Given all the downhill this morning, the day turned out to be harder than expected. We had 95km / 60 miles ahead of us, of which the first 20km / 12.5 miles were mostly downhill. But the remaining distance had a lot of rolling terrain and we racked up 1200m / 4000ft of elevation climbing over all the bumps along the way, which is 2/3 of the elevation we climbed yesterday, where we only had to go 50km / 31 miles total. Anyway, we were rather tired when we arrived at the hotel.
Related to the feeling of having tired legs, we decided against the extra detour over the Transfăgărășan pass to Bran castle (Dracula). Instead, we are going directly to Bukarest to spend some extra time there, and to have then also more time back at home in Zurich to relax more / to do non-cycle activities before work starts again in September.
Today, we got up rather late and the nice man running the guest house offered us some coffee, over which we chatted with other guests that were from Bukarest about what to do there – they recommended checking out the Palace of the Parliament, the second largest administrative building after the Pentagon.
The ride started with a long downhill to Novaci, reaping the benefits of the endless climbing form yesterday.
After the downhill in Novaci, the rolling terrain started immediately, as we had to climb back out the small valley to go east toward Baia de Fier.
Part of the reason for the many climbs was that we sought out the quieter roads close to the feet of the mountains – further south, the main route 67 would have resulted in about 25% less elevation to climb – but when we had to ride part of our route on the 67, it very quickly became clear that the extra elevation was a fair price to pay for significantly less traffic.
Soon, we noticed that we did not have breakfast, and stopped at a grocery store in Baia de Fier to buy a Schweppes bitter lemon, 100g / 3oz. of ham, some “La Vache Qui Rit”-like cheese, and a loaf of bread. The total was 12 lei, or about 3 CHF/USD. We would have some extra budget for dinner later.
A few bumps later, we paused to have, I guess, our brunch. Liz’ digestion is still not back to 100%, so she had to convince herself a bit that eating would be a good idea to master the bumps to come.
The smaller road we chose passed many small scale farming outfits. Many properties had trees full of apples, plums, and other fruit, and we saw pigs, chickens, and turkeys inside, and many cows on the road. No begging donkeys, though.
At some point, we were basically the only ones on the small 665 road, which, as it turned out later, was due to some major road damage blocking all traffic. Bad for the locals, but very nice for us!
Then we reached Horezu that seemed quite a bit more polished than the other villages we rode through, and there were many tourists checking out the numerous pottery stores. In Horezu, we also started riding on the main road 67, which was a bit too busy for our taste. So we were very happy when we could, a few kilometers and few more bumps later, turn off onto the 646E taking us again closer to the feet of the mountains.
We (slowly) passed quite a few locals on the climbs of the remaining three bumps, and they shouted, we think, encouraging words at us.
After climbing the last of the bumps, we had 15km / 9.5 miles of nice, gradual downhill to the nice hotel we booked for the night. I don’t think I realize yet that in another two days of riding, we will have completed our amazing trip!
Total distance/elevation to date: 5468km/46’962m
Rest days: 21
Route and Stats
Relive Video
The 1948 Tour 
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