You may remember that our original route plan was an extremely vague clockwise ellipse around Europe, with day-by-day plans for the first three weeks, then a bit vaguer to check that we could possibly get to Istanbul by the end of June, and then a nine-week week-by-week schedule to show there was at least one way of getting back in time for the Goodwood Revival in mid-September.
Now, the challenge with an Epic Journey, is how Epic do you want it to be? Do you get your kicks out of toiling up mountain climbs under the boiling sun, or do you think that the physical challenge of having to cope with four vineyard visits in a day is hard enough? “Lord, make my path easy”, or “Lord, make my body strong”? We are definitely going to carry on down the Danube to Budapest, but then after that we have a choice.
We can stay to the north, going through a lot of Romania and with the aim of going over the Transfagarasan or more likely the Transalpina highway. We thought we were really clever to have found this and then discovered that Top Gear has done a programme on it and it’s now full of motorbikers having a great time swoooo sweeee swoooo crunch sorry mate didn’t see you there toiling up the hill really sorry about your bike mate. To get there also involves a certain amount of Romanian Roads containing lots of Romanian Truck Drivers drive drive drive zzz swerve awake drive drive zzz crunch dunno what that was drive drive. And it involves definitely large numbers of Romanian Farm Dogs bark bark the freedom of not being chained up bark bark cyclist to chase off! off you go! bark bark jump got one chomp arf arf. We were keen to revisit Bulgaria too, especially the area around Plovdiv, although we’ve found there is a chain of mountains right across the middle of Bulgaria.
Or as an alternative we have been talking to people about the Danube cycleway which will actually give us a route to Budapest, to Belgrade and all the way to the Black Sea if we want. The further on you go the harder it gets to follow (Germany and Austria is 100% signposted but we still got lost for our allotted 30 mins a day) but it is largely flat and largely, by definition, downhill.
This morning before we set off from Vienna, we went to the Freytag & Berndt specialist map bookshop (shameless plug: go there, buy things, be inspired!) and bought the “BikeLine” guides for the Danube down to Belgrade. And while we were there they sold us the most southerly section of the Iron Curtain Trail cycle route which goes round the west and south borders of Bulgaria from somewhere near Belgrade to Edirne, which is only 3 days away from Istanbul.
Tempting.
Red arrow: old version
Green arrow: possible new version
What are your views? Should the aim of the first part of this Epic Journey be to reach the Mediterranean coast as fast as possible so we can lounge around and eat Leetle Feeshes in sea-front tavernas or to try and take in physically challenging but scenically breathtaking corners of the Carpathians? And remember that Istanbul is not planned to be the end of the journey, it is only the far south-eastern corner, Sid and Doris will have plenty to say about Turkey, Greece and Italy after Istanbul.
Please feel free to comment, this is a UK government-style consultation process which means that we will solemnly and carefully listen to you and then do something completely different.
Pick whichever route is better. Compare A to B. Then compare B to A. Then pick the one which is better than the other one, and take that one. If the Red Arrow route it better, take it. If the Green Arrow route is better, take it. That's how I would do it…
Just caught up on your progress. It's quite simple. Take the green route, it stands out better on the map so should be easier to follow…. Or have you already passed that point!