Last batch of pictures

 Don't see many street vendors selling tea in Denver.

 This is the pedestrian mall near our hotel - everything from small shops on alleyways off the main drag, to upscale shops on the main drag.  Street musicians and buskers - I think I saw one of them in Boulder.  Pick a food, any food - it's available.

 And, a trolley runs down the middle of it.  Sometimes (usually) faster to walk - the trolley can't get through the crowds.

 The views across the water are  pretty neat.  Mosques everywhere you look.

 The big blue mosque (blue tiles inside).

 Graffiti inside the mosque, carved by a Viking 600years ago.

 The prettiest of the mosques - Suleiyman the Magnificent had it built a long time ago.  Not as big as Hagia Sophia or Blue mosque, but prettier.  Interesting to have the  chandelier down very low within the gigantic open space.

 Lots of domes.

The pattern on the carpet helps the worshippers line up for prayers.

Taksim Park, where the antigovernment demonstrations were centered a few months ago.  Lots of families, trees, kids (and, as everywhere, free range cats and dogs), and playgrounds.  And, a tea vendor.  Not a whiff of teargas.

Home soon, this blog is done.

Wow, this is, like, a really, really, different country, Dude - totally.

 Everywhere in Europe we found these outdoor, coin operated espresso machines - full range - espresso, cappuccino, macchiato.  Need investors for USA franchise opportunities.

 We crossed the border from Romania - dirty, poor, backward with people who appeared grim, rarely a spontaneous smile or wave.  Arrived on the Bulgarian side of the river in an industrial port city, but rode downtown to find a clean open spaced center of town with freshly painted houses, open squares with green grass, trees, fountains, smiling people, spontaneous waves, folks willing to teach a few words of Bulgarian with great laughs at our attempt to pronounce the words.

It's like, well, a different country.

 The opera house in Ruse - featuring a performance of Aida - not sure if they have elephants for the triumphal entry.

40 years ago I took a year of high school Russian.  It's been very helpful in Bulgaria which uses the Cyrillic alphabet - same as Russian.  Many of the letters are pronounced differently, and there are many letters unlike anything in the latin alphabet - for instance the backwards looking capital R that is pronounced "ya", and a backwards "n" that is pronounced "ee".  So, being able to phonetically  sound out a sign often yields a completely recognizable work:  EKCnPEC  actually sounds out to "express".  I can't carry on any sort of a conversation, but being able to read signs is a great help.  Never thought that a high school course, unused for 40 years, would return to help me.

 We spent a week in Romania and saw many massive statues - Soviet era "uplifting" statues of workers, soldiers, women dressed as soldiers and workers.  But nary an exposed breast.  It was reassuring to come to Bulgaria and see naked women again.  This statue of a young lady being sprayed in a fountain suggests that even for a statue, cold water sprayed on your back is a chilling experienced.

 Stopped at a store to restock some cookies and Fanta.  This kid and his dad were there (kid's on a bike with training wheels) and we couldn't speak, but did a lot of smiling gestures at each other.  They took off riding and I later caught up with them and got big waves and smiles as I rode by.

 The sunflowers are past their prime here and are turning brown, but the fields go on for miles and miles.  Today's ride often went along the ridges of rolling hills and we could see the fields going off to the horizon.  Bulgarian farms seem to be highly mechanized compared to Romania - lots of large machinery, some new - but lots of an age that would have been retired in North America.  We did see some horse drawn wagons, but in Romania horse drawn seemed to be a very large portion of the work force, here the fields are larger (the terrain is not that much different - here it rolls and rolls, in Romania it was quite hilly at the foot of the mountains, but rapidly gave way to extensive flat plains that could have been mechanized, but seemed to have not been).  I'll avoid the argument of whether mechanization is really progress.

We rode over a big ridge and down into Veliko Tarnovo (many different latinized spellings) - once the capital of Bulgaria, with old fortresses and palaces.  Now a tourist city of 200,000.  Quite a beautiful place on cliffs overlooking goosenecks in the river below.

....................

The overall impression of Bulgaria as being so different from its neighbor:  happier, friendlier, cleaner, more progressive - is quite overwhelming.  In Romania we struggled to find stuff that we could comment favorably upon.  Here, we're positively happy with our surroundings and our experiences.

(One side note:  in Romania, there were quite noticeable differences between the Northern part of the country - Transylvania, and the southern part - Wallachia.  Transylvania was friendlier, the drivers were less agressive - our 3 episodes of drivers deliberately trying to injure cyclists were in Wallachia.)

Remember, that both of these countries are smaller than many American states in both size, and population.

