England to Turkey by bike in 1999

Cycle Touring in Eastern Europe at the turn of the century: England to Turkey in 1999.

Join our travellers Paul and Tom in 1999 as they travel through Eastern Europe on a bike at the turn of the century over a swift hour-long film taking in 15 countries and many turns of the pedal.
This film documents the cycle touring trip from Norway to Turkey undertaken by Paul and Tom at the turn of the century, 1999. Entitled “We are of the Time and the Time is of Us” after a Vasil Levski quote on a monument in Sofia, Bulgaria, this film tells the story of a four month cycle tour trip across Scandinavia and down through Eastern Europe.
Leaving England in May 1999, the cycle tour route headed to Bergen, Norway and took in the following cities: Oslo, Norway; Copenhagen, Denmark, Berlin, Germany; Wroclaw, Poland; Prague and Brno, Czech Republic; Bratislava, Slovakia; Vienna, Austria; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Zagreb, Croatia (Hrvatska); Budapest, Hungary; Oradea, Turda and Bucharest of Romania; Sofia, Bulgaria and Istanbul, Turkey.
Cycling touring on low cost bikes, our travellers carried a tent between them on their cycles and camp at campsites throughout Eastern Europe for the majority of nights. Taking a small Sony DV video camera and shooting PAL resolution, moving ‘cycle cam’ shots were taken by hand and our travellers became comfortable with shooting ‘pieces to camera’ to tell us about the story of their journey.
The cycle touring journey included ferry journeys; England (South Sheilds) to Norway (Bergen) across the North Sea) and from Denmark (Gedser) to Germany (Rostock); an eclipse of the sun on the line of totality (Mürzzuschlag, Austria), TV towers (Berlin, Germany) and Ferris Wheels (Vienna, Austrlia); and an unfortunate incident of riding on a motorway and getting a fine for the traffic offence (Bulgaria)

#cycletouring #cycling #englandtoturkey

0:00 Introduction
0:44 Church Eaton, nr Stafford, England
4:05 Bergen, Norway
6:42 The top of the Hardangervidda, Norway
8:05 Sundvollen, Norway
8:27 Oslo, Norway
10:21 Gothenburg, Sweden
12:36 Helsingborg, Sweden to Helsingør, Denmark
12:47 Copenhagen, Denmark
16:15 Gedser, Denmark to Rostock, Germany
18:36 Berlin, Germany
20:25 Rüdersdorf, Germany
23:58 Wroclaw, Poland
25:26 Malá Skála, Czech Republic
26:05 Prague, Czech Republic
27:23 Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
28:55 Punkva Caves, Czech Republic
29:29 Brno, Czech Republic
30:52 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
32:55 Vienna, Austria
35:40 Mürzzuschlag, Austria
41:47 Zagreb, Croatia
42:53 Budapest, Hungary
46:29 The Great Hungarian Plain, Hungary
47:00 Oradea, Romania
50:52 Sighişoara, Romania
52:43 Bucharest, Romania
56:09 Sofia, Bulgaria
59:32 Approaching the Turkish border

hello I called earlier about booking your room you don’t have anything available nothing it’s all on the 10th of June are you opening it today okay we are Paul and Tom and we are making preparations for a long journey in 1999 we set off to cycle from the UK to Istanbul two years earlier we had cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End and we were inspired to do a longer ride and see the countries of Eastern Europe sandwiches are very important due to our unprofessional packing adjustments were required before we had even traveled ten miles the takes days our boxes [Music] once these technical difficulties were out of the way we made good progress through the Midlands of England we were heading north to Newcastle upon Tyne this was the opposite direction to Istanbul but as we wanted to visit Scandinavia as part of our journey we made a detour it would be the first of many [Music] as we headed north we pass through Yorkshire and we knew that we were nearing the end of the English stage of our journey when we arrived at the angel of the north and impressive 20 metre high statue in Gateshead [Music] the weather had not been kind to us on the state of our journey but the pups of England had often provided us with some good entertainment [Music] [Music] it took us four days to reach Newcastle and after a day in the city we left England by boat we were determined to cycle every inch of the ground from church Eton to Istanbul and no stages were permitted by bus or by train for obvious reasons ferries were allowed once on board we spent a while exploring the boats and contemplating the next phase of the journey we then met a couple of Norwegian students who discussed English culture with us soon our long journey across Europe would begin we estimated that it would take around 5,000 miles of cycling to reach Istanbul from Newcastle we took a 24 hour ferry journey across the North Sea the ferries destination was the port of Bergen on the west coast of Norway [Music] [Applause] [Music] Bergen has been a thriving port for over a thousand years and until the 1830s was Norway’s largest city nowadays it is Norway’s second-largest home to a quarter of a million people [Music] patience not being one of our strong points we soon wanted to get back on our bikes we decided to leave bergen after only one day it was 340 miles to oslo and some very advanced map