MOTORHOME TRAVELLERS' DIARY ROMANIA 1

Barry and Margaret Williamson What follows are extracts from a diary we kept during our motorhome travels in Romania during the summer of 2003. We had entered Romania from Bulgaria over the Friendship bridge, after a journey from Greece and Turkey.

To continue this journey through Arad to the Hungarian border, click here

09 AUGUST 2003 BG CAMPING RIBARSKA KOLIBA, RUSE

After a straightforward drive to Veliko Târnovo, we continued on E85 towards Ruse (spelt PYCE in Cyrillic), the largest Bulgarian port on the Danube and entry point from Romania over the (ironically named) Friendship Bridge.

The dilapidated wooded campsite was on our route about 3 miles before the city. No-one else was camping, though one of the little wooden cabins was occupied. We plugged into a socket by the grim row of washbasins, drew a picture of a receipt to show the receptionist what was expected, had lunch, then set out for a walk in search of the Danube below. It was about a mile, steeply downhill through the woods to the dry bed of a side stream and along till we saw the mighty river, flowing very low after the summer drought. We'd heard that barges on the Rhine and Danube are having difficulty and that the EDF have been forced to turn off nuclear power stations because of the lack of water. Satisfied, hot and dusty, we climbed back up to the campsite.

Sadly, while updating the diary to complete Bulgaria, the word processor suddenly stopped in mid-sentence. Barry tested all the components and concluded that the plug-adapter-converter wasn't working (blown, perhaps, by a spike in the dodgy electrical supply?) A serious problem as it's a specific 'Brother' component, probably impossible to replace in Eastern Europe. Disappointed, we sorted our papers for the border and read about Bucharest.

80 miles. £5.55 inc elec.

We drove about 8 miles past the port of Ruse to the border, where a new TIR lorry park would have made a safe place for the night, had we known. An obstacle course of checkpoints and payments followed. Leaving Bulgaria, we had to pay the toll for the bridge (13 euros), go through passport check and customs check, then join a long queue to cross the Danube. The Friendship Bridge, a serious heavy iron structure carrying the railway below the road, really looks the part. It was used in the film of John le Carré's 'Spy who came in from the cold' and we could just imagine Michael Caine lurking there on a dark wet night.

Once over the river we were welcomed to Romania, without warning, by being sprayed with jets of disinfectant as we drove through a trough of the stuff - we quickly wound up the windows! Later it dried into white patches. We were issued with a chit to say we'd been treated, to be taken to another booth to pay the fee for this privilege - which could only be paid in Romanian lei, well before reaching any exchange desks (which turned out to be closed anyway)! The staff (who spoke only Romanian) behaved as if we were the first customers ever to have no local currency (unobtainable outside the country) - a good game! Eventually, we were sent to the customs office with another chitty, authorising us to pay the price of 8 euros, in addition to giving a policeman 13 euros 'road tax'. Of course, the man who issued the first chit could have collected all this money, but that would put 3 others out of a job.

Little seems to have changed here. Once we'd played this proletarian game of Snakes & Ladders, we asked about getting Green Card insurance for Alf - this had been no problem in Bulgaria, where 10 days' cover was very cheap. The police said we'd have to get it in Bucharest. The next thing we saw as we left the border area, avoiding the flocks of geese looking for a pond, was a row of 3 cabins all offering Carte Verde insurance! They all quoted a price of 75 euros for one month (the minimum), but as we sat in Rosie discussing whether to buy it, one operator came over to drop his price to 70 and we signed the papers.

At last, after a total of 2¼ hours, we were through, passing the well-remembered Bon Voyage sign 'Drum Bun' (literally, Road Good - odd mix of Greek and Latin languages). We drove (on a not particularly Good Road!) towards Bucharest, stopping to make lunch at a truckstop. We later heard from Ian Shires that the same border crossing took him 11 hours about a fortnight later, coinciding with the end of school holidays and the return of up to 2 million Turkish Gastarbeiter to northern Europe!

This end of Romania looked as poor as Bulgaria, its people thin and shabbily dressed, walking or travelling by horse & cart. Old women sold tomatoes or watermelons at the roadsides, chickens pecked the verges. We bypassed the border town of Giurgiu and continued about 40 miles to Ceausescu's capital city. For several kilometres of roadworks, a continuous ditch had been dug on our side of the road, considerably narrowing it for the future gain of a wider road. Every oncoming vehicle, particularly buses and trucks, had us teetering between dropping into the unguarded ditch and a head-on collision. If there was a ring road to the airport, we missed it (no signposts) and continued straight through the centre of Bucharest. Luckily, the tree-lined boulevards were wide, the traffic less busy on a Sunday and we emerged unscathed onto the Brasov road, after a fleeting impression of grandiose buildings and parks, trams and trolleybuses. Romania appears to have polarised into rich city-folk and poor peasants with little in between, no obvious middle class emerging yet.

The new campsite at the Casa Alba (White House) restaurant is about 5 miles north of the city, taking the first right turn off the Brasov road (towards the Police Academy) after passing the domestic airport at Baneasa (but before the international one further out at Otopeni). It is surprisingly busy, very strange to find ourselves among tourists again - mostly a convoy of Italian motorhomes and one British, alongside which we parked. The well-spoken PhD student working in Reception talked interestingly about his thesis on the origins of religion in the people of pre-history. As we parked, Alan & Kaye James, from Wales, appeared to greet us. They'd been travelling for 2 years in a 25-ft Hobby and had come out through Hungary and Romania, heading for Greece via Bulgaria & Turkey - their first visit to Eastern Europe. With plenty of information to exchange, we began by joining them for an evening meal at the restaurant, a good 3-course dinner with entertainment by a small group of musicians in traditional dress playing folk music. One young man looked deep into Barry's eyes, if not his soul, as he sang mournful gypsy songs.