Why is that?  Was the 20 years of Ceausescu sufficient to beat down the spirit as well as the economy of Romania to the point where it is still early in its recovery, 25 years later?  (And required a violent revolution to dump President-for-life Mr C - whereas Bulgaria was already liberalizing prior to a peaceful first democratic election in 1989, which the renamed Communists, now Socialists, won.  And, an economy that actually lost ground in the decades since the end of the Communist planned economy.) Or, is there a societal history that goes back further and runs deeper, that underlies the differences?  Although the era of bad Mr C must have some influence, I think there must be more.  Just one example:  Bulgaria fought both World Wars on the side of Germany, but seems to have been a political and economic move of necessity and never bought into the full Nazi program:  refused to participate in the German turnaround to attack Russia and abstained from that part of the war.  And most tellingly, refused to allow the Nazis access to the Bulgarian Jews and was able to protect nearly all of the Jews of Bulgaria from deportation and death.  Something goes back further than the postwar disruptions.

What we'll miss when we get home:

OK, I won't miss struggling with the language(s).
I'll miss some (not, by any means, all) of the foods.

I'll miss the "free range" cats and dogs.  They're all over.  Some are pretty mangy, but most are pleasant, friendly, looked after by shopkeepers, waiters, etc.   They are really pretty sweet - even when they hop up on the breakfast table and grab a slice of ham.

I'll miss never knowing quite how a public bathroom will be set up.  Occasionally an American style with separation of men and women.  But, often shared sinks, sometimes with separated toilet facilities, sometimes with identified M/F stalls, sometimes with the guys urinals around the corner, but not always.  Adventure in peeing.

I'll miss the mix of cultures, and the variations within a culture.  The mix of Muslim women is pretty interesting to observe here in Turkey.  The highlight today:  Jean and I had just come out of a mosque and were putting our shoes back on (Jean is very fetching and spiritual looking in a head scarf).  Out comes a 30 something woman in Hijab - black scarf ( no veil) and elegant but plain, floor length black tailored robe.  On go the running shoes, off comes the scarf, off comes the robe revealing the little hottie in a low cut miniskirted sun dress.  Quick, neat folding up, and off goes the hottie.  Nice.

Couple hours to the flight home.

See you all soon.

The far side of Europe

The last few days of riding were in rural Turkey - lots of rolling hills covered with scrub oak and some more robust forests, and interspersed with small towns - some agricultural, but many mining - gravel mining.  Not very much of great interest.  Not many folks spoke English.  Plenty of big trucks to share the road.

Finally through some forests as we went over a final ridge.  Thick forests with a bunch of picnic areas and campgrounds being heavily used by locals.  Down towards the Bosporus through a pretty valley with several kilometers of "Event Parks" - full of outdoor lawns covered with pavilions, tables, bandstands - looking to be ready for a bunch of weddings in the afternoon.  Interesting.

On our last night on the road, we stayed at a nice resort and had a chance to look on at a wedding reception going on outside:  interesting contrast as one family in the receiving line was very modern (apparent sister of one of the couple had a low cut strapless number that compared well with Pipa at the Will & Kate wedding) while the other family had women all in Hijab - Muslim conservative, though very fashionable, dress with headscarves and long gowns/suits for the women (though no veils).  Never figured out which family belonged to the bride and which to the groom.  As folks came through the receiving line there was an interesting on & off of greeting styles (as well as outright ignoring of the conservative family) between the two families.  Weird, funny, uncomfortable.  Bride & groom were dressed, and danced, like something out of an American movie (no, not My Big Fat Greek Wedding).  Nice music.

On down to the Bosporus.  Really cool.  Look across the water and there is Asia.  Look to the left and you can see where it opens into the Black Sea - somewhere up there is Russia and the Ukraine and next winter's Olympics.  There's a 7 MPH current through there, but deep underneath is a current running the other way driven by the different salt content of the Black and Mediterranean Seas.  Hard to wrap my head around that one.

Plenty of big ships, including the gigantic cruise liners, oil tankers, container ships going through and all mixed in with small fishing boats, local ferries, little family boats, and sleek high power fast boats that appeared to belong to James Bond and other folks who could buy Boulder without exceeding their credit card limit.

Then, dip a few tires into the water (nobody fell in), and load onto a boat for a trip down to Istanbul - been on my list of places to visit for a long time, and what a nice way to get there.

Spent the first 24 hours a bit away from the tourist center in a very crowded area - Ortokay - mostly used by locals.  High levels of chaos and crowding.

Then today moved to a different hotel (a boutique hotel on a Yuppie side street and returning to something resembling the cafe society of western Europe) towards the tourist center.  Spent some time in the shopping area leading up to Taksim square - the center of the unrest and demonstrations a few months ago (no sign of that now). Lots of folks speak English, so easier to navigate, and altogether very nice pedestrian mall with a trolly that stretches for well over a kilometer.  And, yes there are several McDonald's as well as other American style fast food joints.  But plenty of local shops, sights, etc.  Fish markets, silk markets, leather goods, shoe stores, lamp stores, as well as Gap, Esprit, Timberline, Birkenstock.