reading skills would be required now I mean we just down the road to that tunnel I think also we’re here should we go – yeah totally we might better sneak through [Music] [Music] over the next two days we rode alongside spectacular fjords which were carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago settlements were few and far between in this region and the roads were carved straight into the mountains our field side journey ended at the town of I’d field where we camped to prepare for a steep climb the next day I think see from this sign here we’re right beginning of the Hardanger vida climb which is the highest plateau in northern Europe how’s it going we’re 350 meters up of the great plateau tunnel there there’s about three Cades long we don’t have to go through it there’s a shortcut 530 meters according to Thomas fantastic gadget with this common essentially we’re at 650 now about what over halfway up and we’re gonna eat chocolate pudding and house house the second half of the climb bin so far we made it my first major client how high are we 12 well 12:15 mom watch this 1275 spoke there could be 8 15 hours late we spent the night count behind a restaurant and were up bright and early in our special award server at the end of the trip each country we visited would receive an award that camping spot cause Norway to be awarded the title best unofficial campsite at our next camping place we were worried about not eating enough we haven’t gone quite far today but it’s all been downhill but it doesn’t make me any less tired and we’re not eating enough yeah I think that’s the secret more food more food even though we’re not that hungry yeah enjoying the downhill ride we continued our descent from the plateau taking in the tranquil mountain scenery we took a break in the town of flow we continued our descent of the Hardanger Vida at a blistering average speed of almost 13 miles per hour over the 150 mile journey we had now covered almost 560 miles in two weeks and we’re about to spend our ninth night under canvas the campsite we found was basking in the late evening Sun $0.22 twenty to ten burn the shadows along [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Bosley has about half a million residents one of them is Gustav Finland he personally sculpted over 200 scary-looking statues which are now in vigeland sculpture park [Music] after two nights at a campsite overlooking the city we were ready to leave what day is it today 16 in it 17 days untain we entered Sweden using the world-famous Friendship Bridge our journey through Sweden was blighted with rain straight boring roads too much forest and only Pizza available to eat we were heading for Gothenburg which was about 140 miles from the border it seemed like we would never get there [Music] in contrast to Norway at our end of trip awards Sweden was awarded the title of Dulles country as we made our way south we spent the nights asleep in the forest this intrepid forest camping left me with a tick stuck inside my belly button arrived in Gothenburg action was required you know in there you can buy special tweezers to pull insects out lhp antiseptic cream on december to stop the infection of my tick head which is stuck inside me but I got very scary leaflet all about I can’t stand any vehicles which one of those do you think it was if you come in Scandinavia that is that possible to partake in to four o’clock and the very very very earliest in the dead lucky perhaps the outside the hello internet cafe which is closed because today while not actually a public holiday is the day before a public holiday which is worse and it is worth believe that not because simply some things are closed today which are open tomorrow and tomorrow is mints Midsummer’s day six [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Gothenburg is Sweden’s second-largest city but we had heard that Copenhagen was much more exciting so after two days left the road to Sweden the really long and straight very exciting that’s good in two days we’ll be in exciting Denmark Brown signs called sickle sport it now we have found these Brown signs to be a little bit unreliable because what they do is they send you off down a silly dirt track like the one we’re walking on now and then they poke you out in the middle of a road and you get to the road and hey there’s nothing there there’s no there’s no signpost you don’t know which way to go it just happened to us on many occasions and although I’m very happy that the Swedish have been putting cycle signs everywhere I think they could just do a little bit more and I’d be happy despite the dodgy Swedish cycle tracks we’ve found our way to the ferry which would take us out of Sweden [Music] this is Copenhagen we’ve just got in there sanitizer cyclists in this city the most sites about the scene but no thing we’re in the center yet we’ve had two full centers now and we’re not on the water we were lucky enough to have a friend called catcher we lived in Copenhagen and so we made her take the sightsee in return she made us about the church of our savior which was pretty scary that’s great views of the city before we took a tour on the canals we wanted to try out