75th+76th day - Sept. 21st+22nd: Endless journey through Wallachia

In the morning, the curator's husband treated me to a hearty breakfast. We had a good conversation and he invited me to come back to Craiova. The night before, during my internet research, I discovered that there is only one bridge over the Danube from Romania to Bulgaria at Giurgiu. From Craiova, it's about 240km along the course of the Danube through the entire Wallachia. Unfortunately, you can only see the river at a few cities, as it flows quietly behind a dam. My first destination of the day was the small town of Corabia, about 2km away from the Danube. The way there led me through lonely side roads. After the previous day's ride on a European highway, I enjoyed the tranquility of the Romanian Wallachia with its seemingly lonely and abandoned villages. Although the ride was almost 100km, it was not tiring because it was mostly downhill towards the Danube. Along the way, I was sometimes barked at by aggressive dogs, typical of Romania, that were running alongside me. In another village, I could observe an Orthodox funeral procession from a distance. The priests walked together with the mourners through the village. A trumpeter led the procession.

In the early evening, I arrived in Corabia. There was no Protestant community to be found there. It was the last one for me in Craiova. The camping site marked on the map on the outskirts of town did not exist, but I found a nice camping spot directly by the Danube, about 5km away.

In the morning of my 76th day of travel, it was very cold and in the second half of the night, I was glad to have my sleeping bag, as it was only 6 degrees Celsius. That's why I got up in the dawn, packed my things, and set off. In Corabia, I bought myself a hot coffee and some pastries. Shortly after 8 o'clock, I started towards my intermediate destination on my long journey through Wallachia, the small town of Zimnicea. Although the road is a European highway, there was hardly any traffic on it, and very few trucks. The southern part of Wallachia along the Danube is quite lonely. In some villages, I only encountered a few people. On the way, in a small town, I bought myself a hat for the night and gloves for the morning bike ride. The road led me about 80km to Zimnicea. There is a ferry across the Danube to Bulgaria, but it immediately goes uphill there and I stayed on the Romanian side.

Like the day before, I arrived in the town early in the evening. There is also no Protestant church community there. I bought some groceries and then looked for a camping spot near the Danube, and thanks to Google Maps, I found a nice summer beach. Once I arrived there, I went for a swim in the Danube, even though it was already quite cold, as I hadn't had a shower for two days. I set up my tent and prepared my food on the stove when suddenly the Romanian border police showed up. They inspected the situation, realized that I was just a harmless bicycle tourist, turned around, and drove back. Then I witnessed a beautiful sunset right by the banks of the Danube. Since it was getting dark early and I had very little battery left for my laptop, and also the internet reception was very poor, I crawled into my sleeping bag shortly after 21 o'clock and was curious about the next day, whether I would be allowed to enter Bulgaria.