Into Romania today
The drive from last night’s campsite to the next in Bucharest was 220km,and should have taken 4 hours.Due to various things ,it ended up taking 6 .
Leigh Fermor had walked to Veliko Tarnovo from western Bulgaria, having visited another of Bulgaria's major tourist destinations, Rila monastery.There are suitable camping places near this place and if I'd had more time I would have like to headed westwards to visit this .But Leigh Fermor had then headed north, into Romania ,crossing the Danube at the city of Ruse(then known as Rustchuck) My plans were now the same ,so I set a course north.
The journey to Ruse, Romania's fifth-largest city,was uneventful. The road was a single lane but ,although busy with international trucks,there were no hold ups and the road was good.At one point I decided to notch up another Unesco World Heritage site by deviating off the road 6km to see the ‘rock hewn churches of Ivanono’,a whole series of churches,chapels and a monastery that were carved from the rock face, around 1100-1200 AD ,with labyrinths of rooms tunnelled out of the cliff face of a river gorge,some with frescos still remaining.There was a brown EU-standard attraction sign pointing from the main road,and a moderately well surfaced lane leading to the village of Ivanovo,then down to the gorge. Beyond this there were no signs at all. Most oddly,I found down there only a derelict building that may once have been a visitor centre,with several decayed visitor signs ,and a map ,so faded that they were all illegible,and the “you are here” dot was missing so orientation was impossible.Several tracks led off towards the cliff face of the gorge in different directions through scrubland.I followed one of them to the cliff face 300yards away and found nothing much.At this point I chickened out,deciding that it was unsafe to leave the van parked up in such a deserted spot while I blundered around some paths-so I never saw the rock hewn churches, and Unesco-you should ask Bulgaria for your money back!
I retrospect I had a further look at this issue later and decided that I had not been bold enough,and if I had pressed on for another 1.5 kilometres down the lane past the derelict hut I would have come to another carpark,and seen the churches.I had started out down there but after 400 yards down a lane where there was no room to pass another vehicle if one came along ,I gave up and extricated myself with a 16-point turn, and headed on my way.Here are some library pictures showing what I missed.
The drive from last night’s campsite to the next in Bucharest was 220km,and should have taken 4 hours.Due to various things ,it ended up taking 6 .
Leigh Fermor had walked to Veliko Tarnovo from western Bulgaria, having visited another of Bulgaria's major tourist destinations, Rila monastery.There are suitable camping places near this place and if I'd had more time I would have like to headed westwards to visit this .But Leigh Fermor had then headed north, into Romania ,crossing the Danube at the city of Ruse(then known as Rustchuck) My plans were now the same ,so I set a course north.
The journey to Ruse, Romania's fifth-largest city,was uneventful. The road was a single lane but ,although busy with international trucks,there were no hold ups and the road was good.At one point I decided to notch up another Unesco World Heritage site by deviating off the road 6km to see the ‘rock hewn churches of Ivanono’,a whole series of churches,chapels and a monastery that were carved from the rock face, around 1100-1200 AD ,with labyrinths of rooms tunnelled out of the cliff face of a river gorge,some with frescos still remaining.There was a brown EU-standard attraction sign pointing from the main road,and a moderately well surfaced lane leading to the village of Ivanovo,then down to the gorge. Beyond this there were no signs at all. Most oddly,I found down there only a derelict building that may once have been a visitor centre,with several decayed visitor signs ,and a map ,so faded that they were all illegible,and the “you are here” dot was missing so orientation was impossible.Several tracks led off towards the cliff face of the gorge in different directions through scrubland.I followed one of them to the cliff face 300yards away and found nothing much.At this point I chickened out,deciding that it was unsafe to leave the van parked up in such a deserted spot while I blundered around some paths-so I never saw the rock hewn churches, and Unesco-you should ask Bulgaria for your money back!
I retrospect I had a further look at this issue later and decided that I had not been bold enough,and if I had pressed on for another 1.5 kilometres down the lane past the derelict hut I would have come to another carpark,and seen the churches.I had started out down there but after 400 yards down a lane where there was no room to pass another vehicle if one came along ,I gave up and extricated myself with a 16-point turn, and headed on my way.Here are some library pictures showing what I missed.
 Rock-hewn churches at Ivanovo |  |
Ruse is a city of historical interest and is known for its 19th- and 20th-century Neo-Baroque and Neo-Rococo architecture, and is somewhat of a tourist destination. It is apparently often called a "Little Vienna" ,although I usually find these comparative nicknames turn out to be a bit disappointing. Leigh Fermor seemed to find it quite a cosmopolitan place but his usual tales of the high life in such places are absent and he had instead been holed up in a cheap hotel recovering from illness, and the theft of his rucksack and possessions. Arriving in the afternoon, a little behind schedule ,I decided to press straight on and ,from the main highway leading to the bridge over the Danube, I just saw high-rise suburbs and the heavy industrial area by the river.
