//Day 19/30-03-22 /Vidin-Bechet

Today I left Bulgaria again for Romania. Bulgaria had a little nutrional  surprise for me : when I was searching breakfast in the city I noticed that at 8 in the morning the pizza stalls were open (I counted 4). When I entered a bakery, which did also sell pizza, most customers (mostly childern with their parents) queuing before me ordered a slice of pizza with mayo and ketchup as topping…Maybe it was national pizza day and  having pizza with mayo/ketchup in the morning does not belong to the standard Bulgarian breakfast menu….I ordered some pastry and headed for the border. As cyclist I had to take another road then the truck lined highway. Yesterday my guess was that the line was 10 K. I had to cycle 15K in parallel to the truck line so expect that the waiting line was more then 15 K. The Vidin-Calafat bridge opened in 2013, before the trucks crossed the border by ferry at a capacity of 5 trucks per ferry every 30 minutes (in reality the capacity was much lower).  Not sure what causes the current waiting line….

I followed a small road and passed the old (ferry) derilict border station before pedalling over the bridge. I could only cross the bridge on the left side , which meant that when I arrived a the actual border control I was at the side of the incoming Romanian traffic. Someone said I needed to be on the other side of the road. I agreed but question was how ? as there was a ditch between the left and right lanes. Eventually I pushed my bike through the ditch and started queuing behind some trucks. 20 minutes later my ID was received and checked, whilst receiving a thumps-up from the border agent. I entered Romania. My first objective was to cycle to the center of Calafat to get some currency. After riding 3 K on a highway I entered the Calafat and found an ATM (Europe can you do something urgently against the exuberant upmarks when using ATM’s across Europe).

Black Horse and I left Calafate (sounds like an Isis stronghold) and started cycling for the rest of the day on not so busy roads towards Bechet, The only village I could find with a hotel in a range of 120K direction Bucharest. The weather is  great : first day shorts and T-shirt ! A road of good quality and people waving and saying good day all the time. In the villages I passed every house has a bench (mostly wooden)  in front of the house, mostly occupied by elderly people looking at the passing by traffic. There are a lot of elderly village people, so a lot of waving to do. The scenery is okish but nothing spectacular, luckily compensated by the friendliness of the people I meet. 

I arrive around 16.00 in Bechet and check-in into the hotel I booked. A warm welcome. I go to my room and do not have any problem to do a one of the better power naps…When I arrived I had asked where the city city center was. “George” looked at me surprised and informed me that I was in the city center…

The weather is changing, with rain and colder weather expected the next days. I’m hopeful I can avoid rain heading further east to Bucharest. But it will be a close call. Who cares. The road is flat, Black Horse is running wild, the people I meet are nice ad friendly, life is simple, I’m fine, my dear ones are fine.

Lessons learned :

• Pizza is the new breakfast.
• Having a son is helpful to reset passwords.

Song of the day : Don’t stop believin’ - Journey.