Tag 26: Rasova - Turcoaia

This morning, like yesterday, I set off without breakfast at around 7 a.m. The hotel only served it from 8 a.m. After a good 20 km I made up for it in Cernavodă, where I withdrew Romanian lei after visiting the bakery. Very often you can only pay in cash (like in yesterday's hotel, luckily they also accepted euros. I have a few emergency euros with me here). The breakfast you get here at the bakery is very, very hearty (pizza, puff pastry with cheese, yeast dough with sausages,... Ideal for building up energy while cycling!

Today I met several times a German pensioner who is currently on his way from Cyprus via Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova back to Germany.

I took a lunch break at a gas station. A Romanian biker gang arrived shortly after me (all very nice) and my bike was suddenly surrounded by motorbikes.

Today there were a few climbs and although the minimum height was 14m and the maximum height was 126m, I managed to overcome a total of over 1300 meters in altitude today. It was always up and down along the Danube. The paths were really excellent, so the altitude was no problem. There was just a bit of headwind at the start.

After about 125km (I thought) I had reached my destination for today. However, it turned out that the accommodation was still under construction/renovation and the other accommodation was probably already fully booked. A very nice Romanian man tried to help me. He couldn't speak a word of English but he was very motivated. He accompanied me on his electric scooter to the second possible accommodation, which was unfortunately full. He then called a hotel in the neighboring town and wanted to take me there. But somehow I wasn't quite sure whether they really had a room. After 5 minutes a man called me back (probably the hotel manager's son) who could speak English. He told me that everything was fine and that I would also get dinner (mixed grill or fresh fish). Since the hotel is a converted boat, I naturally decided on fish (even though I find the bones really annoying). It was another 15km to the hotel, and the Bulgarian guy really wanted to accompany me. In the end, I was able to prevent that and thanked him several times with a handshake. Afterwards, he wanted to take a selfie with me, after which I was allowed to set off. The path was very beautiful, right on a dam next to the Danube.

When I arrived at the hotel I had 30 minutes to shower and then dinner was ready. The fish was delicious (but due to language barriers I don't know what kind of fish it was). Now I'm sitting on the deck and watching the sunset. Next to me is a Romanian beer and a schnapps that the cook gave me without asking.

A very exhausting but also beautiful day comes to an end!