Romania: Oradea to Cluj-Napoca by bike

I caught the 0610 train from Vienna, traveling through Hungary to Arad, Romania. From there I caught a train to Oradea, a couple hours north, and put my bike together outside the train station, about 3km from the center of town. I hopped on the bike, made a quick stop at the Banca Transylvania ATM to get some Romania Lei, and rode into town to look for a hotel. The first couple of places I tried were full, and it started to rain, thunder rumbling in the distance. But I managed to find a room in a old, charming (if somewhat battered) hotel on the main pedestrian drag, then went off to find some food a few doors down in a pub, having some decent porkchops and some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever head with a 1/2 liter of beer, all for about $6.

It was starting to get dark, but the rain had stopped, so I wandered around, lightning flashing in the distance, admiring the ornate buildings.

The next morning I slept in a bit, did a little more wandering, then hopped on the bike heading south through farmland along a main highway for a while. After an hour or so, I came across a gas station named "USA 1 Oil", painted red, white, and blue, flying an american flag, with a small statue of liberty. I stopped to use the bathroom and have a cold "American Action Cola", before continuing on.

After a short while, I turned off onto a side road with much less traffic, although the traffic on the main route had also been relatively light. I climbed a bit,and took a turn onto a dirt tractor trail into a field to pause and admire the view.


Back on the road, which gradually deteriorated into an unpaved, bumpy track, I waved at the villagers working in the fields, heaping hay high using carved wooden pitchforks, and the drivers of the horse drawn carts which ambled by, the horses with large, bright red tassles hanging behind their eyes (a sort of blinder?). I felt like I had gone back in time.

Eventually I came back to a larger highway, paused for some water and ice cream, and road into Beius to find a room and dinner.

The next day, I headed south a few kilometers on the highway, trying to match my map to the roads I was seeing. Unfortunately, my map only labeled the names of the most major highways, and the highway signs had village names that didn't appear on my map, so I ended up just taking a road headed in the right general direction, figuring I'd find my way eventually. And if not, at least I'd have some sort of adventure.

After an hour or so of pedalling through quaint but nameless (to me) villages, I finally came up on a village that both had a sign with its name, and which also appeared on my map, and was able to verify where I was on the map. I stopped for lunch at a small grocery in the last major village at the end of the paved road, and then headed up into the mountains. The rough, unpaved road followed a stream through the forest with almost no traffic. I stopped for a break at a pool to soak my feet in the cool water and have a snack, then continued up, up, up through the forest, the views continuing to improve as I gained altitude.

Late in the afternoon, I reached the plateau, and after following the rolling road through forest and alpine meadows, came to a small collection of buildings at Padis. There were a couple of restaurants and a bunch of cabins. I ended up heading to a group of cabins that were made out of what appeared to be giant wine barrels, with a couple of small beds stuffed inside. After negotiating a price, made more difficult by the fact that the young woman was still thinking in the old money (which had 4 more zeroes tacked on the end), and kept confusing the names of english numbers, we finally settled on a reasonable sum (about $12), and I moved into my barrel for the night as the rain started. I had large, tasty dinner in the restaurant, then chatted with a Romanian hiker over a couple of drinks and a local map, before turning in for the night.

I got up early the next morning, and rode the bike about 10 km, mostly down hill, to a trail head that led to an area with impressive sheer rock faces. They were perhaps a 100 m high, and a small river ran into a cave in the rock face. Not far away was an enormous cave entrance, which I explored a sort way into the cave before turning back to collect my luggage and get on my way to Cluj-Napoca. I was wishing I had more time to explore, but I needed to be in Bucharest tomorrow to meet up with my friend Jill from Seattle.

It was quite a long ride to Cluj-Napoca, mostly on rough, unpaved mountain roads. But the scenery was great (other than some sections of clear cut), and I was having a good time, even though it was raining on and off. After a long, steep, slow descent on an awful road, I finally hit smooth pavement which lasted the last 30 km or so until Cluj-Napoca, and I felt like I was flying. I arrived in Cluj about 2130, and managed to find a hotel, get a well deserved shower, scrounge up some food, and then collapsed into bed.

