Romania 2014 (#2)

Part 2: June 26th – 28th

By Watracz Is Traveling

Day 6: Vama Veche, Mangalia, Drajna Nouă

June 26th, 2014

View day 6 route on Google Maps

I wake up at 4 am, to get some photos of the rising sun. After breakfast I do some shopping and try to fix the bike. I top up the clutch fluid, check the pressure, the oil level, I lube the chain and begin trying to fix the broken rack. In order to get to the rack’s handles, I need to remove the rear light, and as I unscrew one of the screws, the light’s plastic housing breaks off. Luckily I have some glue on hand, and manage to fix the housing. The rack’s not as easy, though. It’s only holding on one screw now. I wrap it all with sticky tape and plastic zip-ties. Maybe it’ll hold long enough.

I can forget about swimming in the sea; the water is freezing. I go in up to my knees, but it’s so cold I run back to the beach right away. My second attempt ends in failure, too, so I give up. Now I know why there are so few people on the beach, and none of them are in the water. All that’s left for me is to wander around the mussel-strewn beach.

Mangalia

In the afternoon I pack up and head out. As I ride through Mangalia, I pass a military port that you, unfortunately, can’t enter. A moment later I stop by the Romanian Navy Museum to take a photo with a boat and a rocket.

Later, I stop by a bicycle garage, where I learn that they could order a replacement light bulb for my indicator, but it would only get there in a couple of days. Then I pass Constanța and enter the highway towards Bucharest. It’s getting dark. A little while later a second bulb burns out — this time it’s in the front. I have a spare, so I stop at the next highway exit to replace it. It’s not trivial, because first I need to unscrew several plastic bits around the clocks. A boy and girl on a motorbike, coming from Bucharest, stop next to me, asking if something’s wrong, if I need help. The guy helps me with replacing my bulb, we talk awhile about old touring motorcycles and about how easy they were to fix and how unlikely they were to break, and then I’m on my way.

Drajna Nouă

About half way to Bucharest I leave the highway to look for a place to sleep near the town of Drajna Nouă. I enter a back road in the fields and stumble upon a clearing surrounded by rocks and the ruins of an old storage facility; I put up my tent and go to sleep.

Day 7: Buzau, Berca Mud Volcanoes

June 27th, 2014

View day 7 route on Google Maps

Thunder wakes me just before 5 am. I guess a storm’s coming. I get out of the tent to take a few photos of the rising sun and see exactly where I’ve made my camp. The sky looks gorgeous. It looks like I’m in the middle of a field full of torn down or demolished buildings or warehouses. Far away, in the horizon, you can see the outline of a factory, with puffs of smoke coming out of the chimney. It begins to rain not too long after I lay down to sleep again.

A few hours later I’m woken by the sounds of bells, and sheep bleating… I guess the field is some kind of a pasture! Surprised, I get out of the tent to check out the situation. There are several dozen sheep around the tent and in the clearing. Their surprised shepherd passes by my tent and chats me up in Romanian. For a while, each of us is trying to understand what the other is saying, but we have little success. Fortunately, it stopped raining and I can get on my way. Leaving the clearing is not that easy, though. Because of the hours of rain, the sand on the road turned into deep, slippery mud. If my bike fell over around here, I’d be in serious trouble and I’d need to get the shepherd to help me pick it up.

Buzau

Just before 1 pm I take a break to fill up the bike. And to find out that Romanian policemen have nifty rides, too!

Berca Mud Volcanoes (Romanian: Vulcanii Noroioși de la Pâclele Mici)

The mud volcanoes near Buzau make for a really out-of-this-world landscape. The area is covered with craters and bubbling lakes formed as a result of the release of underground gasses that push mud and salty water to the surface. At the ticket booth I learn that the mud is toxic and you absolutely shouldn’t touch it.

As I walk on the cracked ground surrounding the volcanic cones, I walk up too close to one of them, and suddenly the earth opens and I fall in almost up to my knees. The mud is very thick and I can’t move my feet. I can feel that every second and every twitch of my legs pulls me deeper in. I quickly lay on my back, roll over, and pull my legs out of the mud. My shoes and trousers are completely covered with thick, heavy goo. The jacket, backpack and camera are all muddy. Just great. I manage to find a puddle beyond the hills that surround the volcanoes; I spend the next two hours there, cleaning my shoes, my clothes, my pack, and my equipment…

Once everything is more or less clean, I go back to finish my sightseeing. I’m more careful this time around. You can see shoe prints, dozens of centimeters deep, around many of the craters — so I wasn’t the only one to be that unlucky.