the free city bikes and I wondered if people were ever tempted to Nick she said that why is that people not just selling them and that was happening people was just like laded I’m too fat so there was no use are they hard to ride we spent a few days in wonderful Copenhagen hanging out eating and drinking with toe in the canals we stayed with Cantor spent Peter made a stamp late watching movies TV so we are often quite tired Copenhagen too many canals are enjoyed by all walks of life as a popular place to relax although Copenhagen is a bustling city of over a million people is still exudes and laid-back atmosphere especially about research but now it’s not a very early start but very very hectic three days now we’re back out to the countryside again a bit a piece of wire and some sleep their mark is all about relaxing and is made for cyclists this led us to award it the best nation of cyclists accolade we were full of excitement as we were about to arrive at a very special and you may think that there’s nothing special about this particular place but in fact it’s very very special well this is the place where we have completed 2000 kilometers we have cycled these bikes from the sunny shores of England and this is where we ended up exactly now we were planning to have a beer on this particular spot but being as we’re really poorly organized we didn’t actually manage to stop and buy any so we’re just going to take a moment’s silence Roskilde festival [Music] tell great stories now I do like CEO leaving Denmark we knew we wouldn’t see the ocean again for over 3,000 miles entering Germany covered 1271 miles in a mere 31 days our first task still ok our bikes find a way off the ferry leaving the rundown port of Rostock we ventured out into the empty and eerie countryside the former East German soon we had absolutely no idea where we were in the middle of nowhere and it’s nine o’clock and the Sun setting on us and we don’t know what to do in our infinite wisdom we have decided to go back to the main road and carry on along it fruitlessly just like we were before in the vain vain hope that we might actually get something to eat and drink with only one hour of light lonely one hour right left we’re lucky this is where we ended up camping after our little dilemma of last night I just making our getaway for the cops turn up because we’ve been camping illegally and this is Paul’s ritual every morning to date we have come to nine nights in the wild with no facilities but actually finally a campsite bought whether its own problems first campsite in every country we never know how much it’s supposed to cost so we don’t know whether we’re getting the deal of a lifetime or just being rocked to the hilt and it takes a few days to find a hunt plus [Music] where are we we’re about 60k some Berlin as you can see behind me well you can’t see it with 60 cows for Berlin but you can see the road we cycled relentlessly on and after 35 days on the road we hit the vibrant city of Berlin Berlin is a city steeped in history and the commanding views from the TV tower allowed appreciation of the metropolis in a civil glory the old divide between East and West was still apparent and for sale we took a trip to the Russian German Museum which during Soviet times was snappily titled the museum of the unconditional surrender of fascist Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945 the actual signing of the surrender in 1945 took place here we’ve just been in the Russian German Museum Berlin this was kind of more about the end of the war the dividing up of Berlin and East Germany from West Germany and some of the Nazi atrocities it’s pretty pretty interesting but it was only in German and Russian so we couldn’t understand most of it was first held in 1989 four months before the war came down during its peak in the late 90s over million people attended it takes the form of a giant techno party where people dance around and with the city as possible which perhaps explains is declining popularity we’re gonna leave Berlin now we’re gonna leave the wonderful Love Parade 99 and the Brandenburg Gate we’re gonna head out to Poland because we’re too old for this kind of thing [Music] we think we know how it got here with awesome roads and we went to a campsite and there’s no one there we’ve got a tent up anyway and then whoever you’re sweet and on the way back we discovered there was a band playing in the forest you know we went to have a look there they are Jim Beam juking beer watching a band in the forest [Music] jaimé is typical East German road goes on for 10 or 20 miles in an exact straight line with trees all down the side and white paint on the trees the problem with such roads is that you can’t see anything out the side or at the top when it’s pitch black all the time we don’t really enjoy riding along these roads but it’s a quickest way to get where we’re going we’ve had enough of Germany now so we’re going to Poland crossing the border into Poland we were joined by hordes of [ __ ] smoking petrol guzzling Germans who were there to snap up the cut-price goods on sale the pace of life here seemed a little slower and as we made our way along the quiet