Off the tourist mall, the shops tend to run in groups - 12 scuba shops, 30 lighting stores (lots more LED's here than in the US), 40 hardware stores, etc.

Tomorrow on to the history, museums, mosques, etc.

Later.

More on Traveler's Diarrhea

As I was getting sick last night, I very cautiously farted a few times (It takes a brave man to fart in Asia - and we're almost there.)  This morning, several horses were found dead in the street, and the dogs had all left town.  

More on the call to prayer:  The call is done live, over a microphone.  YouTube is full of videos and audio of the Azan.  When we were in Cairo a few years ago, we got to hear the call done by an apparently very famous muezzin who did the Azan/call to prayer, for our group, live and in person without amplification - quite beautiful.  It's very formal:  "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great -  repeated 4 times, and on with various prescribed phrases repeated - takes 3-4 minutes.  Can be done to a variety of different melodies.  There is even an "American Idol" sort of competition for best Azan - done in Instanbul.  Volume seems to be an important part of the whole thing, not a good thing if your hotel is right next to the minaret as ours is.  I'm not looking forward to 5:30 AM.

Turkey was part of the Roman Empire - eventually Istanbul, then called Constantinople, became the capital as Rome itself went to the dogs.  Then, the Turks invaded from Central Asia and brought in the new language and customs - in the 11th century.  It was then the seat of the Ottoman Empire, and controlled much of the Middle East, northern Africa, southeastern Europe - until it was on the losing side in World War 1.

In the 20's Kemal Mustafa - later called Kemal Mustafa Ataturk - became the father of the secular republic of Turkey.  Although it's still a primarily Muslim country, it is politically still secular - for instance, women can't wear Hijab (head scarves and such) in the Universities and in government buildings - apparently generates quite a bit of controversy.  On the other hand, it's very hard to find alcohol - lots of conservative spillover, especially with the current party in power which is pretty conservative.

The last border to cross

4 or 5 days ago we stayed at a hotel where the water to the whole town was out, because of a broken water line.  it was fixed in a few hours, but when the water came back on it was pretty awful.  I thought that it might be a bad idea to drink it, but there wasn't much else available.

I was right.  A number of us - me included - have been sicker than dogs in the last 24 hours.  Nepal quality sick - headache, muscle aches, fever, and the GI's - not sure which end of my body to point at the toilet.

Pretty grim, but getting better.

Yesterday crossed into Turkey - now the letters are familiar latin style letters, but the words are completely different - no relationship to the other European Languages.  So, no idea whatsoever about what a sign is about, let alone what it says.  And, a bit challenging to find anyone who speaks any English.

Yesterday was a tough ride - fast with tailwinds in the morning, but desperately hard riding into cross headwinds all afternoon.  I think the hardest day of riding this trip.

Turkey's per capita income is 1/3 that of the US, but is 50% higher than that of Romania and Bulgaria - it's noticeably more prosperous once we cross the border.  Rural agricultural area with new roads (either to help open up EU markets, or for military defense purposes - lots of military installations along the way).

Every little town has a mosque and a minaret, and larger towns have many, many mosques and minarets.

The call to prayer is no longer done by the guy who climbs up in the minaret - it's all done remotely over loudspeakers that seem to function at about 150 decibels.  After being sick all night, then finally getting to sleep, the 5 am prayer call from the mosque across the street made me jump about 10 feet. I'm not sure if the calls are pre-recorded, or are each individualized, but they are funny in that at the end of the call, you can hear the "click" of a telephone hanging up.  It'd make a good ring tone, or better yet, a ringtone for my iPad alarm clock - I'm pretty sure that I'd always wake up before it went off so that I could turn it off before the ring.

I'm going to see if I can get up and walk a little without fainting.

Later, folks.

Southern Bulgaria

We rode through the Balkan Mountains - not very high, but pretty, down into a valley where we dropped into much more humid surroundings - getting close enough to the Black Sea that it's definitely a more maritime atmosphere.

Pretty rolling countryside.  Much less prosperous than what we saw to the north - though still with the large fields and mechanized agriculture.  However, around the small towns were smaller farms with plenty of horse-drawn work going on.

Talked to a British ex-pat who lives in the area - says that 7 years ago the area was largely forested and pastureland.  With Bulgaria joining the EU, money has come in to improve roads and therefore access to markets, and more importantly, crops can be sold throughout the rest of Europe - so crops like corn and sunflower have become much more profitable and the whole agriculture has changed.

The last 2 nights we've stayed at hotels where no one spoke any English - Google Translator came in quite handy.

A few really run down villages on today's ride - not seen in Bulgaria to the north of the mountains.  One drunk guy stood in the road and tried to tackle a rider just behind me.  Anil, our rider, demonstrated his Rugby skills and left the drunk (who demonstrated the weakness of an arm tackle) spinning about in the road.  Good on 'ya, Anil.

