After freezing my nads off with head down, bum up, non-stop motorways across The Netherlands, Germany, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary I had high hopes for the week that I planned to spend in Romania. I’d read that it is a country on the up and has much to offer including natural beauty, heritage and lively cities. I wanted to learn more about this country beyond Bucharest which I’d already experienced. Sadly, this was not the Romania I found.

Cluj-Napoca

A university town that has a growing reputation, I gave it a good shot. Getting out and about and exploring it’s nice enough squares and occasionally decent bars. But for whatever reason it just didn’t work on me. It should have been the launching pad to my great bike tour but it left me feeling disappointed and unenthused. I think the thing that really left me cold was the people. I know, I know, we can’t and shouldn’t dismiss a whole nation of people based upon the few we might meet. I did try, but the reactions I got, relentlessly, throughout the whole trip was cold indifference. I was prepared for the abrupt, straight to the pointedness I know of, but this seemed beyond that. I got talking to an Aussie in a bar who had lived there for several years and asked him about this. He thinks it’s more to do with them appearing cold at first but them warming up as they get to know you. At which point I asked him to look around the full bar we were in. Tables of groups of friends, couples, mates, families and with barely a laugh or a smile amongst them. He had a look and agreed I might have a bit of a point. I’m willing to be proved wrong and hopeful I am wrong actually, so somebody out there say it isn’t so please….

Driving through the Romanian countryside, I occasionally found myself on a dodgy road with horses and carts, chickens running across the road… dogs, always the dogs.. villages where the much maligned Roma people live. I must admit to a healthy measure of caution when travelling through these places, not necessarily somewhere you’d want to break down, or worse still run over someone’s goat. Places that weren’t all that far removed from the frankly racist scenes filmed in the Borat film purporting to be in Kazakhstan but actually filmed here. One thing that struck me was some of the enormous palaces ostentatiously built alongside others living in squalid poverty. I’ve seen my share of this in other parts of the world but perhaps not in as gloaty a way as this. I’m told that some of these palaces don’t even have bedrooms or bathrooms because no one lives in them, they are just for show and big events. Determined to keep pushing on and not stop in these places I mostly managed until I stopped at the roadside to grab a quick drink. Sure enough in 2 minutes two people emerge from the rickety house, a man and a woman probably in their 80s, but definitely having lead a tough life. I remain polite and smile. Lots. While he (I think) asks me how I’m doing, where I’ve come from and where I’m going. He had no English I and have no Romanian so it wasn’t a long conversation. I wished him well and started getting ready to leave, at this point both of their hands came out to ask for something… probably money I suppose. I smiled and said no and rode off before other people came. Not a nice experience, lots to unpack in my head riding to the next city.

Brasov

This pretty tourist town comes across like many in southern Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe. Nice enough on the surface but not a lot of substance beneath, for me anyway. Sure, the generic cafe umbrellas on perfectly sanitised tourist cobbled streets are inoffensive enough if you like that kind of thing. I don’t. It’s always fun to take a funicular or cable car to the top of a mountain overlooking a city, and I try to do that wherever I can. This trip was nice enough too and I suppose with a few kids, ice cream in hand on a sunny day it might be lovely. The most interesting thing for me was when the funicular carriage started to fill including a traditionally dressed bearded muslim and his hijab wearing wife, then when almost full, the final people to entering the carriage turn out to be a fully dressed orthodox Jew, locks and all, and his wife. Not much chatter in the carriage that day.

My accommodation was fun though, a glamping barrel pod in the garden of a nice hostel. A nice consolation for a forgettable town.

The Black Sea

And so, onward up over the snowy Carpathian mountains. Far too much traffic to be enjoyable on the bike, but pretty enough. Then the long run down to the shores of the Black Sea. I was fortunate to catch the weather in a good mood. For the first time on the trip the thermometer tipped into double figures, which is just as well cause I’m camping tonight. A fine feed at the lakeside in a lovely wooden restaurant and into my too thin by far sleeping bag. I didn’t pay too much attention to the fly sized mosquitoes that are ever present, but they certainly did come back to bite me. I had no idea that they could bite me through my shirt while putting up the tent, but oh yes they can… they certainly can.