We invited our new friends back for coffee and heard their story. Alan, a retired printer, had been a professional football player for Cardiff City until a bad knee injury in the 1970's ended his career. Kaye had been a Health Visitor and now did all the driving (he couldn't). Alan's fascintaing hobby was visiting football stadiums around Europe, between matches, and collecting pennants and souvenirs from them. We felt it had not been his decision to sell up and take to the road: a quiet diffident chap who missed his bungalow, garden and neighbours.

81 miles. £9.80 inc elec.

A morning for washing (by hand - there might be machines next year) and cleaning, while Barry hosed the disinfectant off Rosie. We learnt that this indignity only applies when entering from Bulgaria, not from Hungary.

We had a useful afternoon talking with Alan & Kaye over maps and sharing their cold beer and cookies. They had just returned from a few days up in the NE of Romania exploring the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina (in a hired car while the Hobby was parked here). We'd seen some of the monasteries on our way to Suceava with aid back in 1990 and we lent them our account of that journey. It was difficult to convey to them just what life was like here: they notice only smiling villagers and think it's picturesque to see women still fetching water from the well and doing their washing in the stream. They were even impressed with their visit to Ceausescu's palace, which he bankrupted the country and starved its people to build.

Alan lent us the July and August issues of MMM (he subscribes and had just collected a packet of post from his sister). During the evening's reading we were surprised to see a letter in July's edition from Martin & Clare, full of technical jargon about emailing via a lap-top and mobile phone - something they never do, in our experience!

Declining the invitation to join Alan & Kaye on the bus, we rode into Bucharest on Alf. We paid to park him outside the large white Senate building in the centre for 4 hours while we explored.

After reading the excellent account of the Dec 1989 Revolution in our 1997 LP Guide to Eastern Europe (much abbreviated in the 2003 edition), we were keen to see the scene of the events. The Senate was the HQ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Ceausescu's time. From its balcony he made his final, fatal speech to the booing crowds in what is now called Revolution Square below, the TV cameras catching the moment for the world to see. He and Elena were whisked from its roof by helicopter - not to freedom, as they believed, but to summary trial and execution within a couple of days. Nearby we saw the Central University Library (1895) and the Cretulescu orthodox church (1722), both bullet-riddled and badly damaged in those momentous events leading up to Christmas 1989. The library was completely rebuilt, the church is still being restored inside.

A short walk away, on the main north-south boulevard, we had an hour in an internet centre for 50p, time to read and reply to Emails from 'Bridge the World' (to whom we'd written for a quotation) and Ian & Alison Parsons (reporting on Slovakia), and to ask Keith Durham (again) for Dan Fizedean's address. Barry also wrote a well-worded admonition to Martin, concerning the medium and the message (or lack of it)! Checking bank accounts was simpler, now free of Turkish and Bulgarian keyboards. We can even understand some of the Romanian on the screen.

After lunch in McDonald's, we walked round the historic quarter, surprised by the number of churches. Many believers queued to light candles in the oldest church (1546), near the remains of the Old Princely Court of Vlad Tepes (1459 - Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Count Dracula) who made this the capital of Wallachia.

Returning to collect Alf, we rode to the southern part of the city to see the monstrosity of a palace (the House of the People - ie they paid a high price for it), which Ceausescu started to build in the 1980's but never finished. A huge area of old Bucharest was demolished to make way for it, the 2nd largest bulding in the world after the Pentagon. The river was dammed and diverted to add to the grandeur of a capital to rival Moscow! It now houses the Parliament and conference rooms and is open for conducted tours but we'd seen enough. We rode back through the city centre, under the copy of Paris's Arc de Triomphe and out to the campsite, past the big Selgros Cash & Carry store. We checked that foreigners can shop there by showing their passport (Romanians need trade cards) and got money from its ATM (50,000 lei = £1).

Alan came in for a cup of coffee and chat after dinner; Kaye wasn't well and had gone to bed.

We motorbiked the short distance to the Selgros Cash & Carry on the main road, an Aladdin's Cave of food, drink, clothes, toys, electrical and domestic goods - all the things Romanians could not buy until 1990 (and many still can't, because of the price). We checked the computer section to see if they stocked Brother equipment (sadly not) and stocked up on food, suspecting (wrongly) that there would be nothing like it once we'd left the capital. We even got sliced bacon and mature cheddar cheese, emerging with more than we could safely carry on Alf! M took the bags in a taxi, which followed Barry back to the campsite at a cost including tip of less than £2.

We prepared to move on, dumping and filling tanks, and defrosting the fridge/freezer which is working very hard in the continuing heat. Alan was out all day visiting 3 football stadiums accompanied by a Romanian who worked at Casa Alba.

After dinner he and Kaye came in. We shared the bottle of sparkling wine we got free on the ferry to Cherbourg and gave them a TV show of the recent digital photos of our journey through Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria - their onward route.

A long farewell to Alan & Kaye, then we set off north on the E60 dual carriageway towards Ploiesti and Brasov. We soon made the mistake of turning into a Metro store (the rival cash & carry to Selgros) for comparison. On exiting, with no possibility of turning left, we had to drive back past the airports, almost to the centre of Bucharest. Spotting a sign for a lorry route to Ploiesti, we made our 2nd mistake and followed it, hoping to bypass a messy junction with bridges and rejoin the E60. No such luck - it proved to be an alternative route, narrow and potholed after Buftea with frequent roadworks, long queues of trucks and no link to the highway for nearly 45 miles until the Ploiesti ring road. Slow going for 2 hours, through desperately poor villages. Sadly, we couldn't even park to buy produce from the roadside. Ironically, we passed a Metro store in Ploiesti with easy access - we'd assumed they were found only in the capital! We continued on the much better E60, starting to climb away from the Wallachian plain up the Prahova valley alongside the river and railway for another 30 miles to Sinaia, a little ski resort in the Bucegi National Park at about 2,700 ft, at the foot of the Bucegi Mountains. The architecture changed as we climbed, with some rustic wooden chalet-type houses, though they stood amongst Stalinist blocks of workers' flats alongside horrendous factories by the railway.

