Cycling – The longest day – Hateg to Timasoara

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.

Blazing saddles

It was 104 miles to Timasoara when I checked the trip. In the end, it turned out to be 114, as I refused to take any of the main roads. That turned out to be a long day, as you can imagine. I suppose my main concerns were the direction of the wind and getting lunch!

Got so hungry at one point, had some corn out of the field! It’s not bad raw, better even than it is when cooked. Seemed to do the job, kept me going until I reached a remote shop where I had a lunch of crisps, jam and cream filled croissants, a chocolate brownie and juice.

I had one more break at about the 6 hour mark. I just drank juice and ate chocolate, sat down and let my heart rate drop to around 80, which I can see on the Garmin. It started raining on and off around then…

Otherwise, it was a full day in the saddle.

Timasoara

The landscape started changing as I got closer to Timasoara. Became more like scrub. More arid. Less green and verdant. Just grotty.

The town itself is not grotty. In 2023, it was the European city of culture. I’ve no doubt you could spend many days here, absorbing the atmosphere, exploring the history, eating out and generally lapping it all up.

The accommodation was very reasonable. I think I paid £28 for my room. It has period furniture and original works of art on the wall, as well as a TV, which is also important.

I’m writing this after my first night here. I’m still in recovery, but I did have a little look around town.

Phone repair

I left my adapter at the last place so spent a good deal of the morning trying to source the Garmin and the USB C, which proved insurmountable in the end, but not until after a good bit of looking.

To fix the the camera, I put the hairdryer on the fogged up lenses. Worked a treat! Only problem being the moisture has gone on to the rest of the phone and buggered that up.

Upsides are:

• Can take the odd picture.
• Can read menus with Google translate

Downsides are:

• Drawdown menu continuously registers touches. Whatever. It’s just drawing down all the time. You can swipe it up and it won’t do anything. Have to use the power button to get rid of it. Dangerous when navigating round town….
• Unresponsive screen. Gets to a point when it decides to stop working altogether.

It still has the problems charging.

Had it been in a better state, I’ve no doubt I would have gone on a culture walk today around Timasoara, which is free. Taking you round all the aspects of the old town history, simply didn’t want to risk it with the phone.

Shame really. Still, here’s a picture.

As you can see, the camera has improved.

Wine time

Whilst I was shopping around, found these mini bottles of Romanian wine! Don’t have the appetite for a whole bottle… It’s not bad stuff. It’s certainly not cheap. Imported wine is often cheaper.

I’m just on to the red now, then I’m off out for some food and a wander around town.

Until next time.

Trip details