Vienna

I took an overnight train from Paris to Munich last night, then decided to continue onto Vienna. I had wanted to take an earlier train yesterday, but everything was full until late, so I ended up trying mostly unsuccessfully to sleep in a non-reclining seat in a compartment with five other people -- three young american girls, a young aussie woman my sister had been sharing a room with at the hostel, and an older French guy. It wasn't a very comfortable night. But all the women got off about 4 am, and the French guy about an hour later, which gave me the compartment all to myself and some room to stretch out and nap in relative comfort.

I arrived in Munich about 0900 and found out there was a 0930 train to Vienna, so decided to hop on that to spend the night in Vienna and catch the train that was originating late in Munich earlier in Vienna when it passed through. Arrived in Vienna around 1400, wandered the station a bit looking for train info, bought my ticket to Romania, put my bike together, and shoved most of the rest of my luggage in a locker.

I rode off to a nearby hostel, booked a private room (nice, but small), requested a city map from the front desk, and headed off to explore Vienna a bit and visit the Kunst Haus Wien museum. A rather funky building with deliberately uneven floors (level surfaces are made for engines, not humans, a sign said) with some fairly interesting modern art on 4 floors.

After the museum, I did a quick loop around the city and stopped for a huge portion of Schnitzel with ham and cheese and a half liter of beer for around 10 euros, trying to remember what I could of my long forgotten German I'd studied many years ago, and listening to a large group of Koreans chatting away at a nearby table.

Tonight, I need to repack the bike, and try to visit a coffee house. And no, not the Starbucks I passed earlier. I don't think I can really say I've been to Vienna if I don't make it to a coffee house. Of course, I'll probably try to spend another few nights here on my way back from Romania.

Paris à vélo

I've been in Paris the last couple of days after traveling around France with my sister for several weeks. Yesterday I finally put the bike back together (I'd been hauling it around packed in its bag in the trunk of our rental car), and did a couple hour tour of Paris à vélo.

It was a thrill to be back on the bike again, I can't remember the last time I'd gone over three weeks without riding at all. I headed across to the Left Bank along the river to the Eiffel tower, continued a bit past it and over a bridge, looping back and crossing the river again to ride directly under it, dodging pedestrians and a portable swimming pool directly under the tower where they were holding introductory SCUBA lessons in 1 metre of water, but complete with wetsuits, tanks and all.

Then it was back across the river to the Arc de Triomphe with a loop around the mother of all traffic circles, dodging cars flying every which way. I spun off on one of the 12 or so streets feeding into the circle, one that I thought might lead me to Montmarte and zig-zagged my way in that general direction until I caught sight of the towering white Sacre Couer cathedral perched on the hill. Meandering up the narrow cobbled lanes to the top of the hill, I slowed to a snail's pace, weaving in and out of the throngs of tourists. It was much busier up there than on my other trips to Paris, although those had always been sometime between October and March.

After admiring the view over the city for a bit and doing some people watching, I headed back down the hill, past the Moulin Rouge all the sex shops and shows near Pigalle (still wondering what the heck "zapping" is, maybe I'll investigate when I return), back across the city to Place Republique and Place Bastille then back down Rivoli past the Louvre, through Place de la Concorde, and then back to the Marais and the hostel.

Today, I did another ride, mostly on the Left Bank, heading up Rue St. Jacques, then over to Boul Mich and the Luxembourg gardens, before riding along the expressway on the Right Bank which is closed to vehicles on Sunday.

Later tonight I hop on a train to Munich, on my way to Romania, where I will ride for a few days before meeting up with friends from who I will be traveling with there for a few weeks. Not exactly sure what is coming up after Romania. I'd been thinking of heading to Africa for a bike tour through Tanzania and Uganda, but decided the only airfare I could find here was too expensive. Nearly double what I found on some of the discount US websites, but I don't really have an easy way to get those tickets here, and don't fancy a repeat of the Great Guatemalan Ticket Wait.

At some point, I'll try to post a summary of my travels since my last update. I've started writing them up, but haven't had a chance to finishm out a very, very brief summary: bus to Costa Rica, plane to Ecuador, cycling around Ecuador (clothes torn by monkeys and dogs), plane to Paris.