Not wishing to continue over the Predeal Pass to Brasov at dusk, we stopped at the Sinaia Motel & Restaurant a couple of miles before Sinaia, which advertised camping. This proved to be on a rough grassy terraced bank behind the motel, packed with Romanians on holiday with cars, tents and bonfires. No hook-ups or usable facilities, but it provided a place for the night once Barry had coaxed Rosie up to the top tier, the only one with a large level space. After dinner (Metro did supply a roast chicken to compensate for the long detour) it was too dark for a walk in the forest so we went towards Sinaia and came to a gloomy cemetery with a gothic chapel and one faint lantern. The border with Transylvania lay just ahead of us at the Pass - we didn't explore any further! It was not a restful stay - Barry had to go out twice during the night to prevent people lighting fires alongside us (one man arrived at 3 am and started making a fire to sleep by).

The village name comes from the 17thC monastery here, called after the monastery on Mt Sinai in Egypt. There is also Peles Castle (1870), a royal summer residence of King Carol I, who popularised the resort.

80 miles. £3.00 (no elec.)

Once we'd exited the campsite, with much manoeuvring on its steep stony track, we drove through Sinaia, very busy with Romanian holidaymakers arriving by train or car. With nowhere to park, we saw neither monastery nor palace though we did pass a Holiday Inn.

The road climbed gradually for 15 miles, following the railway through another busy resort at Predeal, reaching 1003 m (3,310 ft) at Predeal Pass, marking the Wallachian/Transylvanian border (the Romanian/Hungarian border till 1920). Then we zigzagged steeply down towards the old Saxon city of Brasov (or Kronstadt). We found a good campsite/motel/restaurant, right on the main road 5 miles before the city, and parked on a level pitch with its own drain and tap. We talked to John Albutt in a nearby Hymer (but not to Stephanie) and briefly to our other neighbours - French, Dutch and Swiss (a man who'd once climbed the Eiger).

After lunch we rode Alf into Brasov, its picturesque medieval centre surrounded by ugly workers' flats, its streets a mess of traffic and trolley-buses. The 'Roman' trucks seen all over Romania were once built here but now the factory and the men are idle.

On our return, we invited John to join us for a chicken curry, since Steph was indisposed and we felt sorry for him. A middle-aged retailer, he suffers from psoriasis, she from stress, and they'd sold up to take a year out travelling, which wasn't helping. We were able to offer information and advice for their onward route, through Bulgaria to Greece, and we heard about their journey through Slovakia and Hungary. Conversation was interrupted by a terrific thunderstorm and he left to make sure Steph was OK.

27 miles. £7.20 inc elec.

M rang Matthew at Kingswood Stationers in Blackpool and arranged for the word processor part to be posted to Keszthely. We also had a call from Turners about problems with the gas boiler or flue. We asked them to check whether it was covered by our gas service contract. Their email facility is no longer working (which explains why we've had no answer to one sent on 8 August) and Margaret Shaw is on holiday - not very satisfactory.

Rest of morning spent on dhobi, cooking and saying farewell to John Albutt (but not Steph who remained elusive!)

After lunch we motorbiked into Brasov again to explore, leaving Alf by the fine central square lined with the Baroque facades of town houses. It would have looked more impressive without the scaffolding and technicians preparing the stage for the forthcoming Ricky Martin concert, but the town hall/historical museum (1420) and the gothic Biserica Neagra (Black Church, 1477) loomed above it. The Saxon merchant colony lived inside Kronstadt's massive walls, while the Romanians lived more simply outside the Scheii Gate to the south-west. We walked a section of the medieval walls and visited the little museum in the Weavers' Bastion, a 16thC corner fort containing a scale model of Brasov in the 17thC, made in 1896. (Entrance fee about 30p and 20p for the 'Pensionist', including the loan of a booklet in English). From the Bastion, we walked along through the forest outside the walls, overlooking the city. We even came to a cable car rising from 640 m to 960 m (over 3,000 ft) for a better view of the area (or a 45-min zigzag trail up to the same point). Sadly, we hadn't time for the hike (nor the nerve to trust a Romanian Telecabina costing 50p) as we had an appointment at the church.

The Schwarze Kirche (so named after a fire in 1689) is still used by the German-speaking Lutheran community and was due to open at 6 pm for a concert on its lovely 4,000-pipe organ (1839). Inside, the huge church was fairly plain, interesting for the German inscriptions and the priceless Anatolian rugs (spoils of war from the marauding Turks) hanging from the walls. The announcements (in German) warned that these were fitted with alarms! The concert, selections from Vivaldi and Bach played by a lady organist from Switzerland, lasted 45 mins and when we emerged the sky had darkened and begun to rain. We arrived back at camp 20 mins later but soon dried out over dinner (sausage casserole and bread & butter pudding).

In which we walk along the river, service Alf, write to Mum and watch Morse

With rain threatening, we postponed the planned motorbike ride to Rasnov and Bran. M wrote to Mum (by hand) enclosing the July diary, and updated the August diary (on tape). We both miss the word processor and look forward to the problem being solved by the new part we've ordered. Barry gave Alf a clean and checked his tyre pressures, oil level, etc. Drivers in Bulgaria and Romania seem more aware of motorbikes than they were in Turkey or Greece, though the roads are narrower and more likely to be cracked, slipped or potholed.

