9/7/2013 Hot and dry, rain later
Over breakfast Ivan tells us how much better the country was under communism and about his concerns that gypsies will be mistaken for “real Bulgarians” when they are the first to travel to the UK en mass (this was just before the EU related restrictions were lifted). We steer the conversation on to more palatable subjects such as the excellent home made fig jam and what to see hereabouts. “Of course you will see the famous church before you leave!” I’ve never heard of it but agree that we shall. He seems very excited about it.
The church is another memorial to the Bulgarians who died at the pass, fending off the Ottomans, and is astonishing. It is incredibly detailed with gold covered domes. The bells, the largest of which weighs twelve tonnes, are cast from discarded shell casings from the site of the battle. That’s a lot of shell casings.
However, there’s another capital, Sofia, to be ticked off today and standing around gawping at pretty churches isn’t going to get us there. So we head off, following the directions that Ivan gave us to take more minor roads through the Valley of Roses. The valley takes its name from the centuries old industrial cultivation of the flower here. We’ve missed the rose season since they get picked in June, but the broad flat valley, nestling below the mountains is spectacular nonetheless. The valley’s other name, Valley of Kings, comes from the Thracian habit of burying their rulers in mounds in this area thousands of years ago. But Thracian kings don’t grow so well as roses, so it’s a less well known moniker.
I manage to cock up Ivan’s directions and take us down a gravel track for a few miles before admitting this probably isn’t where he meant. It’s pretty good as gravel tracks go, but slower going for our tarmac oriented bikes and very dusty, so we let the satnav take us back to the main roads. As it turns out, they are perfectly good fast roads through beautiful central Bulgaria, with regular twiddly bits through the hills.
Now we are back inland, the usual lunchtime rains turns up bang on time, and from several miles outside Sofia we can see the city sitting under a glowering storm which is pouring a vertical column of heavy rain. The storm has moved off by the time we get there, but the roads are very wet.
As we ride in, we note Sofia’s beautiful buildings, undeniable charm and bloody slippery-when-wet road markings which firmly demand our attention. I’ve never known anything quite like it. The back of the bike struggles for traction and squirms under the slightest power over arrows and zebra crossings. Even the the black bits of zebra are painted dark red, giving no grippy line. Following the satnav into what it has decided is the centre of Sofia, I make a turn and am dismayed to find myself on a cobbled road made of glazed yellow bricks. Wet, the glossy bricks are like ice so I gently slow right down, because the last thing you want to do on a surface like this is have to brake sharply.
Two girls step straight out onto a crossing in front of me, without a glance, and I know immediately that slow isn’t slow enough. My split second non-choice is to ride into them, or brake and hope I don’t still hit them anyway. Both wheels lock in an instant and half a second of feet-down heavyweight bike wrestling ensues, but once the back wheel catches up with the front it’s all over and I get to admire Sofia from the floor as I slide to a halt on my back. My first instinct is to lift my head to check if I’m about to be collected by the traffic behind me. I see that dad, ever the pro, has completed the synchronised falling-off perfectly and is making like a starfish himself, just a couple of meters behind me.
We are both mostly ok. Dad’s already duff knee took a tweak that it really didn’t need and I’ve lightly strained some bits trying to keep the bike up, but everything is still attached and facing the right way. The road is so slippery that abrasion was never on the cards. Kindness of strangers happens and passers-by help us heave the bikes upright and to the side of the road. One of them even translating for a sympathetic policeman who has come to see what all the fuss and crunching noises are about. After being told horror stories about corrupt Eastern European cops before we left, this was the only interaction we had with local plod on the entire trip. This guy checked we were ok and told us where he would be if we changed our minds and decided we weren’t, making the ratio of good guys to granny robbing bastards 1:0 at the final count.
My left pannier is pushed in against a bent rail by the unplanned dismount, but the pannier and the handlebars held everything important and expensive off the ground. Dad’s damage is more inconvenient, with a snapped clutch lever held on by a now very loose bracket. Coupled with a bent gear lever this makes life pretty awkward for him. We apply immediate and crude physical force to the bent bits to make the bikes rideable again and decide that it’s probably time for lunch while we gather our thoughts and shake out the jitters.
I try to get some sense out of Google on my phone to find a local bike shop, but don’t have much luck. The place I decide looks good turns out to be a car dealership, but a few yards further round the ring-road is a place with scooters outside so we stop there to see if they can help us out. It turns out to be a tyre shop but they are keen as mustard to lend a hand. Three or four of them busy themselves around dad’s bike for a one man job, while we interject in a language they don’t understand and point helpfully.
The customer who was getting new scooter tyres doesn’t seem remotely bothered by the fact that all the fitters find us more compelling than doing his job. He chats with us amiably in English while he waits for them to finish and tells us how the local two wheelers get off the road and wait if it rains in the middle of Sofia. “It’s so slippery that you crash otherwise.” – Yes, we know now. After twenty minutes or so the gear lever is bent back to a position that doesn’t require dad to be a contortionist to change gear, and the clutch lever bracket with stripped threads is Heath-Robinsoned back together with stiff wire, longer bolts and some new holes. We try to pay them but they won’t hear of it. What nice fellas.