Write your story here. (Optional)

There’s a bed and breakfast near the volcanoes, where I spend the night. The food is pretty good, I can wash my things, and the owner’s grandpa helps me with the case rack. My makeshift fix with tape and zip ties didn’t hold too long. We cut out the right-size support from a plank and attach it between the exhaust and the rack. It looks like it’s going to hold.

Day 8: Peleș Castle, Bran Castle, Brașov

June 28th, 2014

View day 8 route on Google Maps

In the morning I take a tour of the smaller volcanic area, which is further north, and right by the bed and breakfast. Walking all the way around it takes me maybe 15 minutes.

After breakfast I pack my things and set out towards the Peleş Castle in the town of Sinaia, 160 km west.

Mizil

About half way there, my decidedly makeshift support for the luggage rack breaks off, and I need to look for help again. I stop by a construction store, buy some duct tape, string, and spend some time in the store’s parking lot trying to reattach the rack, which has pretty much broken off completely at this point.

The store’s owner and his employees see me take off the bags, the seat, and take apart the rear of the bike, and they come to help me. Naturally, neither of them speaks English, but I somehow manage to explain the problem, and we all get to work. The owner goes to the back office and brings back a length of thick wire, pliers, pincers, and a hammer. They’re all talking, wondering, trying things, and I’m standing and looking at it from the side. 30 minutes later the rack is fixed. I take a piece of wire just in case, thank them for their help, and ride on, happy with the result. It’s nice that you can get selfless help like that, so far from home.

Peleş Castle

I reach Sinaia without any more surprises. I park near the castle entrance and go sightseeing. Tourists are crowding around. There’s an antique car show going on. As I walk the cobbled streets between the castle’s buildings, I see a historic Ford Mustang, one of my favorite cars. Well, I’ve waited a really long time to see it live!

Some of the other automotive jewels are: Sunbeam Tiger, Renault 5 Alpine, Fiat 124 Spider, Chrysler Special GS-1, Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, and an old Chevrolet Corvette.

And among the trees waits a hunched, almost 200-horsepower strong, two-wheeled beast: Suzuki Hayabusa, one of the fastest motorcycles in mass production. On top of that, it’s got the unique Red Bull Romaniacs coat of paint, with an airbrushed falcon on the front fairing.

There are some even older cars parked around the main castle building — they’re probably from the 1910s and 20s, and I don’t even know their makes or models, but they look amazing.

Peleş Castle was built in the Bavarian style, under a German architect and by order of the Romanian king Carol I, in 1883. The construction is said to have cost 120 millions dollars in gold. The garden surrounding the castle has a number of interesting sculptures, some of them are even covered with yellow-green moss, giving them a very enchanting look. Unfortunately, I don’t go inside the castle, even though it’s supposedly worth the trip, because the interior is decorated in wood and looks astonishing. You can even see a collection of weapons and armor that has several thousand pieces, about 50 antique clocks, and a collection of countless pieces of silverware.

Having toured the castle, I get hungry, so I get back to the parking lot, eat my sandwiches, a couple cookies, and move on. The next place on my itinerary is Bran Castle. On the way I pass the cloud-covered Bucegi Mountains, so I have to take a photo with them in the background.

Bran Castle

I reach the castle before 5 pm. I leave the bike at the parking lot, and just moments later I’m surrounded by Romanian children asking me for money. I buy my ticket and start my tour with the clearings and paths around the castle hill. My attention is drawn to a wooden hut with its roof thickly covered with green moss.

In front of the castle’s main entrance stand Transylvanian weird crosses and statues, and right past the entrance you can see some pictures on the same theme, probably made by children from local schools.

You can visit the castle without the guide, which is nice, since you don’t have to hurry and you can take your time checking out each and every nook and cranny open to tourists. The castle is full of secret passages and tunnels. As I walk up the stairs to a higher floor, I notice a small passage, and two pairs of doors within, almost invisible from the outside, and I wonder where they could lead.

Right after that I go out to a terrace where you look down to the castle’s small courtyard with a well, and beyond — the hills surrounding the castle. The exhibition chambers are stuck full of items connected to the vampire Dracula, to the movies, Bram Stoker, and local legends.

As I reach the courtyard, I come upon a large group of tourists from Poland, so I greet them with a nice “Dzień dobry”. One of the tourists replies, but she takes me for a local who has learned a couple words in a foreign language the better to sell his wares. Only after I talk some more she realizes I’m Polish, too, and we spend a while talking about the places we want to visit.

After leaving the castle I eat a simple supper on a bench next to my bike, and get on my way to Braşov, where for the next two days I’ll be staying with Ioan, an architect. I found his apartment back in Poland, on Airbnb, for around 17 USD per night. On my way I make a stop to take a photo of the Râșnov fortress that I’m going to visit the next day.