After lunch we took a short walk along the stream, through the woods and back along the river. Here the local people were eating picnics, cooking on little bonfires, free-camping with small tents, playing football, just enjoying the fresh air, a bus-ride away from their grim concrete apartment blocks. Inside the perimeter fence of the campsite, the privileged were segregated - foreign tourists in motorhomes and richer Romanians in the nicely appointed wooden cabins of the former holiday centre for members of the Securitate.

Riding into Brasov yesterday we'd passed a convoy of 13 Italian motorhomes and wondered where they were bound - now we found out as they arrived and filled the campsite!

There is no TV signal here but we watched the beginning of the 'Last Morse' video Mum had made. It started with a programme about the making of the series, with author Colin Dexter. Very interesting, as we'd both just read Dexter's 'The Wench is Dead' (courtesy of Kaye & Alan).

We heard from our Dutch and French neighbours of the chance to watch wild brown bears (yes really) at night on the outskirts of Brasov! Apparently, they come down from the wooded hills after dark and raid the large dustbins outside the blocks of flats. There has even been a TV programme about them. Our informants had been by car yesterday at about 10 pm and seen a mother bear and cubs come to the bins. Tempting, but we decided not to go and watch on a motorbike, and we certainly weren't moving Rosie after dark.

Dry and sunny again, the storms had passed. Alf took us through Brasov but, concentrating on the road, he missed the unsignposted turn for Rasnov. We realised when we reached the small town of Codlea (with its busy little market in the old square), so turned back to the Jhinbav crossroads from where it was only 6 miles to Rasnov. We parked by the simple campsite for a stiff 15-min walk up through fir trees to the 13thC hill-top fortress (now being restored), dominating the plain below. The walled citadel, complete with churches and houses, was built to keep out first the Tartars and then the Ottomans. After exploring its charming ramparts, dungeons and little museum (entry about 90p each), we returned to the village for an excellent lunch at the only restaurant - for a total of £3 we had chicken breast schnitzels, tomato salad, chips, bread and a bottle of water!

Well satisfied, we posted Mum's letter and continued to Bran, 6 miles away. Here, the less dramatic castle was originally built in 1378 by Saxon merchants as a toll station for trade between Transylvania and Wallachia. It looked as if it had been largely rebuilt for Queen Marie in the 1920's and it was closed today. The place was still busy with tourists, though, lured by the mythical Dracula connection to buy at the souvenir stalls (some nice local basketwork and embroidery among a lot of plastic spiders and bats!) We bought a local sweetmeat, freshly cooked at a little booth - a sort of thick pancake dough, wrapped round wooden rolling pins and baked over hot coals. The resulting hollow roll was brushed with syrup, dipped in coconut, chopped nuts or chocolate powder and sold, literally, like hot cakes. A 200g slice for a few pence went well with our flask of coffee in the park.

We returned to Rasnov, then a short cut to Brasov on a back road, climbing for 5 rough miles through forest to Romania's largest ski resort, Poiana Brasov at 1020 m (3,370 ft), nestled in the southern Carpathians amongst hotels, cable-cars, chair-lifts and a gondola. A new wooden Romanian Orthodox church was superbly carved, inside and out. We had a splendid view of the old town in its little side valley as we continued down to the city below on a good wide road, Alf running well.

We got a voicemail message from John Albutt, reporting he'd camped at Rasnov and continued to Bucharest, unimpressed! There's another mind which travel hasn't broadened.

We drove the few miles north into Brasov, pausing at a Selgros Cash & Carry store on the way. As well as food, we got stationery and a very informative French map of greater Europe on a large table-mat.

We took the lorry route round the edge of the city and onto the E68 westwards, turning back towards W Europe. The Brasov-Arad railway ran parallel with our route. We stopped again at Codlea to shop at its fruit & veg market. Small town Romania is much more inviting than the large industrial cities.

Next stop was for lunch, in a layby in the village of Fagaras. The Fagaras Mountains (Romania's highest) cross the country just to the south of the main road but we could only just make out their shape in the heat-haze. After another 20 miles we came to the left turn for the Transfagaras Highway and stopped to ask at the petrol station, motel and cafe about the Dutch-run campsite which the Dutch cyclists in Edirne had told us about. 2 out of 3 suggested going back 1 km towards Fagaras and turning left for 3 km to Carta (pronounced, like its old Saxon name, Kirze). The 3rd had no idea. In this unlikely tiny village, unsigned and at the end of the bitumen, we found a delightful campsite tucked behind a house - but only after we'd shut our eyes and driven over a rickety low bridge, a single slab of concrete, across the stream, where women were doing the dhobi and ducks ruled!

De Oude Wilg (the old willow tree) is run by a young Dutch woman and her Romanian husband - we found them busy in the garden painting a sign to put on the main road! There is a field of corn on one side, a farm with horses, geese, chickens and peasant women in long red dresses on the other, and a river along the bottom of our field. We talked to the only other campers, friendly Germans, who had come from the other Dutch campsite we'd heard of, Aurel Vlaicu beyond Sibiu, and they passed on a leaflet showing its location.

As we settled in, our Dutch hostess called by with a 'welcome drink' - a jug of her very tasty sweet home-made cherry & blackcurrant liqueur. The camping price is 9.8 euros (or equivalent in lei), a machine-load of dhobi is 1 euro including powder, and we have escaped smoky Stalinist cities for real rural Romania!

We rang Turners (in response to 2 recent voicemails) and spoke to Jan Barrett. The problem is not with the gas boiler but with a leaking flue which needs repointing. We agreed they should arrange that and asked her to phone us with the cost (but we heard no more). Also sent a text of thanks to John Albutt in reply to his.

We watched the video of 'The Last Morse', in which Endeavour is laid to rest, and had a peaceful night below a sky full of stars, far from city lights and scavenging bears!

70 miles. £7.00 inc elec.

