the view

We are soon done and I marvel at-

all the people we have seen, smiling, friendly, oblivious, dumbfounded( the tandem gets the most looks) thousands of people of all ages

all the gardens we have seen- the universality of growing food and trying to make your 'home', property as beautiful as is possible. I do look forward to rejoining that fraternity/sorority and suspect I will garden with a slightly different additude

all the skies we have seen and their ever changing pattern of clouds and colours
when one cycles one has a better vantage point to see the weather ( especially when it is flatter than hilly) and a greater interest in the weather as it certainly can affect the day's experience

all the dogs we have seen( sorry cat lovers but the felines are less obvious and less interested in us so we are are similarly less interested in them)
dogs bark and chase
fortunately the barking is painless and in most situations they chase until their leash stops them of the fence limits them.
those left free are usually old or older, bark once feebly or not at all,stand up out of curiosity or not.

we have been chased only a few times -the first day, within the first 2-3 kms. for me knocking me down as I was just getting used to a fully loaded bike.

As we have cycled further north the dogs have gotten smaller and yelpy ( sorry Ernie) .
easy to ignore because althought persistent they can't reach our ankles

the usual pattern is that the first rider by rouses the dog(s), the second gets the full treatment and the third ( usually me-amb) rides by a tired or resigned dog(s)

Riding allows a View

Thank you

we are nearing the end
I have not entered as much on our blog as I might have liked but we have been busy traveling

I did comment on beer
and food
and the sights of our ever changing scenery

we have been in 14 non English speaking countries ( not including Dubai which we visited twice for hours and never left the airport ( it is now however on my 'life list')

This has created a few problems
the first obviously is communication.

The second more embarassingly is, with my advancing years, my ability to remember a few key and/or polite essential words has almost disappeared.

We have succeeded with sign language, and the variable abilty of our hosts to speak English
Leah and my, French has come in occasionally handy although German would have been much more useful.

Remembering the history ( recent and nor so recent) it is impressive how many languages the locals know and /or understand and how different many of these languages are , plus in the case of Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian they use different alphabets

So we haven't understood conversations, TV or the newspaper so much of what we have appreciated is by inference and observation and much may be wrong.

When we found English speaking 'friends' we pumped them for their opinion on a number of subjects- but never enough

We had Lonely Planet Phrase books that were virtually useless- but great for pressing flowers.

for example here is the translation of 'Thank You" in the languages of the countries we visited in order ( including Estonian where we will be in 2 days)

Swahili: Asante sana

Turkish: teşekkür ederim

Greek: σε ευχαριστώ

Bulgarian: благодаря

Romanian: mulţumesc

Serbian: хвала ти

Croatian: hvala ti

Hungarian: köszönöm

Solvak: ďakujem ti

Czech: děkuji ti

Polish: dziękuję

Lithuanian: ačiū

Latvian: paldies

Estonian: tänan


How can I remeber those

A Look At Our Route

day 1 hayrabolu turkey the day of surviving adversity actually -1.1kms( minus although leah will debate this)
day2 havsa turkey 53 kms amazing first day
day 3 edirne turkey 40 kms a bit too much highway
day 4 svelingrad bulgaria 77kms through greece sunny no food in turkey
day 5 rest day in svelingrad sunny
day 6 topolovgrad 66kms cool overcast multiple hill climbs aprox 20-25 kms uphill WITH HEADWINDS
day 7 Nova Zagora overcast , less cold, not windy (until last 5 kms why is that) 69 kms
day 8 Tvarditsa ( can't do accents
no hotel initially but we were directed to a 'guest house that was so perfect we took a rest day for
day 9 rest day a fair bit of rakia ( home made brandy drunk by ambrose- Leah had a gall bladder attack scare
day 10 a climb and an amazing downhill to Veliko Tarnovo a pass route we had not predicted when we did our (leah's )map studying but we garner info as we travel
day 11we take a rest day in VT
day 12 stay in TV and celebrate catholic easter ( eastern orthodox palm sunday) by doing a local cycle without panniers to a historically important monastery (Dryanovski0 with accompanying caves
day 13 Pavlikeni via celebrated churches and monasteries at Arbanassi ( wonderous)
day 14 -our first hotel headache when our planned destination Pordim did not have a hotel so another 20 kms. to Pleven
day 15 rest day
day 16 griff's 14th BDay and our second hotel stress when the hotel in Nikopol existed but WAS CLOSED ( see blog) so we went on to
Belene 100 KMS !!!
day 17 svistov 50 kms from plevan ( read back)
day 18 ferry to romania to Turnu Magurele easter saturday and midnight eatser celebrations
day 19 ( today) our 3rd hotel stressful experience ( easter sunday) hotel in draganesti-olt existed but was closed and again we have to ride on for a total of 98.5 kms to slatina
day 20 to craiova by train (we had lost days and got to far north east because of the hotel stress)
day 21 rest day in Craiova
day 22 train to bailestie and cycled to Vidin, bulgaria via Calafat
Day 23 into serbia and into negotin
day 24 over the carpathians to Donji Milanovac
Day 25 rest day short ride (50km) pannierless to narrowest part of danube
day 26 along danube gorge big tailwind and lots of tunnels sleep in golubac
day 27 croos danube meet nice german cyclists another tailwindy day sleep in bela cryka
day 28 80km day to pancevo great tail wind we were flying
day 29 rest day in belgrade (walked at least 20k
day30 north to ecka (thought to be 75km turned in to 107km after more hotel stres spen night in 4 star!!!
day 31 May Day tired legs and hypoglycemic ambrose into novi sad. hotel finiding a daily adventure. takes and hour of our time
Day 32 rest day in novi sad category 1 (little walking done)
day 33 Odzaci tried to go fishing
day 34 Osijek Croatia
day 35 & 36 in Zagreb ( by train) and back to osijek
day 37 Vinogradi
day 38 Mohacs ( Hungary)
day 39 Baja
day 40 a rest day
day 41 kalosca
day 42 hajos
day 43 kiskunmajsa
day 44 a crazy night in a pencion in that we found on the web but couldn't find in reality for over an hour near tiszakecske
day 45 budapest by train from Cegled (send fedex package)
day 46 rest day, hop on hop off bus tour of Budapest
day 47 meet paul and ed at airport
day 48 ed and pauls turn to do the hop on hop off
day 49 by train to Pilisvorosvar and cycle to Esztergom
day 50 Hurbanovo ( very hot)
day 51 ( today) simon sick ( gastro)so we stop early Surany
day 52 nitra Slovakia
day 53 Nove Mesko
day 54 Uhersky Brod Czech Rep.
day 55 rest day Category 1
day 56 prerov
day 57 Olomouc
day 58 Sumprek our first heavy rain
day 59 Kraliky our second heavy rain
day 60 Klodzko Poland
day 61 Wroclaw
day 62 rest day category 3
day 63 Brzeg
day 64 Klucsbork
day 65 Krakow after a ride and a train from czestochowa
day 66 auschwitz from krakow
day 67 rest day in krakow
day 68 krakow...bye ed.... hi barb
day 69 krakow
day 70 10 hour train =644 kms- tosuwalki
day 71 druskininkai lithuania 100 kms
day 72 alytus .. another heavy rain stopped on the way at Stalin World or Gruto parkas google it fascinating

2.5 weeks to go
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