Bucharest - the People's Palace, Kids, and Dogs

 Ceausescu - dictator from 70's until 89 - built the "People's Palace" - actually more of a monument to himself.  Now the parliament building.  The second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon.  Largest civilian building.  Heaviest building (lots of marble, I guess) - though we're not sure how they weighed it.
This is the South side.

 The East side, where Mr. C gave his speeches - including the infamous last speech where he couldn't understand that a protest was going on.  Within a few days, his government was down, he had been tried and found guilty of stuff, and was executed.  Immediately thereafter, the death penalty was abolished.
His style of government, personal style, and architectural style were heavily influenced by North Korea which he visited frequently.  Romanians should be happy that they offed him when they did instead of allowing the North Korean style to persist.
Pictures don't do justice to just how big this sucker is ( ran around it and took 42 minutes - OK, no nasty comments about how fast I run).
C relocated 40,000 people, destroyed much of the historic center of the city, and built an artificial hill to erect the building on.  In all the splendor and beauty of North Korean style architecture.

 This is a park across from the "White Palace".  Not much action now, but last night at dusk it was mobbed by kids in the playground and dogs playing in the park around it (like 4-5 football size park).
All the rumors of dogs in Romania have some basis - there are lots.  Some seem to be free living, but lots that are clearly attached to someone, if not leashed.  Folks in the park were actually "scooping their poops" - though the percentage success didn't seem excessively high.
I had read about the free living dogs learning that the safe way to cross the street was to wait, then cross with a group of humans, and had a chance to see that last night - then trot happily off in a different direction.  Smart little beasties.
There's a canal that had a cute Rottweiler walking in the shallows, seemed to enjoy the escape from the heat, though it was clear how he was going to get out since it was lined with concrete vertical walls.  He seemed to be with a human - neither of with seemed too concerned.

One last view of the monstrosity.  Given that it is the second largest building in the world, please recall that the population of Romania is roughly 4 times that of Colorado, much smaller than places like California, and with a per capita income of about 1/4 that of the US.  Seems Mr C might have found better ways to spend the country's money.
There's a bike path around the building - largely used for car parking.

Farmland Romania

 Not only do we see lots of brightly colored bee hives along the road, there are lots (5-10 per day that we pass) of trucks with rows of bee hives - usually parked in orchards.  This was an apple orchard.

Shortly after putting my camera back in my pocket, the guard dog came after me (actually, just a little yappy thing) - I generated about 900 watts sprinting away from him.

Glad to have found a battery and have my power meter back.

 Lots of almond orchards today.  This guy was working alone, but lots of families working the trees - lay out some blankets under the tree, whack the tree a bunch of times with a big stick (sometimes climbing part way up the tree to get the upper branches), then collect the almonds off the blankets.

 Besides the basilicas and churches, there are plenty of roadside shrines (or, maybe religious bus stops and places for weary or wet cyclists to rest).  Some are dreary, some are colorful and pretty.  It is noticeable that the Orthodox don't have the fixation on dead Jesus like the Roman Catholics do - more saints and apostles and Jesus giving blessings.  A bit less depressing.

 The road department must have had a backlog of 8% signs - every hill that we went up or down today, no matter how steep, had a sign warning you that it had an 8% gradient.

And, every 2 km there was a sign warning of bad roads for the next 2 km.  They were accurate.

Missing were the signs warning of crazy drivers.  Today was perhaps the worst day in which I've ever been involved, of drivers intentionally running bicyclists off the road - swerving from oncoming lanes, and driving alongside then swinging in toward the bicycle - several forced off the road, and one down into the gravel.

Funny mix of true nastiness, and others who gave us wide berths, slowed down to allow safe pacing, big waves and grins, attempts at English greetings, etc.

Lots of horses on the road - including some gigantic loads of hay, some with the whole family aboard.  Since we traveled at roughly comparable speeds, more interactions and greetings with the horsey set.  And, not a single horse tried to run us off the road.

Pictures from the Present Pass

 This is right at the tunnel entrance where a 900 meter tunnel goes through the top of the ridge - looks like it cuts off about the last 300 vertical meters over the top.  The parking lot that you see is only a small part of the chaos of people, stalls selling all kinds of stuff, and traffic.

If you want a panorama of the pass and the road that we cycled, go to:

http://www.360concept.ro/panorame/sibiu/transfagarasan/


 A smallish town with a church from the 13th century - I think that it's more impressive in its unrestored state than some of the restored churches.

 Romanians, Germans, Hungarians, Turks, Mongols were always fighting over this area, so their hero's provide lots of gist for the heroic statue mill.

 Funny bumper stickers in all languages.

