Trip to Eastern Europe

[Enn]

In May we did a 17 day trip with my friend Sverre from Baltics to Moldavia, travelling through Poland, Slovak, Hungary and Romaina. What a great trip! Let me share some pics with you in the following.

The first pic we managed to take on a stop still in Estonia.

After that we fast-tracked Latvia and stopped in Kaunas, Lithuania, for the night. Kaunas has a very nice old town, castle

and also high potential real-estate market

As we have both been travelling around in Baltic countries for many times, we did not bother to make too many stops there, therefore you will not see much about them.

When in Poland, we witnessed an interesting march on Sunday in a small town.

Next we visited a museum of social realism in Kozlowka, near Lubartow

Pretty emotional lady, ah?

For the night we found a royal hotel, which fortunately did not cost too much - EUR 50 for twin room incl. breakfast

Next day we proceeded to the mountainous South-East Poland

and stopped for a lunch in a cozy mountain restaurant

we were entertained by un-plugged musician in the corner

From Poland we headed to Noszvaj close to Eger in Hungary, where we had a friend Anti, who is a blacksmith, grows grapes and makes wine

In his shed was standing this

which for sure made us to try out each other's bikes

Anti arranged us a nice rustic apartment in the village which did not cost much, EUR 25 per night.

The town of Eger in the middle of Hungarian wine region, is a historically important place for Hungary, it is there where the Turkish invasion was finally stopped few centuries ago. We did check out their wine district

To be continued...

 

[Redfish Hunter]

Wonderful Stuff! Please do continue.

 

[Enn]

So, after nice wine testing in Hungary we continued to Romania. In fact, we passed Romania twice, so I sum up the country here in one go.

The East Romania met us with rain and pretty crappy roads

long villages

beautiful views

and nice lodging

Next day Sverre's Kawa decided to make our life a bit more exciting, it stopped charging the battery, so we had to look for help at local specialists

and here's the culprit

Meanwhile we witnessed an efficient mode of transporting the scooter

On our way back, we drove through Hungarian-Romania, which was very much different

We stopped in a marvellous city of Brasov, where we had friends Anu and Daniel running a small guest house with really cute interiors

Brasov itself, as said, is a real pearl: clean, well maintained and cheap, a pint of beer is around 1 EUR, which is at least 3 times cheaper than in Western Europe

we took the opportunity to climb the hill and check the Hollywood-style logo from both sides

Some Romanians liked to take a small nap every now and then

TBC

 

[Tanker]

Thanks so much for the ride report and pictures.

What a great trip with wonderful scenery.

Yes, please continue....

 

[beemerdons]

Thanks so much for the ride report and pictures.
What a great trip with wonderful scenery.

Yes, please continue....

+1, Gunny!

 

[Dr. Rich]

Great Pictures....I'll bet you are looking forward to getting off the back roads and onto the Autobahn to get the RPM's up on the FJR. Beautiful countryside.... You looked pretty tired in a couple of those pictures.

 

[Old Michael]

Thank you, thank you!

Very groovy, Enn!

 

[beemerdons]

Thank you, thank you!Very groovy, Enn!

Brother Mick, isn't it so amazing that Enn saw a Dane while he was in Poland; they shouldn't let those rotten Danish *******s out of Copenhagen, REALLY!

 

[escapefjrtist]

Thanks for the pics and RR Enn!

--G

 

[Enn]

There were other 2 very nice places we that we passed in Romania. The first was Sinaia, where is also the palace of the last Romanian king

And here's the palace

Another remarkable place is a small town Sighisoara. In fact, all these nice towns I have mentioned, are a sort of German origin. The Hungarian king, back in the times when these areas belonged to Hungary, invited the German noblemen to inhabit the unused land and create the agricutlure, etc. He gave them the tax freedom and land for free, the only obligation they had was to provide the king with soldiers in case of the war.

So first in Sighisoara we found a nice little and reasonably priced (EUR 37.- per twin room) hotel

Looks like we were no the only bikers in the hotel

And the town centre itself

As a contrast to these cute germanic cities, of course there are also a lot of places which look like this

but it will take some effort to find them. All in all, Romania really positively surprised me. Most of the roads are very good, many new roads are built, sceneries are great, people very friendly and it is till reasonably cheapo if you compare it with Western Europe. So hurry up before it becomes expensive like Slovenia and Croatia!

TBC

 

[Enn]

Great Pictures....I'll bet you are looking forward to getting off the back roads and onto the Autobahn to get the RPM's up on the FJR. Beautiful countryside.... You looked pretty tired in a couple of those pictures.

Well, we had an opportunity to drive some 20 km on a brand new autobahn in Romania where for miles we were the only vehicles. No doubt we took an advantage on that and I managed to get 185 km/h on my bells. FJR could easily do more, but I was myself a bit worried if the road is really as good as it looked. Well, it was. Sverre, on his side, hit some 240 on his 600 smt Kawa!

And I indeed was pretty tired, because Sverre, as a former track racer, did give me hard times. It was quite and effort for me to keep up his pace, as well as he usually drove 3-4 h in a row, while my softy body would have liked to do 1,5-2 h between the breaks.

 

[Dr. Rich]

Looks like you guys had a great trip.... It is lucky for you that you were not riding with Old Michael... He has to stop about every half hour for a little break.... He is just getting old... Great report.

 

[Enn]

And now finally Moldavia, the target of our trip. We arrived late in the night, so did not see much when arriving, but next day we saw this from our hotel window

and most of the country leaves a similar impression, although there are also some nice places to be seen, one of them being our guesthouse itself

Typical street view in capital Chisniau

On the bright side, though, we spent a nice day at the wine cellars at Milestii Mici, some 15 min drive from Chisniau

There are over 130 miles of wine passes under the ground

and they arrange tours to them on your own car with music

food

and wine tasting, a lot of tasting

The rest of the country looks pretty much the same as it was back in 1990 when USSR collapsed.

The only bike we saw was this Russian makes since 80-s

most roads were not very much FJR-sh

although few were really good

villages looked a bit stagnant

and live stock was in abundant supply

This reminds me a situation also in Romania, which did occur not just once

Well, to summarize the Moldova, I have to say we had higher expectations. We spent there 3 says and except from wine cellars there is not much to see or enjoy, although people were helpful and life was cheap.

On our way back we spent few days in Romania covered before and then more or less rushed through Hungary, Slovak and Poland as for some reason we became homesick sooner than we planned.

On our way back Sverre could try himself into a rally car in Poland

and I took an advantage on the Suzuki customer event somewhere in Hungary where we happened to pass by

Yep, another job well done!

 

[SeattleTy]

Excellent ride report and pictures - thank you for sharing

 

[rogdeb]

Excellent !! Great to see other parts of the world

... You don't need captions Enn, the photo's tell a great story themselves.

 

[Tanker]

Thanks for the RR. It has been enjoyable taking the journey with you guys.

Love the pictures of the buildings, it is great architecture over there.

 

[Mihalis fjr]

Thanks for sharing with us this Excellent ride report and wonderful pictures!!!

 

[hppants]

I enjoyed this immensely! How would you describe the cuisine in Eastern Europe? It doesn't look as bland as I imagined.

 

[Bugnatr]

Very nice report, thanks you.