Baneasa

I ended up writing this post two days after completing my trip.

The day I finished I was so high on happy emotion that sitting down to scribble in my journal seemed as impossible as setting off back towards Saint Nazaire, France did.

I walked into the Black Sea alone. No friends or family cheering, no one else around with any reason to care that I’d reached my destination. Just me. And it felt really really good. So good in fact, that after I’d cooled off in the water, I hurried up to the bar on a seaside cliff and promptly ordered two large beers to mark the occasion.

As expected, the last day of riding was absolutely vicious—ceaseless climbs and horrendous headwinds. For 10km, there was an actual windfarm with crushing crosswinds. I faced bad traffic for the last 20km and riding and merging onto an actual four-lane freeway about 10km out from Constanta, but holy shit did it feel good to ride to the finish! Aside from my ride through the wind farm, I had a smile on the whole ride.

It was only fitting that I crossed paths with the Green Riders one last time. They encouraged me to finish the ride with them but I put some distance between us over the next set of climbs instead. I wanted to finish this trip alone.

As I rode into Constanta and saw the Black Sea break onto the horizon I couldn’t help but laugh out loud like a spastic.

All the effort, uncertainty, fun, and everything else that I’ve experienced on the trip all brought me to this place: The Black Sea, Constanta, places on a map that I’ve been mouthing a few times a day for the past few months whenever someone would ask me my destination.

The Atlantic Ocean
The Black Sea!

There was no anticlimax for me. Reaching the Black Sea felt even better than I expected it to.

After spending about 15 minutes trying to find my way down to the water with The Green Machine, I finally said, “Screw it,” and just left my bike up on the road then hurried down to wade into the water. What a feeling. To have done it. To have ridden my bike across Europe. I felt (and still feel) a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

I was beaming. But no rest for the excited. I had a train to catch from Constanta to Brasov in Transylvania. So I hopped back onto The Green Machine in search of the train station. I bought a ticket for the next train out and met yet another French couple who’d just completed their ride from Budapest.

We commiserated over the traffic. They could tell I was overjoyed. Then I was off for some, you guessed it, pastries before the train.

Today I was back onto the busy 21 Freeway. I couldn’t take the alternate route suggested by the map because the dirt roads are unpassable after yesterday’s storm. I’ve got to be careful. No more crashes.

Today was one hilluva ride. Huge hills on the Bulgarian freeway. This sucked because slowly creeping up a hill as cars fly past you feels way worse than cooking along at 20km under the same conditions. But once I crossed back into Romania for the final time the roads get a lot less scary. I can’t say the same for the hills. But to be honest, at this point in the ride the challenging hills feel good.

The final border crossing was at Silistra, Romania. The maps mentioned poor road quality from there onwards but all the cobblestone roads have been paved since my maps’ publishing, apparently.

I do not recommend stopping in Baneasa. There is nothing there. I found a weird but nevertheless well-appointed hotel where I stopped for the night.

Pretty soon after paying for my room found that the water heater was broken. I went out to look for someone to fix it but the building was empty save for me. The front door was locked from the outside too so I was trapped. By some dumb stroke of luck, two young women studying local mosquitoes—I kid you not—walked up to the front door as I knocked on it from the inside. They opened it just as a hotel employee came speeding into the parking lot to check on the water heater.

As I passed the 100km to Constanta marker, I let out a guttural joyous yell. Then a BMW quite literally almost killed me with an errant swerve out of his lane into mine. A big fuck you to each and every asshole driver, most of whom drive BMWs and Mercedes. That’s a fact. An anecdotal fact. Square that circle.

Tonight it’s Resevoir Dogs, a block of cheese and stale bread for dinner from the only store within 5 km.

Tomorrow it’s Constanta and the Black Sea!

Baneasa to Constanta

Tutrakan to Baneasa