A slightly shorter day today. After a comfortable night in Brechet we headed east along the main road on a low ridge beside the Dunav.

Stopping at a small town to buy our lunch ingredients we bought two large juicy tomatos, a small cucumber and about 250g of cherries from some people who were selling their produce – all for the princely sum of 5 Lei… equivalent to 85p. A nearby supermarket was able to supply us with feta like cheese, olives and yogurts.

On our way we pass lots of roadside wells, although some are clearly now disused; we also come across blue roadside pumps… very handy to wash fruit and veg and to freshen up in the heat of the day.

The road passed through a very productive landscape, with wheat almost ready to be harvested, sunflowers approximately 3ft high and maize about the same. We passed a horse and cart that looked like a moving haystack, it was piled so high.

We notice that an increasingly common roofing material for buildings is steel sheet with a layer of zinc on it. Even churches use this material and it looks quite impressive with the silvery shimmer from the sun reflecting from recently re-roofed structures.

Our destination, Turnu Magurele had quite an ornate church, with two of its towers with a fluted twist in opposite directions.

Our evening meal at a restaurant in town was disturbed by live TV match of the day : Romania v France at Le Stade de France in Paris. Most of the bar staff were wearing Romanian colours in support of their national team and the place was filling up with lots of young men, many with their girlfriends who generally chose to sit not facing the tv screens!

Nerd’s Corner

Brechet to Turnu Magurele: 51 miles.

Total distance travelled so far: 2394 miles.