Category: Bicycle Touring

Getting to Cluj was really the end of my journey. The bike was in such a bad way, it would have been impossible to go on.

Cluj Napoca

Ryan Air fly in here. It’s situated in the mountains, fairly large city. It was expensive. More-so than Bucharest in some respects.

Cluj is quite nice to wander around with a similar feel to Brasov, a little less authentic and a little more expensive.

I asked my apartment owner the best places to visit and he recommended a ‘haunted forest’ where UFO’s land and abduct people. Typical Romanian stuff. I decided against that, and on the day I had to spend in Cluj, I took things easy and went to the:

Botanical Gardens: Nice attraction 16 lei to get in £2.40. Weather was good and it took around 2 hours or so to get around.

The butterfly were in the greenhouse. You could walk right into their enclosure as they all flapped around on the netting and settled on the plants or the sticky, sweet food-stuff they had left out for them.

On the side of a hill, there was a stream that ran down through the gardens, almost like a mountain stream.

These are some wild crocus like plants that were growing on the edge of the coniferous part close to the stream.

They may not be Crocuses, but I’m no expert in plants…. It was all quite pretty…

After the botanical gardens, I had to go and check my stuff out of the apartment.

Having packed my bags and got my ticket for my bus to Bucharest at 5pm, I had from 2pm until 5 to waste, so I went to the:

Steampunk Museum: Kind of an innovation from a local professor who finished his studies and decided to set up a tribute to Jules Verne and Arthur Conan-Doyle. The Steampunk Musuem was born!

There were many working exhibits and you were talked through them by English speaking guides, who explained the exhibits and responded to any comments or questions you might have about them.

Considering it was all fiction, it was fairly interesting to have a museum based almost entirely on the inspirations of novels such as ‘Thousand Leagues under the Sea‘ and ‘Around the World in 80 days‘.

It was fun, and it wasted some more time before my bus journey.

Back to Bucharest

7 hours or so on the bus, the bus station was about 8km from the central district of Bucharest.

I arrived at 1am, I didn’t fancy making that journey at night. There was no public transport and I would be much too tired to cycle.

Instead, I booked some accommodation about 1/4 mile away from Militari Bus Station. Had a rest, then transferred to my city centre choice apartment, my last stop in Bucharest.

It was right in the centre between the old town and university square. A very nice location.

The flat was nice also.

The last couple of days I spent going around Bucharest. I wanted to go to somewhere called ‘The Therm‘. It’s like a huge waterpark and spa complex on the outskirts of the city.

You can pay for different sessions which will allow you to enter the different spa’s, pool and therapy areas.

I paid for the ‘Elysium‘, which is the most expensive, I think it was only about £16 for three hours and access to all the areas in the complex.

Therme Bucharest

Most of it was sauna areas of different heats and with different fragrances in the sauna steam elements.

It was ok.

There were also pools with different infusions of chemicals. I sat in those for a while. They were quite nice.

There were also many waterslides. I didn’t really go there for that, but seeing as they were there and I was, I thought it would be a good idea to have a go on one!

I really wanted a massage for my weary muscles but apparently they dry up after a certain time in the day.

In summary – Romania

It’s kind of a funny place.

It’s not cheap, like Indonesia where I also went this year. The people aren’t friendly. They can be, but generally, the people who I was coming across cycling around would barely look at you, let alone speak to you or have a conversation.

The countryside is spectacular. Especially in the hills.

Culturally, it’s got quite a lot to offer with the different castles, towns and historical aspects and I’ve no doubt that I could have spent longer but my bike is broken now. I did as much as a I could and it was good fun.

Until next time.

So. My Garmin has given up, although not permanently. The charger adapter didn’t make it’s way to me. That means my journeys and their relative stats aren’t being tracked.

In a way, it’s made it less important to update the blog on a daily basis.

There’s no record of the rides. I’ve not really been bothered to update the blog accordingly.

Timasoara onto the plains

Coming out of the city the first day and 1/2 was on the plains. These gave way to hills. A group of which I decided to take a short-cut across, as it cut about 20 miles or so off the ride.

Turns out it wasn’t a road, more of a track for loggers and the odd householder who lived up there.

Approaching from the South, as it took on the houses that decided to live out in the woods, it was all fine and dandy. As the incline became steeper, the nicely graveled byway became rocky, puddly and nasty. I ended up spending most of the day standing of the pedals avoiding rocks and puddles.

I think it climbed for about 20km. Eventually, I reached the peak and it started to come back down.

Continue reading “Cycling – Timasoara – Plains – Hills – Cluj Napoca”

And long it was…. 9, nearly 10 hours in the saddle. Coming out of Hateg was all very pleasant. It slightly reminded me of being in Peru except without the Alpaca, high cloud and wild horses. Verdant vistas… It did have the mountain air, the flowers and the wide open spaces.

The apartment was exemplary. I managed not to eat any of the chocolate in the fridge, although it was tempting. Got off as early as I could, which turned out to be 8am.

Continue reading “Cycling – The longest day – Hateg to Timasoara”