country roads it felt like we were stepping back in time the people we met here didn’t speak much English and we became experts at miming the shape of a tent so that we could find campsites the summer is in full swing now and the heat was making it tough going it’s 30 degrees very steep hill watch out the taps to carry big huge bottles of water with us all the time luckily the Sun is now all that much as if it was I’ve even more hotter than I am now [Music] [Music] in the town of Zielona góra we found a strange variety of buskers and weird performance art but as usual our stomachs were our main priorities so the guzzled lunch we had now covered 1,500 miles have been on the road for 40 days we were doing very nice stereo plan and we’re gonna get to a campsite which is about say maybe 28 days from here right it’s been running now almost an hour between in this book show right aqua I like the minute maybe I cut up a full range right the rain eventually stopped and we made it to Poland’s fourth-largest city plus one Lot’s wife was a pleasant place to hang out with a lovely Town Square and lots of cool looking historical buildings we spent three nights there for the first day out of 44 days we didn’t ride our bikes anywhere at all [Music] this could be our last full day in Poland and I would like to say that I have enjoyed Poland very much who’s been fantastic the accommodations been great it’s cost hardly any money I love the sad state back of Poland our next task was to get through the mountains separating Poland and the Czech however the road builders and sign makers have conspired against us to make this as difficult as possible well we’re not sure how far we are at this mountain yet the science seems to be saying different distances it was supposed to be 12 K’s when we set off from the last town and then we saw a sign that said six after only about two K’s so we could be really close so it could be really far we just don’t know this is a bit of a tiring section at the moment but we seem to be quite tired up all the time and we think it’s well because of the heat we had a big rest in Wroclaw I was almost half being on holiday but we seem to totally reverse that effect very easily just within two days and now it’s hoping nakid again the what is it that a 65 or something and it’s a little bit like traveling down a motorway we’re not totally sure whether this is legal it’s been good for us to be flat and it’s been pretty straight and we’ve done quite a long distance in a short amount of time and on some small roads and make a campsite just outside Prague we arrived at the Charles Bridge in the historic center of Prague the bridge formerly called the stone bridge dates from the 15th century nowadays tourists bridge might be a more appropriate name the center of Prague has World Heritage status and the city is a beautiful place to wander around history is everywhere and many of the buildings are over 500 years old we soon tired of this though and found the excitement of the Prague TV tower it was finished in 1992 and in line with our trip policy of going up TV towers we mentioned up to the 100 meter high viewing deck back down on the ground the river of lat fur runs through the heart of Prague and is the longest river in the Czech Republic we ended our time here idly floating along it back out in the Czech countryside a tranquil atmosphere prevailed this may have been the reason that we forgot to give the Czech Republic any award at all at our end of trip Awards in retrospect we unofficially gave it the very scary and eerie sight award after what we saw in the medieval town of kutna hora at said ‘let’s Asiri there are skulls and bones lots of skulls and bones over forty thousand skeletons have been used to decorate this church and the bodies originally date from the Black Death in 1870 a woodcarver named Frankie at rent was asked to tidy up all the bones and he did so very creatively and like a true artist he left his signature of bones by the entrance all the bones assume scared us off and we fled back out to the countryside a Czech Republic has given as many great things including the word robot the sugar cube and of course check beer which has been brewed here since the 12th century the beer here was a rock-bottom prices and it was difficult not to indulge even the petrol stations had bare the light falls we still failed to get any for our next Milan celebration this is our 2108 mile celebration it’s a little bit late due to circumstances beyond our control where Tom’s bike had to be serviced overnight during that crucial 2000 mile so we abandoned that but we never really officially celebrated it so I’m hereby declaring this the official site of the 2108 mile celebration [Music] our next stop was the caste region of Moravia famous for its many caves and we spent the afternoon exploring the Punk behaves on foot these caves were discovered in the early 1900s and the boat ship follows the underground pump by River our final stop in the Czech Republic was Bruno second-largest city after Prague Bruno was much quieter than Prague but still full of nice buildings and it’s empty streets and squares or a pleasure to wander around it’s been