 The vertical down to the plains in the background is 1800 meters - just under 6000 feet.  It's a steady climb the whole way, no level spots.  Nowhere in the US that I know of that is anything like that.  The top of the climb is  only 2050 meters (the pass is higher, with a tunnel going under the pass) - but with tree line well below that - maybe 4500 feet - not sure why treeline is so low.

 Looking up the valley from below - at the waterfall which comes down from treeline.  Very sharply cut valley - no obvious glaciation except in the cirques above treeline.  A tramway runs from below the waterfall up to the entrance of the tunnel.  In winter, the road is closed and the tramway (looks like only 10-12 people fit into each tram, and there appear to be only 2 trams) is the only access to the hotel at the tunnel.  Pictures on the wall show ski tracks on the snow - must be backcountry skiing - no ski lifts and the terrain below the hotel looks very unpalatable for skiing.

A sculpture in Alba Iulia of humans being ground up in the machine.

 A small orthodox monastery out in the countryside.

 The mountains to be climbed, looking ahead while cycling across the plains.

 Another larger Orthodox basilica.

 Climbing, climbing.

 Climbing some more.

When Jean and I get really old, perhaps we can learn to speak Romanian and move into this Romanian Senior Center.  The ad was interesting, and we saw quite  a few retirement homes in the course of our riding.

Today, we rode through the big tunnel (used the vans to "convoy" the cycles and light the way - sort of - for us).  Then down 6000 feet on the other side - with some shorter tunnels, though one longer steeply downhill tunnel was black enough to be rather terrifying - with essentially zero visibility.

After 2 days of nice weather, back into the heat and humidity.

Forest much lusher and obviously a wetter climate on the Southern side of the Carpathian ridge (and the forest goes on and on and on - 5 countries worth without a break, actually) and is thick and varied.  Onto the plains where the farms also look much more profitable with the wetter climate.

The 12 mile picnic and bazaar

Watching the Tour de France, we see the lines of campers, cars, people  lining the roads, having cookouts, drinking and we think ........Wow!  Turns out that scene may be, on a smaller scale, a regular weekend thing.  The last 20 km of today's climb - up to the tunnel that cuts under the last bit of the Transfaragasan Pass - was just like that:  cars parked all over - including in the driving lanes, folks obviously camped for the weekend, campfires, grills, picnics, traffic.  The last 500 meters up to the tunnel was like riding the Tour - traffic at a standstill, wall-to-wall crowds, people selling stuff, all kinds of food.  Quite a scene.  A little atmosphere added by the herd of sheep just above the market.

Quite a spectacular road - first 10 km in the valley bottom was 3-4% climbing, then started switchbacking up and for the next 25 km averaged 5.7%.  Above treeline, it was very reminiscent of pictures of the Stelvio - short, steep switchbacks held up by big retaining walls.   Quite spectacular - and, from the top one looked down a 2000 meter (6600 feet) vista to the plateau where we started - quite unlike anything that I'm aware of in the US, short of something like the look down from the summits of the Teton Range into Jackson Hole, but no highway there.

Had a few folks to ride with on the early part, but they faded and it was a solo effort most of the way - a bit hard to get motivated when nobody is pushing you.  Best time on Strava is for a BMC pro during the 2012 Tour of Romania - 25.5 km in 1:09.  I hoped to at least double his time and did better than I hoped for at 2:02.  I forgot to load enough energy bars so was starved at the top and was quite glad for all the food available - a large blueberry layer cake, a quick espresso, then back down the last 8 km to ride up with Jean.

Finally a cool day of riding, with clouds and a little rain.

Then spent the afternoon wandering around the bazaar, checking out the foods, drinks, sheepskin boots, paintings, bread, cake, chintzy tourist stuff, etc.  Popular is a thing where they take bread dough rolled pretty thin, then cut into strips and rolled around a wooden roller - rather like tape on a handlebar, then doused with sugar and rolled rotisserie style over a fire to "bake" it.  A final layer of cinnamon sugar to finish it off, slide the tube of bread off the roller, and you have  a sweet treat of enormous calories and absolutely no non-carbohydrate nutritional value.  Seems to be equivalent in popularity to Romanian version of Krispy-Kreme donuts.

The road itself was built in the 70's - apparently a military paranoid dream of Ceausescu.  apparently has been repaved once about 5 years ago, minimal other maintenance - push the biggest rocks off the sides of the road and such.  Riding along you can look at the underside of bridges on the next switchback and see where much of the concrete has flaked away leaving rebar flapping in the breeze.  Helps to motivate fast pedaling over the bridges.

Talked to some guys from Italy who had driven up just to cycle over  the pass because it's "the most beautiful in Europe."  

Tomorrow, a 900 meter long tunnel, then down the other side.

It's like rural American in the 50's (or 30's?)