Lovely sunny dry weather again. We packed a picnic and Alfed up the Transfagaras Highway. The climb was gentle at first, through the village of Cirtisoara, 2½ miles after the turnoff, then another 10 miles getting steeper till the Cascade Hotel from where a cable car and a footpath went upstream to the Balea Falls. We left Alf and walked up through busy woods to join a few Romanians, Germans and Hungarians scrambling on the rocks to photograph the view of the head of the falls, looking back over the hotel and away to the Transylvanian plateau and our home village way below. Wild raspberries grew above the rocks but all within reach had been picked.

The road is blocked beyond the Cascade Hotel in winter with many metres of snow but today, in this record summer, there is none to be seen even on the peaks. We rode on, up the steep switchbacks, lunching in a layby, then up and up for another 8 miles from the hotel to the top of the road where an 890 m long tunnel faced us. On the way we stopped regularly to look down on the Scalextric road swicthbacking below. We passed small groups of tents and cars, freecamping by the streams, and a shepherd with his round black hat, 2 dogs and a flock grazing the high pastures. Avalanche shelters and fencing on the hillsides protected the exposed stretches of road. Austrians on serious motorbikes roared past with a sympathetic wave of admiration, while Hungarian drivers were literally to be avoided!

We parked at the top (2027 m or 6,689 ft) just before the tunnel, where the little Balea Lake (glacier-cold, 11.33 m deep, 2,042 sq m in area) had a couple of hotels and a huddle of souvenir stalls, offering boiled corncobs, fruit, nuts and bags of pumpkin or sunflower seeds to fortify the tourists. It is still a very simple life and diet here. A track led way above us to Romania's highest peak, Moldoveanu, 2543 m (over 8,000 ft but only a 1,650 ft climb from here). We could make out several groups on their way up. We finished our provisions and turned for home, Alf popping and struggling as his plug oiled up on the descent. B stopped and cleaned it after freewheeling down the steepest part.

This Transfagaras Highway was built by the army, at great cost in money and 38 lives, taking 4½ years (opened 1974). Ceausescu wanted a quick route for getting tanks to the Hungarian/Russian borders after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was the only scheme he actually finished apart from the Bucharest Metro! Never used for military purposes and closed half the year, but now appreciated by day-trippers and campers in the summer for access to the 'Romanin Alps'.

Back in Carta, we had a look round the village: the ruins of a Cistercian Abbey dating from 1200, a little police station, council offices, post office, junior school, clinic, church, railway halt, 2 small shops (and a larger one closed down), and bungalows behind high walls, Hungarian-style, with room for the horse and chickens in the yard.

In which we cycle 33 miles to the Cascade Hotel and learn about local hero, Badea Curtan

Following yesterday's motorbike route, we cycled as far as the Cascade Hotel and back. A very pleasant ride, with light traffic and plenty of forest shade from the powerful sun. After a gentle start, the going got tough for the last 10 miles (we hadn't cycled for a month)! It took 2½ hours for the 15-mile 2,000-ft climb, thirsty work, with a good rest and picnic by the hotel.

The descent was 1 hr 10 mins, not counting a break to look in the little Badea Curtan Museum in Cirtisoara. Valerica Solomon, the lovely woman running the homely collection of domestic and farming implements, demonstrated the use of the handloom to us, working on a length of the traditionally patterned cloth in white, black and red. Another room was devoted to Badea Cirtan (whose home this had been), displaying his pigskin rustic shoes, his rucksack made from a tartan rug, his collection of books in Romanian and old photographs showing him in Rome alongside Trajan's Column.

Valerica spoke only Romanian, but later our campsite host explained that this man (actually born in Carta) had walked over the mountains on a pilgrimage to Rome and back, in the 1890's when Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and use of the Romanian language was forbidden. He'd brought books for the villagers in his 'rucksack', from Romanian Wallachia. And Trajan's Column? - the people he met in Rome had recognised where he came from by his black and white peasant costume, exactly as shown on the Column in the battle between Romans and Dacians in 105 AD (fashions are slow to change in these parts!) Next to Badea Cirtan's cottage is a newly thatched cowshed and a typical earth-floored cottage with simple furnishings - probably how many peasants are still living today.

We cycled back, using an unsealed short cut from the crossroads, to read, rest and eat - braised pork chops followed by pears poached in Bulgarian rosé. The end of the video containing the last Morse had a Christmas concert by Neil Diamond, showing his age and his vocal limitations.

We made a fresh batch of lemonade, to fill our bike bottles and keep our fluid intake up, and enjoyed the peace of Romanian village life. A local farm labourer in a wonderful hat is scything the field around us, his wife raking the cut into little stacks to dry. M rushed out to warn him of our electric cable!

Another day at the wonderful 'Camping à la Ferme' which we have almost to ourselves. M handed over 2 loads of dhobi (which were pegged out in the vegetable patch for us and returned dry and folded) and acquired an excellent Dutch 'Internationale Camping Gid' for the year 2000 from the reading room, along with 'Transylvania in Your Pocket', swapped for a couple of old paperbacks.

Then a walk to the village shop where we got a good solid loaf, 5 eggs, 2 bananas and a bottle of Ursus beer for a total of less than £1 (though a plastic carrier bag would be extra). Women were washing rugs and clothes in the stream or fetching water from the well, ducks and geese swam the pond, horses pulled carts of hay or wood, one old soul sat at the roadside all day by a pile of watermelons, selling none that we noticed, while chickens of all sizes crossed the unmade road.

After lunch we took a reluctant Alf out (still with sparking plug trouble, though B had put a new one in). He struggled up through Cirtisoara, then left along a stony track we'd noticed, signposted 1500 m to the Monastery though it was nearer to 6 km. The white church with gleaming copper roof and dome shone above us in the forest. It was undergoing renovation and the few simply-clad young nuns were busy outside their new living quarters, preparing veg for an enormous stewpot. One showed us into their chapel (RC, not Orthodox). We bought 2 candles to light for the souls of the dead, to be placed in a tin trough outside. Back on Alf, we continued along the track, then back through a couple of humble nameless hamlets, rejoining the main road a mile east of the turning for Carta.

