Even though the departure was right on time, our arrival to Bucharest was delayed by several hours, but I was under no particular time pressure. There would have been a train to Sofia shortly after our arrival, but as I had never been to Bucharest, I thought of discovering the city a bit and departing later int he day - that would be nice. Moreover, I realized that Sofia was further to the west (compared to Bucharest), when in reality, I wanted to travel east, so the Bulgarian capital might not be the best idea after all. I thought to myself to cross the bridge when I reach it - so for back then, I got ready to was discover Bucharest, I allocated a couple of hours for this feast.

First impression of Bucharest (perhaps the architect was Mussolini...?)

Well, the city did not become my favorite one. I did find some nice, broad boulevards lined with trees, some call it the "Paris of the East" (though being a native of Budapest, I must mention that this title is also applied to "my" city). I visited the "Palace of the Parliament", one of the largest buildings in the world - but did not go inside (for lack of time, though I could not visited it, even if I wanted to, as tickets for the day were sold out).

Palace of the Parlement

I did visit the villa of Ceausescu, the former dictator, who kept his own on people in poverty and under repression, while his own domicile was lavish, with no luxury spared, having a swimming pool, sauna, barber´s shop, then there are baroque paintings, his wife used to have a walk-in closet the size of a large room, full of exquisite clothes. The traffic in the city is quite horrendous, I had the longest wait times at red lights I have ever experienced. Many squares in the town could serve as background of a Mussolini film, with monumental, but rather run-down buildings - mixed with really ugly, communist-era housing blocks.

City center

"Paris of the East" - well, there has to be an Arc de Triomphe, correct? Yes, there is one indeed...

No, this is not Paris, as the flag proves it...

There was a funny scene in the first hour of discovering the city. I randomly veered off a major boulevard I was riding on and reached an area of villas, some of them being really pretty. Suddenly, I spotted a long word with some "ö"-s, hmmm, I did not catch on immediately that this is typical for my native language, Hungarian. Well, it turned out I was in front of the Hungarian Cultural Institute. Having stumbled upon it, I thought I might as well visit this building, a remarkable Romanian version of Art Nouveau. A friendly lady greeted me, she was very happy to chat up and she offered me a list of the major sites that were worth visiting in town. We talked about life in Bucharest, she wanted me to visit a jazz concert the following day, but I explained I was on a mission to reach Georgia.

Hungarian Culture Institute

Based on her recommendations, I discovered more of the city, the word "eclectic" is probably the fairest way to describe the mélange of different architectures. Atypical for me, I had lunch in a very touristic place, Carul du Bere, a former brewery in gothic revival style, with Art Nouveau interior, right in the middle of old town. Food was average, the beer delicious, prices on the high side - the setting itself was quite classy.

Carul de Bere from the outside...

...and from the inside

I was quite impressed by the orthodox churches, of which they were many, I visited a couple of these.

Anyhow, after a couple of hours, I had seen enough of Bucharest and without any scruples of leaving the city, I thought it was time continue my journey. Now I reached the imaginary bridge to cross - so I stood in (a luckily short) line for international trains. It turned out that there is just one train to Bulgaria per day, the one I could have caught earlier in the morning - and bike transportation on it was actually not allowed (ah, not again...). With the help of a very friendly young girl, who spoke perfect English, I found a train that would take me close to the Romanian-Bulgarian border. Alas, this train also did not carry bikes, but the lady at the counter told me to "discuss" the topic with the ticket collector (the way I had the discussion with the caretaker in Budapest), her holding up one, then two, bank notes, showing what this "discussion" might entail.

Soon I was on a relatively modern, low-floor train, which, however, it was so very full of graffiti that I had trouble finding the door (really, I am not kidding). It was not all too full, so there was place for my bike - and the "discussion" never happened, the ticket collector, though somewhat grumpy, did not harass me for the carriage of the bicycle. We were to ride south, but set off in a northerly direction I had arrived from earlier that morning, I was quite confused. It turned out we had to make a huge circle around Bucharest, so after a while the setting sun was on my right side, i.e. the "correct" side. The train ride, which was #4 (journey time: about two hours) was rather slow, stopping for long intervals - who knowns, had I set off from Bucharest by bike, I might have arrived earlier at the border - the trip was just around 70 km, but needed the aforementioned two hours. At one stop even the loc driver got off for a smoke break - and so did the majority of the passengers, all lighting a cigarette - it was quite sad to see so many people fuming away.

It was dark by the time we reached Giurgiu, on the north side of the border river - none other than "my" River Danube, which flows through both Vienna and Budapest, two towns close to me. As I started riding into the darkness, there were about 15 kilometers and a border ahead of me. Well, it was not that dark, as borders and the roads around it were lit quite well, soon I was on a broad road nearing the bridge, with some lorries standing on the side of the road. Reaching the bridge, the road got increasingly narrower and as luck would have it, those lorries that were previously parked, apparently got green light and started rolling, pretty much at the same time I had reached the now-narrow bridge. So there I was, on this very long bridge (the Danube was rather wide here), with trucks cruising both direction - and of course the surface of the bridge was under construction, it being rather bumpy - not a pleasant side.

After a while, though, car (and lorry) traffic came to a stillstand due to the construction, now it was my time to shine, I "re-overtook" all the vehicles that had passed me and just rolled to the front of a long queue waiting for border control - a definitive benefit of cyclists. Similar to Romania, Bulgaria is also a non-Schengen country (to be precise, for airplane and ship passengers no border control is required, but very much so for vehicle traffic). I soon passed both passport controls and found myself in Bulgaria.

Well, considering that this was the end of the second day, I was over 1,100 kilometers from Vienna and two countries away from Austria, including sight-seeing in Bucharest. I was actually quite pleased with my progress.

Ruse was the name of the town on Bulgarian side of the border, still being about twenty minutes away. The road leading to town had three lanes each way and even had a "bicycle lane", which was anything but, as there was a light pole every eighty meters or so, had I ridden of the "bike lane", I would have had to stop at each lamp post. Anyhow, with practically no traffic, I had pretty much the entire road to myself. The lack of traffic was due to the fact that most vehicles set off towards the south right after the crossing on a very busy major road, I thought for a second continuing that way and finding a hotel, but the nearest accommodation that direction was twenty kilometers away. It would not have been a good idea in the darkness - so the city of Ruse was definitely the better bet.

I reached the Danube bank, where a well-lit, nicely kept public park was to be seen, the road lining it had a number of fish restaurants. Here I checked my phone in search of accommodation and found a place for around €20. I had to call the owner, who was probably surprised to see someone arriving at this hour, they showed up about 20 minutes later. Well, this place did not cater to anyone in a wheel-chair, with steep stairs leading to the entrance - so it was not too bike friendly either. I had to schlepp my bike up these stairs and then further up to the first floor, to a balcony close to my room.

I took a shower, with memories of my first night in Morocco, where the drainage was on a very cozy schedule, the bathroom quickly becoming flooded. Whatever, I let the water make its slow way down the sewage and went to sleep in my otherwise quite spacious room.