Day 51

7/10/2011 – Day 51

Drobeta-Turnu Severin to Hinova – 17km

Not having breakfast again we packed and asked if we could leave the bikes in the hotel for a bit. This morning’s receptionist was not happy about it but when we said only for an hour she relented.

Once again M had to find internet and this time Vodaphone was the cheapest. While I had a coffee he went to the shop. This time we sat and waited until the internet worked before we left.

The ride out of Drobeta-Turnu Severin was on the main road, but someone had planned for this and there was a cycle lane, although it is filled with parked cars. Even so the ride out was OK as the cars and trucks gave us plenty of room.

As it was midday by the time we left we decided that we would stop at the first bar for lunch. Either they have hidden very them well or there are no bar/restaurants here. The next time we stopped was Hinova where we were planning to spend the night.

 There was supposed to be rooms in a guest house here but all we found was a closed motel on the main road. Heading into the village we asked two old men sitting on the side of a well for directions to a bar so we could try to have lunch, they told us to go past the church and turn left at the school. We found the church but not the school, time to ask again.

A man was walking across the road so we stopped him and asked for the bar, it turns out he is the local priest from the Orthodox Church. He told us the bar was really a shop with tables outside where you could drink the beer you had just bought. The guest house we were looking for did not exist, what they were talking about was a shelter where you could put your tent.

We asked if he knew of where we could eat and find somewhere to sleep and he invited us to have lunch with him and his wife! But first would we like to see his church? I have a thing for churches and never give up the opportunity to look inside. This one was built in 1901 by the local community and was a small work of art. The inside was painted from top to bottom by and Austrian artist. It was in almost perfect condition, there had been no alterations to speak of, the floors were covered in carpets but the floorboards were the originals. Sometime in the recent past there had been some ground movement and there was now a crack running the full length of the building. Outside he had bees, rabbits and chickens.

Things got slightly out of control now, one second he was talking about lunch, the next thing we knew he was inviting us to stay the night! We had put the bikes in front of his house for safe keeping while we were in the church and now he was telling us to unload them. While we were looking at the bees he had called his wife and she had agreed.

OK, so what do we do? We can turn him down and cycle on in hope of finding somewhere in the next 80km which was where the next known guest house was, or do we accept his kind offer? While we were talking it over he had cooked lunch for us and while we ate he told us his wife was looking forward to meeting us. This did not really leave us much choice.

He had to go out during the afternoon so we decided to take the bikes and cycle round the area; this would have worked except my D lock jammed! Whatever I did the key just would not turn. I think there was some dirt in there as we had spent the last few days cycling over some very dusty tracks.

This meant we had to go to plan B which was walk, and we walked as far as the bar. Here we met some of the locals who were interested in who we were and where we were from. This led to a long conversation about where people had been etc. We had a couple of beers, local of course and then set off to explore the rest of the village. This did not take long and we were soon on the main road we had come here on.

With nothing else to do we walked down to the river bank, once again we are amazed how wide it is now. When we first met it you could have walked across it in about 8 strides and not gone deeper than your knees, now it must be at least 1km wide and deep enough to take large ships. As we sat there a Frontier Police patrol stopped to see what we were doing, it had not occurred to us that the opposite bank was another country (Serbia still) and not part of the EU.

After this we walked back to the bar for another beer and another chat with the locals. By the time we arrived back at the church the rest of the family had arrived, in this small house the priest lived with his wife and four children, a boy and three girls ranged between 5 and 9. Introductions were made and the children were excited to meet people from another country. Costinel, the priest and his son then took us to the top of the hill to see the whole village and look over the bend in the river. We stood there with a huge bend of the Danube in front of us as the sun set behind the Serbian hills on the far side.

The evening meal was a family affair and although the children were still excited they were perfectly behaved. We have always tried to eat local food on this trip (yes, I know we have eaten a lot of pizza), and this was what we had tonight. As usual there was enough food everyone to go round with plenty to spare. We also had some of the home made ‘wine’ that we have been given in several places now. This time it was very mellow and good.

Before we realised it the children had gone to get ready for bed and were watching TV as we chatted in the kitchen. After dinner we showed them some of the YouTube video M has been doing (attached to this blog), so they could get an idea of where we had been. They saw Day 01 and one of the days with music to show the difference, we then watched some Romanian comic which they like.

One of the things that concerned us about staying was where would we sleep, we didn’t want to put anyone out of their bed in this small house but the ‘guestroom’ had a fold out sofa.

We had a really good evening as their guests and they were the perfect hosts, another example on this trip of how nice people can be.