The loveliest traffic on the roads - the many carts piled with hay and drawn by sturdy horses decked in red pompoms, or even, yesterday, a pair of magnificently reluctant bullocks, proudly pausing for Barry's photograph.

A last walk round the village of Carta, lingering with the camera. M talked to an elderly Saxon couple sitting on a bench, still speaking German. The man (slightly the worse for his liquid breakfast) kept repeating that he'd been to school in Potsdam and was sent out of Germany in 1943.

Reluctantly, we left the young couple restoring their house, the bucolic setting of Camping Oude Wilg, to find another Dutch-run site they had recommended. After 30 miles, just outside Sibiu (alias Hermannstadt - another Saxon town), we stopped at a big supermarket (appropriately named XXL) for shopping and lunch. Turning off the main transit route here, we headed north for 35 miles on a reasonable but narrow road, past the horrendous coking plant at Copsa Mica (once featured in a BBC documentary about the horrors of Ceausescu's Romania), to Medias. Here we turned left, across the river, for 3 miles steeply up and down hill, over a ridge, to the village of Blajel, strung along the road. Again, it seemed a most unlikely place for a good campsite (no signs), but again we found a very pleasant paddock behind high walls and gates. The owner is a retired Dutch journalist (once based in Bonn covering politics for his paper). His Romanian wife had been a teacher in Medias and they met when he came in Jan 1990 with an aid convoy from the Evangelische Kirche, helping and reporting on it. He couldn't have been more nervous then than he was now, guiding us down the side of his bungalow, Rosie nudging his guttering on one side and crushing his flowers on the other!

Our neighbours, camping or staying in the guest-rooms, were Dutch, German, Belgian and a self-proclaimed Saxon, who was arguing with our host about racial discrimination. We left them to it, just pleased to be safely in off the road. It's very sunny again - sad that the open air pool doesn't look inviting. The water can't be changed or refreshed due to the shortage (like all the villagers, he is reliant on his well). The evenings are cooling down a little though, with a hint of autumn to come.

68 miles. £10.53 inc elec.

Another sunny Sunday for a visit to Sighisoara (alias Schässburg in Saxon, Segesvar in Hungarian - soara, burg or var meaning fortified town). It was a good quiet road, new for the most part with a good surface, via Medias then following the railway, a round trip of 60 miles on Alf. We went through several rustic villages until, about 3 miles before Sighisoara, the village of Danes was having a festival with a brass band playing outside the church and many folk in traditional costumes (black and white, with some red embroidery). A couple of stalls sold grapes, apples, basketware and barbecued sausages with bread and mustard - a cheap early lunch for us, along with our own squash. An Orthodox priest then held a service dedicating a new water fountain with a mosaic of the crucifixion.

Moving on to Sighisoara, in its well-preserved medieval walled and turreted centre, we soon saw and heard the action. The local folk dancing societies were out in force, performing for the tourists on a stage in the central square. We explored the cobbled lanes, 16thC Teutonic houses, 11 towers, gypsy pedlars and stalls selling every type of souvenir, but not a cafe or cakeshop to be found - just bars! We passed the house (now a restaurant) where Vlad Tepes was born in 1431 ('Vlad the Impaler' - Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula). We even climbed the 14thC clock-tower, not so much for the museum exhibits in the creaky-floorboarded rooms but to see the panoramic view from the walkway at the top, where the 1648 clock still keeps time and Londra 1872 km was among the signs. The entry ticket was also good for the medieval firearms museum and a torture chamber/dungeon, though they were of less interest to us than to the 2 absorbed policemen we met there.

Next we climbed 172 steps up the wooden covered stairway (1642), taking the townsfolk up to school and church in all weathers. The Gothic Bergkirche or Biserica din Deal at a height of 1,416 ft had just reopened after a 5 million Deutschmark restoration, taking 10 years and paid by the City of Munich. The adjacent 14thC schoolhouse is now getting the same treatment. The church, with its large Saxon cemetery, dates back to 1345, was enlarged and consecrated to St Nikolaus in 1483, then reconsecrated in 1547 after the Lutheran Reformation. Its frescoes had been whitewashed over, though a few scenes have been revealed and restored. The entry fee was 20p each, including the loan of an information sheet in English. A spooky crypt, accessed through an open hatch in the aisle, housed the worthies of the town, with elaborate tombstones.

Walking down to where Alf was parked, below the citadel, we met a few racing cyclists and support team, sporting British Heart Foundation shirts. Talking to one, we were left unimpressed - 13 riders had flown from the UK to Krakow, to cycle to Istanbul and then fly back, with 10 supporters in 4 new vehicles (2 big vans and 2 jeeps). They were staying at the grandest hotel in the old city (once the medieval Bishop's palace), where dinner, B+B and their luggage awaited. How much profit will filter from their sponsorship to the BHF? Compare with our own 2 totally unsupported rides, carrying our own stuff, paying our own way, and using all money raised directly for Romanian aid.

Down in the town we finally found food - a pizza place offering coffee and cakes, before starting the search to check out Sighisoara's own campsite. It proved to be at the top of an impossibly steep and twisting road behind the railway station - no good for us. We Alfed back to Blajel in about an hour.

We Alfed over the hill a few miles to Medias, a more workaday town than Sighisoara but again with a medieval Saxon centre and a nicely tiled clocktower. We got fruit at the big produce market then spent a very slow half hour in the first Internet place we found, checking bank accounts, etc. We moved on to a much better set-up in the basement of the enormous decrepit 'Hotel Central', straight from the bad old days when foreigners stayed only where their coupons allowed and no-one was to speak to them! We remember it well.