A mile or two further round the ring road, dad spots a proper bike shop and pulls in as he’s still having trouble changing gear. Christian at Hela MotoCenter adjusts the clutch a bit, which on top of the other repairs does the job in about thirty seconds, but another storm has turned up and it’s lashing down again so he invites us in for a coffee and a chat and recommends a place just a few miles up the road towards Serbia to stay the night – a biker place with camping and cabins. Having lost the afternoon to repairs, we head off to the digs as soon as it stops raining.
Just before we pull away, dad asks if I’m going to put my waterproof trousers back on in case it rains again. I casually dismiss this trifling concern – “Nah, it’s only a few miles. It’ll be alright.” Waiting fifty yards on at the next set of lights, a truck coming the other way through the roadworks thunders through a deep flooded groove in the road and throws a thick wall of dirty, oily water all over us from top to toe. I concede that waterproofs may have been a good idea after all, but dad’s too busy wringing his beard out to tell me he told me so. He had his visor wide open.
We pull into a place called Route 80 on, er, route 80 for our overnight stop and opt for the modern cabin instead of camping, after the day we’ve had. It’s sort of a rock/biker place but where something got lost in translation to Bulgarian. Clean and dry again we negotiate the curious classification of their menu over a beer or three. Dad has the rump steak, listed under the chicken section, which is pork. Obviously.
10/7/2013 Hot and dry
Our next planned country is Serbia, but overnight I’ve wondered if our insurance and breakdown cover works there. An early morning phone call back to Blighty confirms that mine, at least, doesn’t. It’s a minor setback and means we lose bragging rights for another couple of countries (Serbia and Bonsia & Hertzogovena) and their capitals (Belgrade and Sarajevo) on this trip, but it’s the sort of thing you get used to taking in your stride when your planning is as relaxed as ours usually is. It just means we’ll have to go round Serbia back through Romania and Hungary.
Our new route takes us north, back through the Balkan Mountains, on a twisty road with a mostly old and terrible surface. Large areas of the road are in the process of being planed ready for resurfacing which doesn’t make things any easier, but does mean that by the time you read this, that road must be fantastic to ride.
We descend from the mountains back into the heat and about thirty miles later meet the Danube once more. After the palaver getting into Bulgaria with only half my documents I do wonder if I’ll have any problems getting out, but the crossing back into Romania, over a very impressive new bridge at Vidin is a straightforward and friendly affair. We stop in the hot, basic but friendly little town of Cujmir for lunch and cause quite a stir. We are apparently the most interesting thing to ever happen there.
Having earlier gone straight on where the river went meandering, we follow a great, well surfaced snaking road to rejoin the Danube at a town called Drobeta-Turnu Severin. Serbia lies on the opposite bank, so we at least get to see it from here.
The road follows the river valley as it makes its transformation into a steep sided gorge known as the Iron Gates of the Danube. It was on the flatter section here that the Roman Emperor Trajan built his legendary bridge across the river, to assist in his conquest of what was then Dacia. The river used to be notoriously dangerous to navigate in the area around the Iron Gates until the construction of two dams, complete with hydro-electric projects, made the upstream area into something of a reservoir and raised the water level by up to 35m. Now giant barges, laden with thousands of tonnes of coal and timber move around below unconcernedly.
At Orsova we turn north, heading into the foothills of the southern Carpathian Mountains (although having looked at the rest of the Iron Gates gorge since getting back, I’ve put that on my list of places to ride). It’s a great place to be on a bike. Mile after mile of long lazy curves and uphill sweepers, as we steadily gain altitude and see further and further over the seemingly endless hills. The road flattens out and we start a slow descent to Caransebes as the day draws to a close. A few miles short of the town we see a sign pointing off the main road to a restaurant and cazare (accomodation). We take the turn on a whim to avoid the rain we can see ahead.
In the first village we come to, teams of domestic geese prowl the side roads. The houses are colourful and in good repair. The whole place is only 100 yards long with no sign of the cazare, so we carry on through onto a pothole strewn single track road, then another village in the same vein a couple of miles later. Instead of geese, this village has a dozen or so kids milling about. We are used by now to the kids here waving as we pass, but it takes a couple of them getting close, flat hands outstretched, before I realise that this adventurous lot are going for hand slaps. Side-fives if you will. To their delight, I manage to tag four and run over none. Which was pretty good going on that surface.
A few more miles later, we finally find the restaurant and cazare. Except it isn’t either any more, as we discover while running from the dogs. The owners just couldn’t be arsed to take the signs down. Bastards! Unimpressed, we head back to the main road to find a nice clean, spacious and cheap apartment in Caransebes itself. On the way back through village number two, the side-five kids now strain desperately against the vice like grips of their parents, who clearly thought that my not running them over the first time was just a fluke.
Tomorrow: onward to Croatia.
Leave a Reply