Trajan’s Bridge

Fired by Aleksandr’s enthusiasm we brave certain rain to ride a short way out of town to visit the remains of Trajan’s Bridge. The surroundings are not prodigious. The bridge remnants are just a couple of stumps looking out over the river toward Romanian town of Drobeta Turnu Severin. But the magic of the place is what it means to Aleksandr. When he spoke of it yesterday he was full of excitement about what people achieved so very long ago. And what they achieved was immense! They built an 1100m bridge in around two years – probably taking less time than we would today. Lord knows how many slaves participated and probably perished in the venture. But wow!

To build this bridge they would have had to divert the river. Divert the bloody river! Back in the second security and without benefit of modern-day earth movers. Did they even have shovels? The bridge had 20 pillars, all of which were still standing in 1856 when the Danube hit a record low. All we can see today are the entrance pillars, visible on either bank of the river.

Both quite affected by this bridge, or more accurately the recollection of Aleksandr’s passion for the bridge, we ride back to town as the rain starts falling. We ride back to the hotel, consult Apple weather and decide to wait out the rain.

And then comes the music. Loud, festive music. I peek out to see what is going in on, just in time to see a wedding party arrive. There are honking horns, music, and a pretty woman in a white dress who makes her way daintily into the hotel amidst the hubbub of the wedding guests. We retreat and fade into the background.

The weather is not looking good. There is rain at Negotin, today’s destination, and it appears to be travelling toward us. It is still morning and we figure we have plenty of time. After all, we are only travelling 60-odd kilometres today. There are a few lumps in the profile, but if, when we set off, we just ride with focus, we should be fine. We decide to wait some more.

We sit in the hotel bar and draw out the time over a drink. When at last we feel we are overstaying our welcome we decide to leave and maybe have lunch in town before we ride. On our way into town we run into the wedding again, this time processing around town and heading back to the hotel. They are a happy bunch; the weather is not putting them off. We wait politely at the side of road for them to pass and I call out my congratulations. The groom smiles and thanks me, in English.

In town we choose one of the the almost identical pizza/café places, sit down and order pizza. There is still rain around. The annoying blot of rain on the radar is still circling around here and over Negotin. We decide we can’t wait any longer and hit the road.

There is a bit of a climb just over 10km out of Kladavo. We are following the bike route, which follows main road from Kladovo to Negotin. There are some cars on the road, but not too many, and they are causing no problems. We zoom along the highway, making great time.

And then we make our biggest mistake of the day. At around 40km, we follow the EV6 sign, instead of staying on the pleasant highway. We are soon up to our axles in mud, as the route follows a muddy, pot holed, extremely unpleasant rustic road alongside the river. We do not need to be Duna-ing right now. We need to be on a cruisy road, reaching our target. The riding is unpleasant. We bump and squelch along for what seems like ages, but is in reality only two to three kilometres. At the first opportunity we take a road that seems to head in the right direction to get us back to the highway. It does, but is steep and unpleasant, and nearly impossible to ride, dirt/gravel and with gradients up to 9 or 10%. And there’s rains. I am extremely thankful to see the highway again.

We waste no more time, and ride the last 20 or so kilometres at a fairly brisk clip. We are wet and muddy, and our bikes are now clogged with mud.

We ride into the town, which looks fairly unprepossessing. We find Hotel Beograd, said the best hotel in town. It is OK. There is a room and a bed and that’s all we need. We explore the ‘old town’ on foot and because of the wet and chilly weather, end up sitting inside at a restaurant for what feels like the first time on this trip. The downside of being warm and dry is having to inhale the cigarette smoke coming from almost every single person in the place. Dining inside in Europe in smoky restaurants is just not pleasant.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 67.9km
• Climb: 348m
• Average speed: 19.9km/h
• Average temperature: 14C
• Moving time: 3:25:05
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken inside a dark and smoke-filled restaurant in Negotin. For I think the first time on this trip it was too cold to sit outside to avoid the smoke.

Along the way today: