhat but the lightning remained. I decided to go further to see if I could find another petrol station that was serving. That took, oh... 5 minutes... The rain picked up again and the wind was blowing across the road with great strength and it was this that had me riding very slowly. I arrived rather late and again needed directions. Two nice people tried to help, a third hobo intervened and was noisy, rude and pushed for money. He wasn’t impressed when I declined. Nonetheless I managed to get reasonable directions and eventually found the hotel. The staff were totally bemused by this biker turning up at, what was for the area, quite a posh hotel. There was just enough communication to get booked in and fed. I didn’t explore Craiova and to be honest what I’d seen on the way in hadn’t really made me want to look further.
Thursday 25 th
I was offered the dinner menu for breakfast this morning as the staff member couldn’t read the English menu (the presence of which was impressive in itself). After a little confusion a more appropriate selection was offered. I packed and got ready to travel to Serbia. My first mistake was to have left my bike under a tree that dropped sticky fruit. It was covered. My second mistake was to not check the oil.
The E70 out of Craiova was unremarkable until the section between Filiasi and Drobeta-Turnu-Severin. The road climbed up and over some low mountains, was well surfaced and exciting to ride. I had just passed a fast BMW and was leant over hard when there was the briefest of hesitations from the engine and it developed something of a knock. Immediately I knew this could be terminal but I elected to slow down and ride on. I rode beside the Danube through stunning scenery along the DN57. One day this is going to be a magnificent road. The bits that were finished were perfect. Sadly much was rubble. It was fairly slow going and I had hopes that the engine would survive but just before the village of Berzasca the bike simply stopped. The engine didn’t seize but it did stop me fairly smartly. I rolled down the hill into the village until I reached the flat then got off and started pushing. I didn’t really know where I was going to push it to. Fortunately I saw two Frontier Police and pushed the bike over to them. I mimed a push start and they tried hard but it was no go. I then asked if they spoke English “He does” said the first guy. Indeed the second chap spoke good English and he said to take my bike to the “bar” and wait there and a colleague who knew about fixing bikes would come along when his shift finished.
I pushed the bike back the way I had come and then down to the riverside where there was the Pensiunea Isabella. It is essentially a B+B where you could buy beer out of the fridge. I rolled down the road into the forecourt. There were two men sitting drinking beer. They went silent and watched me roll in, then turned away and carried on chatting. Ok, now what? The front door was open so I went in calling “Hello?”. I eventually elicited a response and managed to find the lady of the house. My miming failed and she didn’t understand “can you change this 20 euro note?”. She followed me out talking excitedly in Romanian. One of the guys managed a little English and had worked out I wanted to exchange the Euros. She gave me an excellent exchange rate!
I got a drink out of the fridge and the guy took the money. I could see him hesitating and knew he was going to over charge me but it was so cheap I didn’t really care. However, the lady came out and obviously asked him how much he’d charged. There was an explosion of Romanian and he shrugged. She then gave me back one Lei, about 25p.
I waited for the policeman to turn up at the suggested time, and then waited another hour. I was starting to get a bit restless so I mimed jump leads (it worked!) and the folk got their mobile phones out and started ringing around. The chap who had sold me the drinks got some wire and had the lady holding them to the car battery whilst he held them on the bike. She got a shock and this caused something of a row... Another guy turned up with some very heavy duty cable but this was no go either. In between all this I had rung Carole Nash and they contacted Romanian Internal Assistance, they in turn contacted me and said they would send out some people. The locals were just starting to talk about dismantling the bike and I was frantically indicating “NO!”. At this point the policeman turned up, nice guy. ZX6R owner and spoke excellent English. He wanted to tow start me. Thanks but no thanks. He left wishing me luck and the locals dispersed clearly disappointed that they didn’t get to strip the bike down.
A couple of hours later a breakdown truck appeared with a father and son team. The son spoke passable English though everything was “twisted” rather than broken or bent. He was clearly into bikes and spent about 3 hours trying to get it started including dismantling the starter motor. Eventually he diagnosed that one of the pistons was sticking at the top of its stroke and that was what was preventing the engine firing up. At this point I decided to ship the bike home and catch a plane. I did not have enough time left to allow them to try and mend it then still get home in time.
I informed Carole Nash that this is what I expected to happen which threw them a bit but after about 10 phone calls they seemed to get the picture. It was decided that the bike would now be transported to Resita. There could be something romantic about being driven along the Danube in the moonlight but in the circumstances there wasn’t... It was about 100miles to Resita along poor and winding roads. We arrived about midnight then I had to hang around whilst the guys got permission to put me up in a hotel. This eventually came through. They paid for everything then asked if I needed anything else “Beer, lemonade and water please”. The bar was shut but the young lad disappeared and returned a while later with a bottle of beer, another of water and one of lemonade. The lemonade was excellent. We made arrangements to meet up again the next morning.
Friday 26th
We met up at the appointed hour to be informed that Carole Nash was being slow making decisions as I had stepped outside the usual system by insisting on repatriation before repair. I made some more calls and basically told them what I expected to happen and eventually it all fell into place. Carole Nash would pay for a taxi to Timisoara and most of the cost of the repatriation. This was acceptable and we reached an agreement. I then had to badger them into making the taxi journey today because nice as the people were I didn’t really want to spend the next day in Resita.
Thank goodness for mobile phones with internet access. Whilst waiting I browsed the internet and found a hotel in Timisoara for the next two nights and booked a flight home on “Wizzi Air”, a Polish low cost airline. The father of the father – son breakdown team also became the taxi driver. When I said goodbye to the young lad I had to force him to take some money, he had been an invaluable help.
A short way into the taxi journey we had to turn round and go back. His partner wanted to go to Timisoara too. A minor delay and quite amusing. Once on the way again we soon came across a multi-vehicle accident and so he organised some more work for himself helping out those involved. He joined in the general overtake using non-existent chances into non-existent gaps in the traffic but remarkably avoided contact with anything. On arrival in Timisoara we were greeted with the sight of an upside down vehicle in the central reservation.
He dropped me off at the hotel; I checked in then got another taxi into town (I had chosen a hotel close to the airport). Timisoara was a revelation after most of the other towns and cities I had seen in Romania. It was clean, it was not a building site and the buildings were interesting and attractive. I spent most of the evening exploring the pedestrianised area between the cathedral and the opera house. The buildings are attractive and there is a lively atmosphere with a happy intermingling of locals and tourists. Dinner was eaten al fresco. The wine by the glass was cheap and utterly undrinkable. I got a taxi back, the first driver declined to go to my hotel. The next was happy to and gave the first a right mouthful as we set off.
Saturday 27 th
http://www.harta-turistica.ro/map.php?ID=6&lang=eng
Decided to be adventurous and walked into town from the hotel, it was only a couple of miles to the outskirts of central Timisoara but the area wasn’t exactly salubrious. First stop was the Piata Unirii, considered to be the most attractive Piata in Timisoara. It was certainly interesting dominated as it was by the Roman Catholic Cathedral to the East and the Serbian Orthodox Church to the west. Sadly it was now very overcast and then started raining heavily. Fortunately the cafe’s big sun umbrellas worked just as well to keep the rain off. I sat, watched the world go by and tried to ignore the begging children. These were eventually chased away by the waiter. It all seemed to be a big game both for the children and for him.
The rain stopped before I was forced to buy another drink and so I wandered down to the Piata Libertatii, which seems an odd name as it was the scene of a gruesome suppression of the 16 th century rebellion. I could not find the cannonball which is said to be imbedded in a wall near here, maybe next time. I continued on to the Piata Victoriei, which is the pedestrianised area I mentioned before.
Lunch was an excellent coffee and pastry in small but pleasant cafe. I had a brief look around but was more interested in getting a closer look at the relatively new (1936 – 1946) Metropolitan Cathedral and the canal beyond. The cathedral is impressive. The external walls bear plaques commemorating those that died in the 1989 revolt. The inside glows with light reflected from the many intricate gold coloured surfaces.
Behind the cathedral is a pleasant park with paths leading down to the canal. There are a few signs of neglect here but the canal side is clean and it is popular with fishermen. Walking east along the northern shore I came to an open air bar. Sadly they didn’t have any of the local beer advertised on their menu! I had to manage with Stella. I crossed the bridge here and went back west, now on the south side. Crossing the canal again brings you to Parcul Central, a popular gathering place for the locals. This is a very pleasant place with interesting statuary.
A pleasant stroll through the park brought me back to the Piata Victoriei. Here I had to solve a problem. How was I going to get all my gear on the plane? Without having to wear half of it that is. For the first time in Romania there were real shops but sadly they are mostly mobile phone shops and shoe shops (which also tend to sell handbags). Even more sadly there is a McDonalds. I eventually found a sports shop and managed to procure a large sports bag with wheels and a handle at half the price of formal wheeled luggage (which I found in a shoe shop....).
Now rather encumbered, I walked back to the Piata Unirii. The sun was now out and it was indeed very attractive. I found a fairly smart Italian restaurant and had an excellent meal outside. I started walking back and as I saw no taxis ended up walking all the way back. I did have sore feet at the end. I managed to get everything packed away then had an early night as I had a taxi booked for 5 the next morning. I didn’t sleep very well.
Sunday 28 th
Up early and into the taxi. It was only a short ride to the airport. There was, however, a long queue to check in. Now I thought that if my bag was a little overweight they’d probably charge me a small fee and let it go. Oh no... 3kg over = £150. I don’t think so. He advised I take some on as hand luggage. What happened to the one bag rule? Even stranger the total weight of me and my bags hasn’t changed but now there is no charge and the cabin is fuller, madness. Wizzy airlines is cheap and cheerful but no worse than Easyjet or Ryanair. The flight back was pleasant enough. Once in the UK I caught a train from Luton to Euston then back to Grays. Adventure over, now I just have to wait to get my bike back...