The border with Romania was quite strange.The Danube is the border and the “Friendship Bridge" connects the two countries,replacing a previous ferry service which may or may not still exist alongside.At the Bulgarian end I was simply asked for the toll for the bridge:supposedly they were supposed to be checking validity of the road tax sticker I bought the other day,but this didn’t appear to get done.Then I crossed the bridge,in a most appalling state of repair,the road surface potholed and rutted,the metal superstructured rusted and uncared for.It was quite narrow,a single lane ,and tight with a slow stream of international lorries crawling in both directions.
The border with Romania was quite strange.The Danube is the border and the “Friendship Bridge" connects the two countries,replacing a previous ferry service which may or may not still exist alongside.At the Bulgarian end I was simply asked for the toll for the bridge:supposedly they were supposed to be checking validity of the road tax sticker I bought the other day,but this didn’t appear to get done.Then I crossed the bridge,in a most appalling state of repair,the road surface potholed and rutted,the metal superstructured rusted and uncared for.It was quite narrow,a single lane ,and tight with a slow stream of international lorries crawling in both directions.
 The Friendship Bridge, over the Danube: Bulgaria to Romania. Everything moves at about 30 kpm as it's such a tight fit for the lorries. |  The Romanian road vignette and currency exchange shack, just over the bridge |
At the other (Romanian)end after a simple passport check I had to pay Romanian road tax. Unlike in Bulgaria where you buy a windscreen sticker ,In Romania you buy a virtual tax disc('Rovinieta')with no sticker and just a till receipt as proof of purchase,and your payment is monitored by road cameras with numberplate recognition: I had been warned that you have to make extra sure that your registration number has been correctly entered into the system when you pay.Although you can sign up at petrol stations,I saw people buying them at a little money exchange hut just after the passport booths,a strange no man’s land of concrete bordered by wasteland where there was no discernible road or designated parking place .While waiting to pay for mine I had to go back to my van to shoo off some Roma children who had started polishing the lights. A sympathising Bulgarian man kept my place in the queue.The exit from the border area led oddly onto a minor country road and it was 5km before this reached a main road.
The contrast ,on the strength of brief impressions,between Bulgaria and Romania is a most odd mirror image.Bulgaria clearly has some very poor rural people,not least its Roma population, and is facing an exodus from rural villages which are in a state of decay. The houses and apartment blocks I have seen in Bulgaria have all looked very tatty, although the roads are surprisingly good, even to UK standards.I whizzed down some now motorway and there are signs of more being built .In contast the Romanian roads are absolutely shocking.I read that 20 billion of EU infrastructure grant has disappeared with the arrival of just 180km of modern road,and I was warned that Romania has the highest road mortality in the EU.Despite this the houses I have passed have looked very smart.The older ones remind me very much of New Zealand,many of them bungalows with verandas and tin roofs,but in good order, but also there is plenty of modern smart housing ,both detached and apartment blocks on show too.I have read ,though,that there are villages in Romania without electricity or running water so perhaps these small towns 50km from the capital on which I am basing my judgement are not a typical example.
On reaching the Bucharest area,I headed for an overnight stop ,a campground in a wood in the northern suburbs called Camping Casa Alba, roughly between the airport and the Police Academy(http://www.eurocampings.co.uk/romania/bucharest/campsite-casa-alba-117090/) Coming from the South, I had to take the Bucharest ring road which was a dreadful road, just single lane, the tarmac rutted in deep grooves by the tyres of international lorries that moved slowly nose to tail round it, and degenerating occasionally to huge potholes and puddles that you had to navigate round.The ruts didn’t quite fit the width of my wheels and and I had to carefully pick a path without swerving in.Even worse,at all the junctions with the roads coming out of Bucharest (‘the spokes’)there were crossroads with no road markings,no traffic lights ,and the traffic on the spokes seemed to have right of way over the traffic on the ringroad. As a result there were great bottlenecks, and navigation across each junction was based on a game of "chicken": the driver who dared to pull out gained right of way.
Foolishly I had not changed some money at the shack where I bought my road tax,and on arrival at the campsite,although the manager would have accepted Euros, I didn’t have the right notes and he had no change .So I had to follow his directions and drive to find the local shopping centre and a cashpoint, fortunately not too far away.And there ,in contast to the appalling roads,was a massive out of town shopping Mall some ways bigger than the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, with a big Ikea,even bigger Carrefour and an indoor shopping mall glistening with all the world’s chains and brands.So the infrastructure seems in a schizophrenic state.
Apart from me ,there is just one other campervan at the rather odd carpark surrounded by assorted lodge huts.It's a 4WD camper lorry, driven by an Australian couple who have come overland from Singapore in it, and are next heading via Ukraine and Belarus to Murmansk. They are going into Bucharest tomorrow to get a visa for Belarus. My journey vanishes into insignificance at this point !
I do not feel particularly inclined to explore central Bucharest myself, although the monstrous Romanian Palace of Parliament building, Ceausescu's legacy, might hold morbid fascination. I plan instead to head towards Transylvania.
 What you need to drive overland from Singapore |  The Singapore to Bucharest route |
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