Cycling Over a Mountain Pass, Through the Carpathian Mountains

Our rides on Tuesday and Wednesday, both in Romania, were as different as day and night. Tuesday’s 67-mile ride from Timisoara to Caransebes was flat, with little scenery of note, and ended in a fairly nice town with a picturesque central square. Wednesday’s 60-mile ride was mountainous, with beautiful vistas in the Capathian mountains, and ended in the dreary town of Orsova.

The mountain pass we took through the Carpathians is the same one that the Orient Express used to cross these mountains. The train stopped in both Caransebes, an important rail hub, and Orsova. The road we took was never far from the railroad tracks, though we only saw them occasionally, when they ran right beside the road or when the road and tracks criss-crossed, with the road passing under rail bridges.

The mountain pass has been called the Oriental Gate, since it connects Western and Central Europe to Southeastern Europe and the Middle East (formerly called the “Orient”, or Near East) in Roman Empire days and subsequently. This terminology explains why the train from Paris to Istanbul was named the Orient Express.

On route to Caransebes

In the town of Lugoj, Romania

Main square in Caransebes

At the end of the main square


Pictures from our ride through the Carpathian Mountains:

Train tracks on a bridge over the road

Lunch in a small mountain town

An elderly couple stopped by to give us a handful of plums for our lunch

Into Romania, Despite Warnings from Peter’s Mother

“They are wild places. Please come home now.” Those were the words we heard from Peter’s 97-year-old mother prior to heading to Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Despite that, we crossed the border from Hungary into Romania today, 20 miles into our 71-mile ride. This goes to show that there’s no age limit on acting out to assert your independence from your parents.

While our first day’s experience in Romania hasn’t turned up anything wild yet, we did notice a clear drop in apparent prosperity as soon as we crossed from Hungary to Romania (just as we did when we crossed from France/Germany/Austria to Hungary). Buildings and towns in the Romanian countryside are quite dilapidated, and people’s clothing is often drab and ill-fitting. Our impressions were corroborated when we checked GDP per capita information (2013 International Monetary Fund data, measured in “International Dollars”): Germany 40,000; Hungary 20,000; Romania 13,400. Bulgaria and Turkey, the final two countries on our trip, are both at about 15,000, quite similar to Romania.

Things changed entirely when we reached our destination town of Timisoara, Romania, whose population of 320,000 is the third largest in Romania. The main square in the town is full of trendy shops and restaurants, and, based on dress and use of electronics, the people in the square look indistinguishable from those in Western Europe and North America. Timisoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the western part of Romania and is a candidate to become the European Capital of Culture in 2021. The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one calendar year during which that city hosts a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension.

In Hungary this morning, on route to Romania

Biking in Romania today:

In the main square of Timisoara:

Szeged, Our Last Stop in Hungary

Our 54 mile ride today took us through flat countryside, with occasional farms and towns, ending in the town of Szeged. With a population of 160,000, it is the fourth largest city in Hungary. It is best known for a cathedral located on the large Dom Square, as well as an excellent university. Albert Szent-Györgyi, who won the Nobel prize for discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle, was a faculty member of the university. On our ride from Szeged tomorrow, we will cross from Hungary into Romania.

We are staying at a pleasant hotel near the city center. Just around the corner from our hotel is a door covered with signs for the neo-nazi Jobbik party. Jobbik, a far-right, ultranationalist, anti-Semitic party, is, unfortunately, one of the largest opposition parties in Hungary. By chance or otherwise, the Jobbik door is across the street from a former synagogue now a private home, still emblazoned with Jewish stars

An interesting story about Jobbik involves Csanád Szegedi, who was a high ranking party member and a member of the European Parliament. He was a rabid anti-Semite who had accused Jews of buying up the country, railed about the ‘Jewishness’ of the political elite, and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols, stances that he outlined in a book he called "I Believe in Hungary’s Resurrection". He was also a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end of World War Two and killed thousands of Jews. In 2009, he learned that his maternal grandmother had been in, and survived, the Auschwitz concentration camp, and that his maternal grandfather was a veteran of forced labor camps. With this revelation that he was Jewish, he studied Judaism from an orthodox rabbi, adopted the name Dovid, began wearing a yarmulke, learnt Hebrew, visited Israel, and had himself circumcised.  Szegedi now lives as a practicing Jew, observing the Sabbath and attending synagogue. He has also obtained thousands of copies of his own book and burned them.

On route to Szeged: so what if the sign says that bikes aren't allowed

Jobbik site in Szeged

A former synagogue across the street from the Jobbik site

Votive Church on Dom Square

Szeged Synagogue: second largest in Hungary

Beautiful inside of the synagogue

University of Szeged

A huge outdoor eating and drinking festival in Szeged on Sunday evening

Enjoying dinner at the festival

A Bike Ride in Hungary

Our ride today (Saturday, 9/6/14) was a 60 mile trip from Budapest to Kecskemet, Hungary. It was our first full day biking in Hungary, after 2½ weeks in France, Germany, and Austria. The difference between those 3 Western European countries and Hungary, a Central European country, was quite noticeable. Outside of the tourist-heavy inner city of Budapest, the buildings and roads are much more rundown in Hungary than in its western neighbors. In the countryside, the fields in the western countries were generally well-tended, highly productive, agricultural plots of land, while in Hungary the land is most often overgrown with brush. Even when used as farmland, it looked far less lush and well-tended than in the western lands.