pretty good in Czech lots of old buildings and gothic churches very very cheap beer it’s day 56 of the trip so far and we’ve come 2230 miles to find ourselves a campsite on the border of Czech and Slovakia we’re stuck in discussed the water earlier on today we’re heading for Bratislava which is only about 20 case away at the most we haven’t really noticed a lot of differences across the border the money’s different and the license plates are different and we still can’t understand what anybody’s saying arriving in Bratislava we rush to take in the exotic sights after the main square our first stop was the Church of st. Elizabeth imaginatively called the blue church because it’s blue inside the church was also blue but there is only so much blue that you can take so was back out to the main streets of Bratislava for us wandering the streets of it led us to the Slovak radio headquarters accidentally built upside down the highlight of another boat was a breakdancer at Tescos dazzling the audience of this funky oil we spent two days in the city and although pleasant enough unfortunate Bratislava would later be the recipient of our dullest city award next up was slobbing a monument to Soviet Army soldiers who died during World War two it stands over 40 meters high was finished in 1960 and is situated on the site of a cemetery later that evening we spent some time relaxing in our luxury accommodation making preparations for the road ahead we had spent only four days and covered a mere 49 miles in the whole of Slovakia Vienna was calling so it was time to go [Applause] [Music] hoping to notice a little bit of change in civilization we’ve been a bit more rundown in check expecting lots of the massive Western clean nice buildings in Austria you’ve arrived safely in Vienna just about got here quite late didn’t have a map or a guidebook tourist information was closed and they usual style we sat around being hungry complaining ready for some action we headed straight for the ferris wheel made famous in the film the third man beneath it was a big strange silver ball it’s big mouths fear to do with some vogue called Edwin lip Berger and he apparently declared it a republic all by itself or something like that partly the German and I miss put a fence around it which is the boundary and that door is the border crossing Rule two the word or whatever maybe you noticed it’s called number two anti-fascism place where outside a building from vienna which was designed by a bloke and he had a bit of a vision which was to make the building a totally totally irregular so every single apartment so they put size for the windows different sizes it’s got funny colors different paintings on the side and it’s got trees growing on the roof it has however become a very very big tourist attraction here in Vienna and there’s like six or seven bus loads of people who come and go and just in list of the ten of the diminutive in here but it seems to become big business and apparently the residents don’t like all these domes we’re on the danube tower we’ve been up that isn’t actually a TV tower is the TV signals in here is opened in 1964 and reaches 250 meters we’ve now had too much excitement in Vienna so it was time for us to get into the countryside again initially the countryside was not as cynically pleasing as we would have hoped and we continued for a while on flat straight roads stopping at scenic petrol stations along the way a few days later we found the scenic countryside we were looking for and we were doubly excited as we were heading for a campsite where we would be able to see a solar eclipse when we arrived we’re told that you’d probably only have two days because everyone’s picked up the whole sight of the Eclipse but then early last night you said oh because you’re so nice you lads and there’s a little space under by that tree there’s no space of seeing at the moment has been reserved about last year probably the weather for the Eclipse was a bit ropey but we all settled down nicely with our special glasses for some Eclipse viewing action we were in merchants log on the line of totality and it was August the 11th 1999 to see this Eclipse we had cycled for 71 days and covered over 2300 miles after our 41st night in the tent it was time we’re at 700 meters here we’ve just come over a pass of 1,100 meters we’re heading to Grouse so we came over the pass at 1,100 meters and with any luck it’s going to be downhill all the way to grass which is at about 200 [Music] we’re coming over the mountain pass from Austria into Slovenia and it says on the map that it’s 80% and however the road through doesn’t look it certainly feels it this is the end of Austria for us after 12 days hopefully that’s gonna cost a lot less in Austria now as we took our last look at the austrian countryside we changed currency for the ninth time and armed with our slovenian tolas we cycled on this is the scene of our biggest mistake so far through a combination not paying attention bad map reading and bad signposting we took the wrong road naturally ended up heading north by 30 kilometers we were supposed to have got to a town which is halfway for our day’s journey but now we are