One notable little item:  riding through rural areas we see lots of folks cutting hay by hand - with a big old wooden handled scythe.  I know that when I was a kid, in the 50's on our farm, we would but the edges of the hay fields like that, but most of the field was done with a tractor pulled power mower.  But, we've seen a number of fields being cut all by hand (and, a sheep being sheared with hand powered shears - take that, you wimpy Australians).  They are quite good, taking a swipe and having all the hay cut on that swipe line up so that at the end they have a lined up pile of cut hay that is then loaded on a horse-drawn wagon and then taken to be piled on a stack of loose hay - no power bailing.  

Lots of horses on the road pulling carts - including my favorite, a cart with a power mower in it.

Lots of pretty flower gardens around houses.

Lots of abandoned factories - a relic of the Ceausescue regime.

Small businesses along the roads - tomato sellers with perhaps 30 tomatoes available for purchase.

Talked to some Romanian cyclists today (software guys in their late 20's on a 9 day mountain bike tour).  they remembered little of the Ceausescue days, but the emblematic recall was of getting up at 4 am to go stand in line to get 5 little tins of yogurt.  Take that King Sooper.

Today was day off in Alba iulia (city of 50,000) - an old town dating back 2000 years to Roman times.  Massive fort with multiple reincarnations from the first century through the last major rebuild in the 1700's.  Now being redeveloped as an upscale tourist hotel, several large churches, lots of tourist stuff including several really nice museums, and a pretty park with running trails that is located in the old moat between 2 sets of walls. 

The orthodox basilica is a particularly spectacular and pretty church.  Quite impressive.

Hot and flat

We're now well into a record-setting European heatwave.  The riding has been brutal.

Spent a few days riding across the Hungarian plain - wow, is it flat.  The only interesting note were the irrigation canals - made it all reminiscent of the Central Valley of California, or the Mekong delta in Vietnam (that was same temperature, but more humid).

The whole thing was apparently forested a thousand years ago, but the trees got cut down (for wooden forts by the Ottoman Turks) and never grew back, but once irrigation channels were dug in the early 1800's, farming became profitable.

Then we crossed into Romania, and the most dramatic change was the language.  Hungarian is unrelated to any other European language (except Finnish) and so no words were decipherable by us - except for recent imports (diszcont).

However, Romanian iis an outgrowth of Latin.  Many words are quite understandable when written, and some phrases look like Italian or Spanish.  However, when spoken it sounds Slavic - maybe Latin with a very strong Russian accent - veni, vidi, strasvichia.

We had been warned about the Romanian dogs, and one did run toward the leader in a pace line - she slowed, swerved, caught Jean's front wheel and Jean now has a rather impressive bruise on her buttocks.

I had one dog that I didn't see coming, until he barked from about 3 feet away - he caught me in the wrong gear for accelaration so I couldn't outsprint him, but he seemed quite content to run along side me, barking ferociously, until I finally wore him out.

Talked with sister-in-law of owner of the motel where we were camping:  leaving soon on short "mission" (not clear if religious), to one of the "poor" areas of Romania to help with housing - sounds sort of like a Habitat for Humanity, or New Orleans project ----but, missioning from an area where we would usually be offfering assistance, to go to assist an even poorer area.  Interesting.

In Romania, we finally left the flats and have been climbing into the hills - foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.  Still hot, but more interesting.  The farms are small, but pretty - though obviously poor.  Lots of nice flower gardens.

The town we're in suggests the stories that I heard of Romania before the fall of Commnism - very gray, drab - but with signs of things being spruced up - flowers, new construction, remodeling, new paint, and a climbing wall.  And, the omnipresent cell phones.

In France and Germany, the churches were all in the center of the towns, but here they are often outside the towns - sometimes with nothing around them.  South Dakota was like that - churches with no other building within miles - but, Lutheran rather than Orthodox.  Rode up a couple of the side valleys (today was a short day) to see some small churches and a largery monastery.

The heat outpaces the Romanian air conditioning (camping is hard to find find here, so we only have 2 more nights of camping), so the hotel is stifling.

On into the mountains tomorrow, but still with predicted high of 97 degrees (94 today was bad enough, though I saw one thermometer reading 38 - that's over 100).

Pictures of Bratislava and Budapest

 The mall in Bratislava.

 A heroic statue of those who "gave their arms for their country."  Bratislava

 Rolling hills away from the Danube - Hungary

 Not a particularly good picture - but, I'd been looking down at maps and struggling through traffic, then looked up and thought:  "Oh my, that's an interesting building."

 Iced tea, wine, twilight, a beautiful lighted bridge, and an iPad.

 Parliament lit up at night.

Parliament from up on the hill in Buda - at the "Fishermen's Bastion"  - either a memorial to the Fishermen who helped defend the city from invaders, or the restaurant in front of the Hilton Hotel.

Budapest is a pretty cool city.  Enjoyed it a lot.

Went to a concert in a medium sized church this evening:  organ, trumpet, violin, soprano and tenor vocalists.  Hard to imagine the ensemble but thoroughly enjoyable.  Great fun.

