Day 4

We complained continuously of rain in the past days, but one has to be careful what he wishes for. We came down the mountains, only to be faced with a banana/bikerspoiling heat and frontal winds on the way to Lugoj. You may rightfully complain of our fixation with inadequate weather, but this is the reality of the situation. But no matter, at least we managed to avoid the code red floods and other situations we've been hearing of in the last few days.

We began our morning by waking up on the courtyard of the Bethlen Castle of Ilia, in the shade of the Red Tower. Our hosts, the associates of the Saint Francis Foundation of Deva, were kind enough to not only let us spend the night in the courtyard, but also show us the Bethlen museum. The college girls who live in the tower during summers to host the tourists also helped us cook dinner. So our place of stay was prize enough, but of course Turkey is still a thousand kilometers (~620 miles) away...

At around noon we started on the Lugoj road - we had 80 kilometers (~50 miles) ahead of us. We kept a good pace in three teams, waiting up on one another two or three times, taking a longer rest to eat our lunch. The highlight of the day was when we met another team cyclists on an expedition. We have met bikers before during our expeditions, but none of them were like us. To make it even more interesting, they were a group of Hungarians from Serbia. The team consisted of sixteen members, and they were on their twelfth expedition from Serbia to the Székely heartland. According to them most of the villagers of the their starting point fled from Székely lands to the territory of today's Serbia, and they were commemorating this event. All sorts of age groups were represented, from sixteen to sixty. We've met them several times during the day, even taking a selfie together, and we even gave them a few of our old DVDs.

We had our lunch break at Făget, this time eating baloney. The interesting thing, however, is the uniqueness of the place: Făget is famous because this is where Gheorghe Gheorgiu Dej's plane is kept, him having been a head of state during communism. The plane is, curiously, used as a pub. The story goes that in 1970 the plane was being transported on this route, but they couldn't get it across a railway bridge and stored it on a field nearby. The current owner inherited the land, together with the plane, which he decorated and shows to those who happen to be nearby. He also opened a small pub. This is where we ate an ice-cream and watched the Duna (Danube) TV's show, which included a report on our expedition. It was a nice one, we hope it will soon be available online too. Search for it, watch it, because we decided that since we got on television we might as well come home. We might Photoshop ourselves into a picture of the Marmara Sea's coast, or Istambul's Blue Mosque, and that's that.

Nonetheless, we cycled to Lugoj, if for nothing else because pizza was waiting for us at our resting place. We'll be sleeping in the dormitories of a local school, ending our camping-streak for a while. Next time we will be sleeping in a tent or under the night-sky in Turkey, seven days from now. Until then, we'll be enjoying the luxury of dormitories and pensions (boarding houses). 

The most important event of they day was, of course, at the end - we celebrated for the fourth time the birthday of our doctor, Enikő. We gave her an ice cream cake and some cycling goggles. This time she celebrated her thirty-seventh birthday and we wish her a happy-happy birthday, and at least twenty-three more Bycicle expeditions. So much for today, tomorrow we'll be biking forward to Orșova, because we decided that Duna TV is not enough, when Tekirdag and Istanbul is waiting for us.

Today we will be sending to messages, because we can't gather them because of the dorms rules. But everything is fine, and we promise that we'll make up for it tomorrow. :)