nowhere near it and probably going to end up doing something like 20 25 maybe the 30 kilometers extra although beautiful Slovenia kept getting us lost we resorted to following rivers seeing where they might come out going up the river very gradually about 500 metres now to be back at a town in civilization and about eight K’s from there so hopefully this dirt track behind us aks and join up with the place beginning that’s just come over the past it was 1080 meters off of it up a dirt track we reckon they’ve gone the right way it should be four or five Kay’s down the rest of this dirt track to get to the town well hopefully we’ll have a lovely lovely meal [Music] you we were of course still lost but at least now we were going downhill [Music] almost 50% of Slovenia is covered in forest and the countryside was a pleasure to ride through Slovenia was the first of the Former Yugoslav Republic’s to become independent and we had Croatia the second of them still ahead of us before that though we would spend some time in Slovenia’s capital the Juliana on top of her first skyscraper Julianna built in the 1930s it’s not quite as tall as my statement comparison to its different kind of beauty that we’ve had up most of TV Taos course it is a lot lower down but it’s a lot lay out your own tears the Ghibli art was one of the smaller cities that we passed through having a population of approximately 250,000 we found it to be pleasant and peaceful and spent most of the time eating drinking and writing postcards the local residents of legibly honor also seemed to be pleasant and peaceful and there was a kind of laid-back charm which is often missing from larger cities we also awarded our end of trip best cinema award to the Ghibli honor where we watched a film entrapment note that it was the best cinema award not the best film after a couple of days even the cinema wasn’t enough to keep us here longer so he set off again into the countryside we stopped at a few towns on the way but other than that we were heading directly for Croatia taking two days to go from Ljubljana to Zagreb there’s a motorways a little bit south and had over the back roads which means that we get to go through lovely countryside like this and we just met a bloke at a petrol station who was telling us that everywhere around his beautiful we get to go pass in very nice towns and so after 228 miles and five days in Slovenia we moved on here somewhere in the middle of this massive underground subway network with miss aggressive it’ll be camping about ten case from the town what’s ok so far we’re not even there yet run away it’s a gret but who knows what might happen we initially found Zagreb to be a little weird and run down it felt less affluent than the other cities we have been to and had an odd kind of atmosphere there are about a million people living here but the street seems strangely empty an unexpected bonus though was being able to give Zagreb our end of trip Award for Best internet cafe the coats are apparently responsible for the inventions of the tie and the ballpoint pen and so modern office life would perhaps be very different without them we only spent four days in Croatia as it was a bit of a detour from our main route timers pressing on and Hungary was calling our next city Budapest a combination of beautiful buildings hills and lots going on means that Budapest has earned its title her love the Danube we voted it the best city in our end of trip Awards we were enjoying a well-earned break from cycling as we had now cycled just over 3,000 miles and we’re about to start our fourth month on the road we’re investing in look at the city points we’re about to go on the cog railway which winds itself through the hills of West Buda apparently there’s also row up here which is entirely staffed by children the Cobb railway took us through peasant singing and we soon arrived at a forested area outside the city what happened next though we’ll were thoroughly unprepared for the scary sight of hundreds and hundreds of children we didn’t know exactly what they were all doing there and confusion was raining they listened to some speeches and then we know it cheerful and in singing [Music] we decided we should leave Budapest as soon as possible we’re on our way out Budapest and we’ve not got a very nice day for it unfortunately the dance breaks we think we’re going on the right road highway number four all the way 100 case to the next campsite unfortunately it is illegal to ride along highway 4 on a bicycle but we neglected to follow these rules the whole zip so far in Hungary so we’re gonna just carry on breaking the law highway 4 was especially unpleasant but unfortunately there seemed to be no other rows at all on this side of hungry [Music] the roads go straight for miles and miles and miles around it’s totally flat it’s raining it’s cloudy it’s thousands of cars go pastures it’s no scenery you can speak of whatsoever I still feel ill it’s still 15 case to the campsite we’re on our way to the Romanian border probably get there tomorrow we lost day yesterday part of the great plain of Hungary and a town called slow song oksana in a town called soma I spent a their own 10 