The difference must be due, at least in part, to poor governance in Hungary that has driven away many of its greatest minds. Ex-Hungarians have an incredible record of achievement in science and industry. Among the many examples are John von Neumann, a key pioneer in development of the digital computer; Edward Teller, developer of the hydrogen bomb; Andrew Grove, founder of Intel, all of whom left under inhospitable times in the early-to-mid 20th century. Hungary has apparently learned little from the horrible lessons of those times, with a right-wing authoritarian party in power now and a neo-Nazi party as one of the main opposition parties.

Scenes from our ride today:

Leaving Budapest

Lunch on the run

Our hotel in Kecskemet. Our bikes are parked right beside the Jaguar.

The Kecskemet city hall

About to Get the Show Back on the Road

For the first time in our many years of bike touring, we had two consecutive non-biking days (Thursday 9/4 and Friday 9/5). Not that we has planned it that way, but we needed to spend the time fixing or replacing a bike, camera, and computer. Actually, the non-working laptop was even more of a show-stopper than the poorly functioning bike. We have become incredibly dependent on our computers, even while on a bike trip, using them for routing, mapping, blogging, email, and keeping up with work (e.g., preparing for upcoming lectures).

We also spent a little time today as tourists. We wandered through interesting parts of the inner city, including exploring Gozsdu Courtyard, an Art Nouveau block of six courtyards and seven apartment buildings built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, now a site of upscale condos and trendy restaurants. We strolled to the banks of the Danube. We also went on a guided tour of the Central Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world (the largest is in New York City). A splendid building constructed in 1859, it underwent major renovations in the mid-1990’s supported in part by large donations from Tony Curtis (the actor) and the Lauder family (of Estee Lauder fame), both of Hungarian Jewish ancestry. The huge chapel, which seats 3000 people, has an appearance reminiscent of a Catholic cathedral, not too surprising since it was designed by a Catholic who had also designed a number of churches.

On Friday evening, we spent some time with an old friend Zoltan Harkanyi, chief of Radiology at Heim Pál Children’s Hospital. We caught up on news of our families and work life, and heard about the sorry state of Hungarian politics and economy. Because of limited opportunities and low salaries here, there is a significant brain drain of bright young Hungarians, including Zoltan’s sons. One of them, an anesthesiologist, practices in Liverpool, England, like many other young doctors who can make about eight times as much money by practicing in Western Europe instead of Hungary.

Tomorrow, we head off on our bikes again, keeping our fingers crossed that our equipment holds up.

Our first stop in Hungary, at a lovely 4-star hotel in Mosonmagyaróvár

Ready to take the train to Budapest

Attempting (with some success) to fix Carol's gears

Attempting, with no success, to repair Peter's laptop

Buying a new tablet to replace Peter's laptop

New tablet PC and camera

The Central Synagogue in Budapest

On the Danube in Budapest

Visiting with Zoltan Harkanyi

Equipment Problems Galore

Within a span of two days, Carol’s gears developed serious shifting problems, Peter’s laptop screen stopped working, and our camera broke. So we took a train this morning to Budapest from Mosonmagyar, Hungary (the last point that we had cycled to) and spent the day walking around the city to bike and computer repair shops, and then to a laptop store. We now have a new camera, Peter has a new tablet PC, and Carol’s gears are fairly functional, so we can continue on with our cycling trip. One thing we learned is that it’s far more tiring walking around a city shopping than it is cycling 70 miles up and down mountains.

Gray Danube

"Blue Danube" is a waltz that was composed in 1866 by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss. Our 65-mile ride today (Monday, September 1) along the Danube River from Enns to Weissenkirchen played to the tune of "Gray Danube", characterized by unbroken clouds and continuous rain. But because we had upgraded our rainwear before leaving for the trip, including new rain jackets, pants, and gloves, the ride was fairly comfortable. Furthermore, since our packed clothes were double-bagged and our computers quadruple-bagged, and then placed in waterproof panniers (packs) which were surrounded by waterproof pack covers, all of the stuff we carried was completely dry at the end of the ride.

Preparing for the ride:

Computer box inserted into a large Ziploc bag. It was then placed into three more plastic bags before being put into a pannier (pack, or saddle bag) 

Rain gear

Phone, used as a gps navigator, in its special waterproof bag

Cycling along the Danube on a gray, rainy day

On route: wet outside, only a little damp inside

Terraced vineyard along the shores of the Danube

Arriving at our 4-star hotel after 65 miles of cycling in the rain