We had incoming emails from Ian & Judit in Budapest (they can get us a GPS, will help find a campsite if needed and look forward to seeng us); Keith Durham (they've bought a 1999 Hobby 650, will set out on the road early November and don't have Dan's address - 'hang round the churches in Arad to find him' was their advice!); and from Ian & Alison Parsons (reports on Vienna, Czech Rep and Poland). Barry replied briefly to all 3.

Back to Blajel (or Little Holland) to catch up on the diary, accounts, cleaning, reading, etc. It is a nice peaceful site though overpriced for Romania and preferring payment in euros (including 2.75 euros for a hook-up which won't even run the microwave). In fairness, the radio reported that a large nuclear electricity generator had been shut down because of the low level of the Danube. There has been no rain for months and the corn cobs are withering in the fields around us.

A quiet day. We talked to the Flemish-speaking Belgian couple in a motorhome named Opa-Bus (Grandad's Bus), who are staying while getting treatment at the nearby spa at Basna. They too first came bringing aid to hospitals in 1990 and have maintained their links. They said medicines are still in short supply here but it's now illegal to import them unofficially, as we all did in those heady days. They also recommended the France Passion scheme, with free-camping on farms for member camping-caristes, and gave us the literature from 2002.

A voicemail message from Mum let us know she'd got the letter posted on 18 Aug from Rasnov (pretty quick) and the previous one from Turkey. B tried to fix Rosie's horn, which only works intermittently (the fault appeared to be with the relay), and polished her chrome.

After lunch we had a last walk round the village of Blajel, bigger than it looks when the unsealed back roads and gipsy areas are explored.

At teatime 2 young Dutch cyclists arrived and put their tent up, joining us later for tea and cookies. Ron and Monique, from Breda, had taken a train to Munich, to ride from there to Istanbul in 6 weeks. Last summer they'd had their first cycle tour, round the Peloponnese, and loved it. We suggested some amendments to their route and strongly advised against Sighisoara's hill-top campsite as we'd seen an easier one at Danes. They gave us each a little bike fashioned from silver wire - Ron had made a few, to give to people who helped them. Barry fixed them on the wall, the male one in the lead (naturally).

Mr Camping Benelux reacted with alarm when we connected a hosepipe to his tap, aiming to put water in Rosie's tank. He claimed he could see the level in his well dropping, allowing us only about 30 litres. What nonsense, we'd brought and used more than that, not touching his until now. We also regretted taking his advice on an onward route avoiding Sibiu, which had us turning west after Copsa Mica onto 20 miles of quiet but rough concrete road to Blaj. In this town, the right turn we needed was closed by roadworks and no alternative signposted. After a couple of dead-ends and much questioning, we eventually got a lane taking us in the right direction for another 15 miles through vineyards to join the E81 Cluj-Alba Iulia road. We continued south for 10 miles to Alba Iulia on a better road, bypassing the town (alias Karlsburg) where Romania's champagne is produced. We saw nothing of its 18thC citadel, and nowhere to park for a break.

Rejoining the much busier transit route E68 at Sebes, we lunched in a lorry park, then turned off to the right 6 miles before Orastie, over the railway to the village of Aurel Vlaicu, our 3rd Dutch-run camping, this time well signposted. The site is in a paddock, through a low arch behind the home of Jeanette Wiskerke, her husband and son. It was too low for us but we managed to get in the back way, involving a bumpy ride on a rarely-used cart-track round the edges of the fields to a rear gate! The Wiskerkes, very friendly, invited us to join them for a welcome cold beer for an hour and were full of stories and information about the area. Yet again, they had first come to Romania bringing humanitarian aid (to Sighisoara) and fallen in love with the country, though they still have a house in Vlissingen where their daughter lives. Their son too had fallen in love and marries a local girl next week. Tempting to stay and experience a traditional Romanian wedding, but we can't linger so long.

We had a lovely quiet night under a cool clear starry sky, with no-one else camping there.

93 miles. £8.57 inc elec.

Still warm with no rain. Following the directions of our hosts, we had a good morning cycle ride to the spa of Geoagiu Bai. We rode 3 miles of dirt track linking Aurel Vlaicu with Gelmar, where a bridge crossed the River Mures and a sealed road ran another 5 miles to Geoagiu. Through the village, then 2 miles of climbing through forest, zigzagging up to the spa - a huge new fenced pool with hundreds of swimmers and sunbathers, a bar, loud music and several hotels with their own baths and saunas. The thermal spring feeding all this had once supplied the Roman baths on the hillside above, its ruins now abandoned and overgrown. We climbed round the remains, carved out of the rock, and followed a short tunnel to find a round (dry) pool which appeared to have been in use in the Communist era, with deserted changing and treatment rooms nearby - like Loutra Kilinis without the sulphur smell.

Our outward ride took 1 hr 5 mins, one 100g bar of chocolate and 2 bottles of squash. It was quicker downhill back, through villages and fields with the familiar figures, driving horse-carts or pulling hand-carts, shooing geese, fetching water, doing their dhobi in the river or shopping with wicker baskets at the little Magazin Mixte. One and all, they stared at the foreign tourists on bicycles, but almost always returned our friendly greetings.

After lunch we pottered, did our own dhobi (but with the camp machine, which kept causing our hook-up to trip), and listened to the World Service ('Off the Shelf' is currently reading David Attenborough's charming autobiography 'Life on Air', while the 'Book Club' interviewed Ruth Rendell, who sounded like a very boring matron). M walked to the village store for basics and found they didn't sell eggs - every inhabitant has their own hens, of course. We bought some from the Wiskerkes' neighbour (and later discovered they were mostly white with tiny yolks, as the malnourished birds have to fend for themselves, among the dust).