lying in bed got a stomach batting a lot the highway builders of Hungary but to do with putting a few more roads in do you want to get anywhere this movie 50 case of anywhere else to go along national highway even from North tonight and these roads are very straight and flat and chaotic and what’s more you’re not supposed to cycle down them or drive tractors or horse and carriages but basically because there’s no other way of getting anywhere the roads are blatantly full of cyclists horse and carriages and tractors it’s really windy the wind’s blowing at about strike on Isis hours and hours to get anywhere our arrival in Romania came as a bit of a shock the country was much poorer than any of the others we had been through and we spent the day in the city of our idea trying to get used to our new surroundings Aradia was a bustling town and we felt quite out of place as we tried to work out how to get coffee and snacks we spent most of the time wandering about aimlessly people along the way had told us that Romania was full of bandits which didn’t help to calm our nerves any but these bandits never materialised once we had spent a bit more time in our idea we found it and reasonably relaxing place soon though it was time for us to hit the road and we headed off into the countryside we were blissfully unaware that we would spend the next 4 nights camping in the wilderness our diet consisted mostly of Pringles as that seemed to be the premiere item in the shops along the way initially the Romanian countryside was a mix of rundown houses and factories much of the way was littered with small settlements and we attracted a lot of attention as foreigners on bicycles so we were quite glad when the countryside started to get more raw we continued on through striking Alpine scenery and we passed through many small villages as we cycled up and down the valleys and Peaks this part of Romania was littered with handmade haystacks which covered the hills as far as the eye could see for our favourite haystacks who reserved the name Ernie this is our third day in the mania it’s not really like anywhere else the main example being when we go into places called restaurants last the menus things like we’ve got an omelet yesterday but it’s a bit turkey because it’s just whatever they’ve got they give you the roads very very nice there it’s all mountainous it’s all hosted the mountains Rover this village is stood along the way the loads of people just sitting around the stage thousands of thousands of porcelain cots was like it’s about 90 or hundred the royal bliss was not to last for long soon we found ourselves on a dirty polluted smoke-filled Highway old factories lined both sides and broken windows and knackered pipelines with the order of the day we were approaching that perhaps appropriately named town of turd er turday itself though turned out to be reasonably Pleasant and we stopped for about an hour in order that we may stuff our faces knowing by now that there might not be any more shops for a while that didn’t sell only printers continuing on these last stages of our journey we began to feel the tiredness of the trip setting in we would spend more time getting across Romania than any other country a total of five hundred and twenty-two miles over a 13 day period it was slow but steady progress and each night as we set up camp beside the road we were never far away from the sight of a factory belching out smoke and fumes we were heading south right across Romania and our next stop would be CEO ara once home to the legendary Count Dracula tsuki sawara is an ancient fortified city and some of the newer parts of the town were also quite pleasant to wander around our main aim of course is to find Dracula’s house Vlad the Impaler also known as Dracula was born in seguso era and the vampire fascination still draws many people to the town our anticipation heightened as we wondered what the house of a vampire would look like and then at last after the vampire house everything was an anti-climax so we departed the roads in Romania were a bit battered so progress was slow as we headed down towards the city of Russia we hit a few patches of light rain which made this stretch of the journey even more dark and depressing the usual smoke spewing factories were the main scenery on this stretch of the journey and we have now covered just over three and a half thousand miles over ninety eight days the rain and pollution made unpleasant riding and it was a welcome relief when we finally got to brass off we found brass off to be a rather nice place with an attractive main square the business of the day for us was to get our haircut having achieved this we strolled around taking in the abundance of nice buildings and its location on the edge of the mountains was rather relaxing Bucharest the capital of Romania is a city of 2 million people building huge and very grandiose unnecessarily large means it’s part of a space first I didn’t really like a great it’s just a lot of stuff around and disco accidentally stumbled across I’m giving Bucharest a bit of a thumbs up now say Bucharest is famous for its population of stray dogs there are estimated to be between 