Hudson Doyle's travel blog: Cycling in Romania

this is up to Sibiu, Romania

Soon after crossing from Serbia into Romania I pulled over to have a drink inside a gas station minimart. All of a sudden a rush of women and children enter. I noticed one girl really staring at me so I approached her to ask where they were coming from/going and she said "back to Ukraine".... I told her what I am doing. And we wished each other good luck 🙏

In Serbia and Romania, a number of times I have been startled by a car jumping out from the opposite direction to pass a car and getting awfully close to me at high speed. It's like that haunted house fright but with real fear for life mixed with anger for the asshole disrespectfing my existence. I once had to jump off the road. And I go 20mph, not slow.

Power plants

I stayed a with a guy my age in his condo in a big apartment building in Timisoara, Romania. He was pretty boring but his building was a trip. The communist era building was sold by the government to individual owners to raise money for the government and transition to a private real estate market. But the design was horrible. The elevator barely fit 2 people.

And the shower was ridiculous. You had to practically jump over the tub wall to get in (infirm/elderly 🚫) and the shower holder was placed about 4 feet off the ground. Around my hip.

At least the windows were modern and well constructed. A style I've only seen in Europe where they open both vertically as well as horizontally.

Timisoara. Capital of the former Transylvania

Movie in the Plaza

Bars and festivals along the river

Ever seen a corner toilet?

At this point I started contemplating a very challenging route through the Carpathian mountains. There are 2 famous high mountain passes, the Transplania and the Transfăgărășan, and I'm thinking of doing both of them 🤯

Many people collect there drinking water from these taps. Very helpful for the traveling cyclist

Haha oh man... I was crushing it cycling up a gentle hill stoned in the hot sun to reach this tiny town that has a cool water fountain. So of course I hop off to shower my head and drink from it-so fresh! But I'm still so feeling the vibe of this music I just burst out dancing to it. It was great! 😁

I turned up to what I expected to be a campsite but in the park was a boxing/kick boxing competition. And those involved were staying at the only accommodation around.... So I kept my distance from all of the testosterone and ended up wild camping in the park

Had a dog run out along side of me I the highway. It wasn't so much chasing me with violent intent so much as it was racing me. But a barking dog definitely gets me pedaling as hard as I can! And it got up to 40kph with me! Dogs are fast!

I stayed with a Romanian fellow at his log cabin B&B. He had cycled more of the world than I and so opens up his property to cyclists to stay. And he took me to catch an early bus for a day trip up to the

Salina Turda salt mine

First used as a salt mine in 1075.

Walls look and feel like ice but is salt crystal

367 feet deep

Water down below there was from when it was once flooded

Wet Salt dripping on everything.

Sit down and your butt is covered in wet salt.

By 1881, this trolley pulled up salt and lowered down empty the empty container. Powered by horses walking around the extraction winch.

After 2 weeks the horses would go blind from the disorientation of walking in circles with only fire torches for light. They were 'retired' after 6 months of forced labor

Starting to go deeper into the Transylvanian Alps

Check out the gutters on this house. These were a lot of work. For what value I'm not sure...

About 12 pigs in the front yard

Amazing" tree house"architecture in the Carpathian mountains

Going up

The only view I saw during this 3000+foot climb

This region was rife with gypsies foraging for mushrooms

So productive a season that the commodity price dropped I was told

This is where I found to stay. The people around here are not very friendly. Don't look at you and don't even pass the hello test, I. E. They don't say hello back