I continue to be impressed how little Budapest is on the American radar screen, but how much history is here and how much current economic importance it has - as well as the touristy stuff.

Paprika, gulash, Rubik's cube

Wow, Budapest is pretty cool.  Big city - over 3 million, spreads over both sides of the Danube.  The Hungarian plain is on the "Pest" side (these were 2 separate cities, Buda and Pest - until  bridges were built in the 1800's followed by union into a single city) and that side of the city is very flat, but on the Buda side it is very hilly with cliffs, caves, and thermal springs.

It's been a turbulent existence for Hungary and Budapest - Hungarians moved in from western Asia in the 800's and founded the country.  Then, battles back and forth between Austrian (Habsburg Empire) and Turks (Ottoman empire).  Brief conquest by the Mongols - Attila the Hun.  Turks out, Austrians in, joint venture (Austro-Hungarian empire), WW I with Hungary on the losing side but becoming a separate country, WW II and Hungary losing again and Budapest being pretty totally trashed - all bridges down, most buildings destroyed, lots of history lost.  Then, the Soviet Communist regime that decided that those non-socialist, bourgeoisie artsy things weren't worth saving - so lots of reconstruction of historic buildings but without the art (sometimes, apparently intentionally destroyed).  Then, another battle with the unsuccessful revolution of 1956, then the more successful fall of Communism.  Ongoing attempts to reconstruct the historical beauty of the city - seems pretty successful to me, though not on a scale comparable to Paris, Regensburg, Vienna - where the city center looks very medieval.

Because of the origins of the Hungarian (Magyar) people in Asia, there is no commonality between Hungarian language and any other European language except for Finnish.  Not even with Slavic languages like Russian.  So, until now there were recognizable (at least we could guess at meanings) words in French, German, and even in Slovakian.  Hungarian is totally foreign and unrecognizable, except for recent imports like "Diszcount", and of course, McDonald's.  But, lots of English spoken in the tourist areas, so easy to get around (30 languages on the free audio guides on the river boat trip - and hostesses that seemed to speak most of them - took a while for the hostess to go through the welcome comments in most of those 30 languages).

For reasons that escape me, paprika is used to flavor everything (including potato chips).  And, goulash seems to be the most characteristic Hungarian meal - kinds like a super-charged Dinty Moore beef stew.

Did I mention the traffic chaos?

Now, lots of historic looking reconstructions of buildings, some spectacular stuff that did survive and has been successfully restored, new bridges, new performing arts centers, day markets, night markets, river cruises, traffic (did I mention traffic - chaos), restaurants.

Major financial center, national per capita income about half that of the US, but also much less disparity between rich and poor (less than half the GINI score for any economy geeks).

In the 1800's especially, Budapest was a major technology leader - lots of the electrical inventions came from here - although we think of them as Western European developments, in the 1800's Budapest was more developed than much of Western Europe.  More recently, home to the inventor of Rubik's cube.  OK, so not all invention is progress.

Money is on a bit of a different scale here - I'm carrying 50,000 florints around in my wallet.  That will buy me a couple nice dinners.

All the (reconstructed) historic buildings and bridges are lit up at night, so Jean & I did a river cruise last night - quite spectacular.  

Yesterday's bike ride left the Danube to cut diagonally across a big loop and was pleasant riding through wooded hills, fields, small villages - reminded me of Pennsylvania.

Bucsu until later.

Into Eastern Europe

25 KPH tailwind, so quick ride and dead flat from Vienna to Bratislava.  

finally found a magnet that will work, so I've got power meter data again.  Please no comments on the pitifully small numbers.

Roughly the same distance as home in Boulder to work at University Hospital gets us from the capital of one country to the next, and indubitably from a Western European country to Eastern Europe with a history of Soviet style communism in the not too distant past.

Crossing the border, one gets to see the remnants of the border crossing, but it looks just like some old abandoned unusually shaped gas stations - otherwise, one would not notice a border.  But, then you look around  - especially after climbing the hill to the old castle - and having a good view - and there are lots of large, square, dull apartment buildings - unlike anything we've seen the last few weeks - but perhaps reminiscent of public housing from the eastern US (think Bed-Sty).  The windowboxes of geraniums have disappeared.  The paint is dull, and hasn't been renewed for a while.

The downtown area is a very nice pedestrian mall, lots of shops and outdoor cafes - more prominent English menus and signs, presumably related to a tourist clientele that is nearly all from out of the country.  English is the primary language of tourism - more so than France or Germany - with an especially fluent young woman at the frozen yogurt stand.

But as soon as you leave the tourist center, it degenerates to a rather gray area very quickly.

We're staying in a "Botel" - an old river boat converted to a hotel, floating on the Danube - quite nice to look out the window and see the river and the river traffic.

