It’s been 16 days since we sold everything and set off on our adventures with our dogs. On our Triumph Tiger 900 motorcycles, fitted with our pooch carriers, we have covered a motorcycle ride through Romania friends and continued on to Bulgaria.
I never really wanted this to be a typical travel blog that describes how wonderful places are and why you must visit them, although there may be occasions when I can’t contain myself and I will be forced to spew niceties across the page no doubt. No, I want to write about our own experiences as we travel, without the sugar-coated rainbows and unicorn poop you may find on other sites. This will be what we see, how we see it and what we recommend should the situation arise.
Be warned, I’m from Yorkshire and I can be brutally honest!
On the 17 August 2024, we left Hungary and entered Romania to head to our first destination, Timișoara. To see us off on our travels, we would be joined by some of our friends for a couple of days. I’ll be honest, when I was planning the route, I was in two minds whether to go through Romania or not having toured Transylvania previously. The car drivers had left a lasting impression on me and there had been a couple of times when Zsofi had to talk me off the ledge and made me put the rocks down. However, on this particular ride, I was quite pleasantly surprised. There were no maniacs trying to run us off the road or giant potholes to test our suspension, just normal car drivers and pretty good tarmac.
The scenery as you enter Romania from Hungary is nothing to write home about but as anyone who has travelled in Romania knows, that can change rapidly, especially once you get nearer the Carpathian Mountains.
It was no secret to the residents of Timișoara we had arrived as Molly our very excitable Border Collie, made sure they knew we were there at every single set of traffic lights. Molly, if you were unaware, has a habit of barking at the top of her lungs each time the bike comes to a standstill and starts to move again. This wouldn’t be such an issue if it wasn’t always in my right ear and if she wasn’t bouncing while she was doing it!
After the longest fanfare in canine history, we arrived at our accommodation, the lovely Hotel Boutique Casa del Sole. This would be our first learning curve when it comes to booking places to stay as our room was on the top floor of the hotel which incidentally has no lift but does have a twisty staircase that narrows in places. This is great fun when you have to take all the gear off your bike each time you stay over somewhere. After our first cardio and upper body workout with the luggage, there was only one thing to do, pool bar!
Some of our group opted for a dip in the pool and others chose to paddle in their beer while recounting overexaggerated stories of the trip so far, yes, yes I know it’s only been a day but to be fair, you let a biker ride in the countryside and I bet he’s thought of Steve McQueen in the Great Escape at least once!
The thoughts of taking a look around Timișoara were quickly nipped in the bud when one of our party produced a bottle of 18 year single malt Jura as a bon voyage gift. There was nothing else for it but to order some food and get to the matter at hand. Now, on the subject of food, who the hell puts rice and spices in a calzone pizza, what’s next, curried eggs with your English breakfast? No, I say! At this point I will point out that all the staff at this hotel did have a look of the east to them and as super friendly and polite as they were, never mess with the calzone people! But the staff were great, we brought our own whiskey and they kept bringing us fresh ice, how cool were these guys!
The next morning, we said goodbye to 2 of our friends who would be staying an extra night before returning home and we set off towards Drobeta-Turnu Severin with the last of our friends. This was to be a long day, as we had decided to look for a place called Ochiul Beiului that was a bit off the beaten track. This is a kind of green lagoon that is only accessible if you walk the last part of the way. Unfortunately, we never made it all the way due to the roads becoming none existent and our bikes were fully loaded with kit and dogs. We just couldn’t take the risk of dropping the bikes with the dogs on and decided to stop at a nearby stream to dip our feet.
From here the landscape truly changed as we rode alongside the Danube while looking over at Serbia on the opposite bank. Truly breathtaking roads, that could have been a lot more fun if we weren’t fully loaded up on the bikes. After a quick stop for a bite to eat, we arrived at the Continental hotel quite late and after a few drinks decided to call it a night and get some sleep because tomorrow we head to Bulgaria.