A frail-looking elderly Dutch couple arrived in a pop-top caravan and we went over to welcome them. They proved far more well-travelled and robust than they looked. On their 6th summer in Romania, they told of a simple site 25 miles east of Brasov at Intorsura, where they'd made friends with the family. They also visit New Zealand regularly (she has a sister there), and are about to fly to Cyprus for a holiday. Most interesting of all, they had taken the Trans-Siberian Express train from Moscow to Beijing in April-May of this year, travelling independently, flying to and from its terminuses. A 6-week adventure which they recommended highly, giving us a new idea!

Two French male cyclists also arrived and pitched their tent. We learnt they are riding from Vienna to Bucharest in 3 weeks and advised them, above all, to avoid the TIR Transit Route into the capital.

Still hot and dry, while last summer (we are told) was just the opposite here, with floods and mud. Another morning's cycle ride, going in the opposite direction from the village (left out of the gate) on a dirt track which followed the railway and main road for a couple of miles before turning down to the banks of the River Mures by a gravel extraction works. We had scarcely believed our hosts that a ferry existed here, but there it was on the opposite side. A young lad hand-pulled it across on a cable, to fetch us and one car, whose driver knew him well and helped haul the landing craft back! He had no idea what to charge us when we offered, but seemed happy with the equivalent of 20p each plus a packet of Marlboro for his dad.

In the anonymous hamlet by the ferry a French-speaking local man was cycling from Geoagiu to Alba Iulia, so we rode along with him to the next village, Blandiana. These are incredibly simple, dirt-floored hamlets, geese, cows and goats sharing the lane, no shops. We left our companion to continue on his way and turned back, past the ferry and towards Geoagiu. After a district boundary post, leaving Jud Alba Iulia, the road was sealed, through Homorod village, then meeting yesterday's route at the bridge in Gelmar. Here we recrossed the river and returned home for lunch. With no wind it was hotter than ever and we put the air-con on to cool Rosie down.

Walking round the village in the afternoon, M dodged gaggles of geese and watched the kids knocking walnuts down from the trees and jumping on them to crack them open (with disappointing results!) She found the house where the eponymous Aurel Vlaicu was born in 1882. A pioneer aviator, he crashed to his death in 1913 and became so famous that his portrait is on the 500,000 lei note (the biggest banknote, value £10), with the plane he designed on the reverse. The little museum next to his house was closed, his cycle and motorbike visible through the window. In the RC cemetery nearby were the graves of his sister and brother, but his was not to be found.

Back at the campsite, an aged granny came to the fence and beckoned, giving us a bucket full of large tomatoes and dark plums. We had no small change at all, so gave her a packet of cigs (the duty-free packs from Turkey come in useful). She would be able to sell or swap them for something so we hoped they were appropriate. One tomato was immediately used in the tuna bake for supper - big, red and juicy.

Today's news is that the Hutton Enquiry into the suicide of the government scientist, Dr David Kelly, has prompted the resignation of Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's PR man.

Cloudy at last, but still very close. We rode Alf along the familiar dirt road to Geoagiu, then a sealed road parallelling the main road but avoiding the lorry route, almost as far as Orastie, 10 miles from the camping. We looked round the small market town, bought 4 pears for 18p and found the road leading due south, upstream into the hills. It went through more tiny villages - Beritu, Orastioara de Sus - the traffic mostly horse-drawn. At the end of the bitumen, 15 miles from Orastie, there were a few cars and tents by a stream in the woods and a little bar but it had no food apart from crisps. The rough track continued uphill and on we rode, fairly gently, past the odd collection of tumbledown cottages, woodcutters, cows with bells round their necks, sheep, even free-roaming black pigs. After 10 miles, with no watershed in sight and the track getting stonier and steeper, we turned back.

On the main road, returning from Orastie, we passed a busy Non-Stop Restaurant and stopped for a late lunch (it was about 4 pm!) We had the usual tasty chicken and pork fillets with tomato salad and chips, watched by a sad little dog who enjoyed the gristly bits.

Back home by 6 pm, we finished off with pots of tea and some home-made lemon-curd sponge, then made 3 lbs of plum jam, which set good and dark.

As night fell there was an electric storm in the distance and a (too brief) shower. At present, the planet Mars is visible, a reddish light, the nearest it's been to earth for 60,000 years (the radio says). Is that why it's been so hot and dry?

We extricated ourselves from the campsite, tricky on the wet grass, up the edge of the field and out along the village lane, waved off by everyone. Along the busy TIR route, through Orastie and Deva, turning off at Sacamas to take a quieter though much slower road through hills and villages, via Faget and Lugoj, to Timisoara. We lunched in a wooded layby, watched by the usual mournful stray dog. The last 35 miles, after Lugoj, were on the E70 and worse than ever - busier, roadworks, bumps and jolts. We stopped to buy eggs from one of several old black grannies sitting outside their houses behind pathetic little tables of onions, toms or whatever. We gave her the small amount she asked, plus a packet of cigs, and were rewarded with a toothless smile (and eggs with yolks!) We were less generous to the strident gipsy woman who pestered at the door when we stopped to make tea. (Romania has a 2% gipsy population, the highest in Europe, and they are a common sight, camped the roadside with real Romany horse-drawn caravans, pigs, dogs, etc. Whoever thought poverty romantic?)

Approaching Timisoara, past the airport, the large campsite was on our right about 3 miles before the city. With an easy entrance, modern reception and restaurant, lots of splendid oak trees and some pitches with their own tap and power, we wondered why no-one else was there?

Another evening thunderstorm revealed a leak, dripping from the air-con box in the ceiling, which stopped when the rain did. B checked the mastic sealing next day, but it looked OK.

120 miles. £10.40 inc elec.

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