Slovakia is about 1/5th the area of Colorado, roughly the same population as Colorado.  Bratislava itself is a bit under 400,000 people.  You can imagine how hard it would be to maintain (in the modern world) a language and way of life for Colorado if it was a separate country and language from the rest of the US.  I find it interesting to try to wrap my head around comparable sizes of states in the US and countries in Europe.  

Apparently Bratislava was about 40% Hungarian and 40% German, only 15% of its population Slovakian, up until World War I.  After WW I, Bratislava became part of the new Checkoslovakia  ( all had been part of Austro-Hungary prior to the war), and all the Hungarians got kicked out.  After WW II, all the Germans got kicked out and now Bratislavia is 90% Slovakians.  Quite a shift.  

Tomorrow on to Hungary.

Laundry (and cycle traffic) in Vienna

Coin operated laundry seems to be a relatively rare event in the Euro cities where we looked for it.  Closest that we could find was 7 km away (Google maps didn't help, either).

So a bike trip through the city (with 15 kg on my back) taught me a bit about the bike lanes.  Better than Paris (trying, but everything in Paris is chaotic including the cycling).  Comparable to Freiburg (very good, but a small city, so easier).

Vienna is 2 million people, and pretty dense.  But, there are dedicated bike lanes in so many places - separated from the foot traffic and the motor traffic.  Lots of good markings, both in the lanes and on the poles.  Curbs that are sloped and rounded help remind you where you belong, but allow you to swerve or cheat around slow traffic without having to bunny hop.  Cyclists tend to be very observant of the stop lights - waiting even when there is no traffic around.  And, there are plenty of cyclist-specific stoplights, so you know when you are safe.  Turning traffic is remarkable in watching for and stopping for cyclists - it takes a little time to develop the faith that the very large vehicle bearing down on you is actually going to stop - which they do even when the cyclist is hesitant.

Makes cycle commuting pretty attractive and pleasant.

Oh, the laundromat was pretty high tech - central control panel where you controlled your washer, free detergent (none of this looking for correct change), and accepts bills to $20 euros.

I think I'm the only one who cycled to laundry, the subway was very convenient and a bit easier for carrying a large load.

Halfway: we're in vienna

We usually try to start riding early - especially with the current heat wave.

So, the sunrise over the river is pretty.

 Lots of dams with power generation, and with locks for the boats to get through.  Jean seems to have a fascination with watching those big long things slide in and out of the tight little channels.

Europe is more compact than North America:  houses are smaller, closer together (and that has the secondary effect that everything is closer together, so bike commuting is easier).  Closer together applies to the tent campgrounds.

 Lots of the bridges have spiral bikeways to get from the river level bike paths to the bikeways on the bridges.

Always seems to be at least one castle, or at least a humungous church, in view either on a hilltop or along the river.

 My image of Viennna is lots of large, ornate, old buildings - and there are plenty of those in the central area.  But, it's also a large, modern city with lots of skyscrapers and a space needle.

Rather neat reflections of the old buildings in the glass facade of a new building.

Wrong way on a bike path is apparently thought to be dangerous.

(BTW, as we use texting shortcuts, my favorite here is:  "8tung".

For you non-German speakers:  8=acht.  And achtung = attention, watch out.

..................

Did some riding alone the last few days:  gives some opportunities to meet locals that don't come up while riding with the group.

Met the "Academic Rowing Club" from Kiel in Germany:  bunch of retired professors who every summer spend a couple weeks rowing down a big river.  Some of them were doctors and lawyers, so after the obligatory switch from German to English so that we could actually understand each other, somehow degenerated into telling "lawyer jokes" - all except one (What do you have when a lawyer is buried in sand up to his neck?  Not enough sand.) were common to both sides of the Atlantic.

Met a guy and his 13 year old son who had driven from Cracow in Poland to Vienna (6 hour drive through 3 countries - try that in North America), took a boat to Passau, then were bicycling 3 days back to Vienna.  The boy's first 100 km day.  The man had spent 15 years working in Chicago, so had American English and the boy had been born in US - dual citizenship.

Yesterday, connected with a local bike rider going pretty fast.  Rather unusually, my German was better than his English - I think we agreed to take turns pulling, to go as fast as we could without vomiting or dying of heat stroke, and agreed that it was lots of fun.  But, with the conversation being in German, at high speed, with my heart rate meter off scale, I'm not really sure what we said to each other - but, we laughed a lot when it was all done.  I really was surprised at, when forced, how much German came back to me and how much we could talk.

Vienna appears to believe that there are only 2 musicians in the world:  Mozart and Strauss (Joe, not Rick).  They do make a deal of it and there is an amazing amount of kitsch available for sale.  Of course, we can't resist so will go to a concert tomorrow night at the opera house - the same hall as the New Years' eve concert with many of the same pieces.  Undoubtedly played by the 17th string players.