Exactly two weeks ago we cycled into Bucharest. It was snowing and the ground was all white. The temperature was around -3 and I was wearing my snow goggles all the way to the place were we were going to stay. We then stayed in Bucharest for three days and walked around in a snow covered Romanian capital.
Today was the complete opposite. We had temperatures around 18-20 degrees in the shade, lots of sunshine and a tiny little headwind. I started by wearing my jacket, but after only 3-4 km I stopped and took it off and rode with only my long sleeved cycling jersey. After a while I even had to pull up my sleeves 🙂 The difference in weather couldn’t be bigger.
Wej in front of the Romanian parliament.
During the 9 days when we have been home trees have started to blossom, some have thin light green leaves, birds are singing and lots of people wear shorts and T-shirts.
Knowing we only had a ride of 65 km from Bucharest to the border we intentionally left our Bucharest and Romania maps at home in Sweden. This meant that we could only follow road signs and the signposted road was super boring with long straight sections. We rode over vast flatlands with fields that were so long that we could only see a horizon. It was like looking out over the ocean. The traffic was only occasionally heavy and most of the time it was on a acceptable level. If we would still have had our map we would definately have tried to go for another route.
Before starting we had to re-pack all our panniers and fit the our new equipment to the bikes. This took a couple of hours and we didn’t leave the hostel until 13.30. It was good to have a slow start and especially since I had been a bit anxious about the re-start of our journey.
Apartment blocks in need of renovation in Bucharests suburbs.
Despite snowstorms, headwind and big climbs I have enjoyed being on the way and before we went home for our week long break I worried that such a break would disrupt the magic of being on the way on a slow trip from one corner of the world to another.
I enjoyed every second of being home to visit friends and family but I never worried about going back to Bucharest and resume cycling. Not until this morning anyway……
While I was busy preparing the bikes this kind of worries started to grow inside me. We have already biked all the way to Bucharest, which is an achievement in itself. I started to think ”what if it isn’t fun anymore when we start riding?”
Once on the bike it felt just like usual. We were busy watching the traffic while navigating out of Bucharest and after some time I remembered my worries from the morning and understood that the worries were probably my brain playing tricks to me. We enjoyed the weather so much that it is hard to understand that yesterday we were walking the streets of Göteborg and two weeks ago we were cycling into a cold and snowy Bucharest
Being on the cycle means being on the way, and the feeling of being on the way has become my normal state of mind which the trip back to Sweden luckily didn’t change.