30,000 and 100,000 stray dogs on the streets of Bucharest they are a legacy of Ceausescu’s rule where thousands of houses were demolished four grand buildings and the residents rehoused with no room for their dog Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown by a revolution in 1989 and some of the buildings still retain their bullet holes after the Revolution he was executed along with his wife by firing squad one of his legacies is the amazing Parliament Palace also known as the people’s house it is the largest building in the world apart from the US Pentagon and contains over 1,000 rooms we went on a guided tour of the building and the sheer scale of it was quite overwhelming it is now used for the Romanian Parliament our stay in Bucharest had been an enjoyable one this was due in part to the villa helga hostel where we stayed for four nights we later gave it our end of trip award the best hostel we were now ready for our penultimate country Bulgaria and the last 650 miles of the trip we were now well into September and misty autumn mornings were the order of the day although Bulgaria had the same problem of run-down factories as Romania and the same old-fashioned feel with plenty of horse-drawn carts on the road we found that overall conditions were an improvement so far we found that like Bulgaria is a lot lot better off than the mainland see there’s still a bit of dilapidation we found places to eat you know really nice food really good hotels and everyone is amazingly amazing friendly but every time we stop and say hello the wave of the summer going past we cycled through a succession of small villages making our way slowly towards the capital and saphir initially the roads were quiet and pleasant but we soon confused ourselves and ended up stuck on a motorway have nowhere to go on the motorway not sure exactly our lucky we found the road a decision to take the motorway later ended in a fine from the Bulgarian police luckily it was only six pounds Sofya turned out to be a city with a good mix of architecture containing plenty of churches along with the usual selection of communist monuments we found sofia to be a pleasant city for wandering it has a population of around 1.2 million people and is located at 550 meters above sea level hello the Vitosha mountains we spent two days doing the usual sightseeing stuff and one of the highlights was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals we also took in the National Palace of Culture which had a bizarrely amazing monument just outside it six meter tall figure Stan’s the country’s present in future a wing symbolizes the country’s skyrocketing development in all spheres of life emblazoned in line Cyrillic letters on the base as a quote from the world-famous Vasil Levski that you said we are off the time and a time is abuzz pretty impressive we continued into the Bulgarian countryside enjoying the hot sunny weather and the abundance of interesting concrete monuments some of the monuments however were a little unusual we started to find the dusty Bulgarian roads quite tiring in the intense heat and we were extremely excited when we spotted our first sign pointing towards Istanbul what do you think about that like 92 doing Stovall we’re nearly there nearly there loose sense of the word that’s the first sign for Istanbul so that means there we were into the final stages now but the heat and distance were beginning to take their toll as we toiled along the last stages of our long journey we reflected that soon we will be coming up to the seven thousand kilometer mark despite the hard cycling we had enjoyed our time in Bulgaria and the fairness of the people we met led us to give the Bulgarians the end of the period or most out of their way [Applause] we are in Turkey our last country it’s only 240 case to Istanbul so we should be there in about three days unfortunately the heat has risen to satanic levels allegedly it’s only about thirty to thirty degrees but in the Sun it’s more like 450 we’ve made it to the see the scene after three months of art craft this is the sea today is our last full day of cycling we started off this morning about 110 case from Istanbul and we’re aiming to get kind of just before the suburbs 30 40 paisa race by the night and tomorrow we cruise in so this is the penultimate day of the trip after three months from the top of Germany we’re actually at water again I mean crossed the entire continents of Europe [Applause] we arrived on the outskirts of Istanbul last night about five o’clock unfortunately they started about 3035 days away so we decided to leave it to the next date to catch to go into the city [Applause] [Music] and finally arriving in Istanbul it was difficult to believe they’d reached the end of our journey Istanbul has around 10 million people and the city was a feast of sights and sounds we spent our days exploring the city and crossing between the Asian and European sights on the many ferry boats applying the Bosphorus we have been warmly welcomed and we also gave Turkey the award for the friendliest people after 119 days four thousand five hundred and seventy two miles and fifteen countries our cycle trip is now over you