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.