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//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.







 


Comments

  1. Leentje Vanlee3/30/22, 7:48 PM

    Pizza is the new croissant! Life is much nicer when people are friendly! The road looks great for Black Horse! And your photos are great as always!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liliane vanlee3/30/22, 8:17 PM

    Altijd blij iets van jou te horen, geniet ervan.
    Tot morgen en groetjes

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lieve Halewyck4/1/22, 11:03 AM

    altijd mooie foto's en een mooi verhaal. Zie je soms ook lokale vrouwen? Ik zie meestal mannen op je foto's

    ReplyDelete

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