12.06.16

After a breakfast with Josephine at our hotel in unaccustomed luxury, we packed up and headed eastwards on a muggy but dry morning.

The road was mostly in good condition and fairly level… and at each village we passed through, children rushing out to give us high fives…..

Most villages we passed through had a message as you left,  “drum bun” –  Literally this means ‘good road’, accompanied by the EU ring of stars motif.

 

 

 

 

As we approached Giurgiu we passed areas of derelict factories and industry… leftovers from the move from the communist era when many poorly managed and uneconomic works went to the wall.

And we came across the first designated cycle lane we saw in Romania…. just as we were about to leave!

We travelled across the 1.5km “Friendship Bridge” that was originally built in 1954 to link Bulgaria and Romania across the Danube…. reportedly the first bridge between the two countries to be built since Roman times!

And then we entered Bulgaria, the 9th country we have entered on our trip.

As we were having our passports checked we struck up conversation with a group of cyclists who were also crossing the border. It turned out they were Bulgarians, returning from a morning over in Romania. They were extremely helpful and showed us the way into the city centre of Ruse and also the location of a decent bike shop. We hope they might be able to supply us with a suitably strong tyre to replace the almost worn out ‘Schwalbe Marathon Plus’  tyre whichwe have temporarily been using after the other new tyre we recently bought developed a split in the side wall..

And we checked into the “English Guest House” …. not having any double rooms available they let us use their small lawn to pitch our tent. Luxury hotel to camping at a guest house in one day! Fortunately for our second night a room became avalailable, so we were able to transfer our tent to an empty garage to dry off a little and help with our packing up the following day.

Nerd’s Corner

Zimnicea to Ruse (Romania) : 48 miles.

Total distance travelled so far: 2480 miles.