24th Baile Hercules Romania

Wedding procession

Badly in need of renovation

In the process of renovation

A spa experience

Hercules (it was his favourite spa location)

Diana

We woke up and decided to have breakfast at the campsite restaurant as well. We sat down and the German came out to ask us what we wanted, after ordering ham and eggs and chips (Bek swears this is breakfast, lunch and dinner in England) we watched him leave with his back and brow dripping in sweat (it wasn’t that hot btw), after hearing copious amounts of coughing he then disappeared for a while and came back looking much better so we assumed that his wife was trying to poison him or he was suffering some ill effects from tying one on the night before! Baile Hercules is famous for Hercules and the thermal springs as well as medicinal Roman baths, so off we set on our bikes in search of these; by the smell of sulphur in the air we assumed there would be plenty of options. We stopped first of all at the tourist information and attempted to communicate with a young guy whose English wasn’t the best and whose knowledge of the area seemed to require a little brushing up so we headed out on our own to explore. The town had some lovely old buildings that badly require renovating, most unfortunately were derelict and abandoned. We saw a wedding in the town centre, the procession of cars for the wedding must have been about 50+ and all were beeping their horns continually which seems to be a tradition here, it was rather noisy to say the least! We rode to The Roman Hotel to go to the Roman Baths, the hotel appeared to be having renovations carried out as there were no cars in the car park and workmen seemed to be coming and going, however the receptionist never mentioned this and said the baths were on the 2nd floor, were open and the price was only 2.5 euros and we were to pay after so off we trundled to find them. When we got to the 2nd floor it was very dark with no lights bare wires hung from the ceiling on the floor there were ladders, bags of rubble, pots of paint and general rubbish .There were no signs for the baths and after entering many empty rooms we found the baths. The water was hot and there were no other people using it so we decided to stay, we also had chairs on the balcony which faced a stream down below and the mountains above. Bek got electrocuted in the shower although lived to tell the tale! On our way back to the campsite we stopped at another market for fruit and veg, we were less than impressed when a lady tried to rip us off by charging 2e for 4 pieces of sweet corn. That night there was a huge thunderstorm, the thunder echoed off the mountains, we were quite pleased though as it drowned out the noise of the discothèque next door and the sounds of YMCA could no longer be heard!

23rd July Donji Milanovac Serbia to Baile Hercules Romania

Spa wear

Romanian face carved in the cliff

Iron gate

Hay fields

A serbian cat

We woke up and peaked out of the campers curtains, we weren’t expecting to be greeted by a completely chock-a- bloc car park and we were literally surrounded by vehicles in every direction. Turned out it was local market day and we were in its car park, maybe next time we will pick a better place to free camp. We had our first proper wash in days in the outdoor shower and had a wonder around the market while contemplating how we were going to get out of the car park. As luck would have it we went back to the camper and a couple of nearby cars soon left so we were able to manoeuvre our way out and head to the Romanian border crossing. We caused a huge tail of traffic at immigration in Serbia as Beks passport hadn’t been stamped when entering Serbia, we also had a small hold up in Romania as customs found a gun in the car in front of us. The customs officials must have thought they had done their days work as we were waved through without insurance document or drivers license checks. The first thing we noticed about Romania were the crazy drivers, after the border crossing there were lots of single lane roads due to road works and the drivers didn’t believe in stopping at red lights, we even saw coaches and cars towing trailers skip them. More often than not our lights would turn green and cars would continue to pass from the opposite direction, we went through on an amber light once and counted 12 cars follow behind us!
We got slightly lost finding the campsite in Baile Hercules and drove through a thermal spring area which was absolutely full of local people all of who were staring at us and many were dressed in clothing which didn’t leave much to the imagination. All along the road the verge was full of cars and caravans and people selling towels, popcorn, fruit, ice cream etc there were even make shift washing lines hanging from tress which people had erected. We finally stumbled upon our campsite which was surrounded by mountains in a nearby area but more civilised (read only 2 other vans there and they all had their clothes on!) than the thermal spring area we had passed through. We had dinner that night in the campsites restaurant the shared mixed grill was lovely but we kept getting a smell of burning and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. After some time we realised the 400+ moths which had been flying near the restaurants outdoor lights were diminishing in numbers, we then saw smoke and realised the moths were getting burnt to death as the outdoor lights had no cover. We both felt tipsy by the end of the meal after the German owner insisted on us having shots of local brandy with him, this tasted pretty gross! The owner was the only waiter working but he was very drunk and we could hear him in the kitchen arguing with his wife.

13th-18th July Belgrade Serbia

Sava temple

The big pink bus

Danger lol

Citroen rally

Belgrade and the Danube from the fortress

Storks above the monastery

The heat at the exit camp finally got to us so we were thankful to move on to a hopefully cooler Belgrade, on the way we decided to visit a monastery as the area was renown for them as the Serbs had built lots in an 83km radius to try to protect their culture from the invading turks. When we arrived at the campsite in Belgrade a beaten up old Volkswagen camper pulled up behind us. We recognised the unmistakable van and when a French couple got out we realised the same couple were parked across from us at Exit. At night we were sat outside having dinner when Cass said to Bek “does that chair look familiar to you?” and pointed to the French couples camping chair. Turned out they too were Eco Warriors and had acquired the hazardous flowery camping chair which Bek had abandoned after the near impaling incident at Exits chill out area!
We were very tired when we arrived at Belgrade due to lack of sleep at Exit , we were looking forward to a nice quiet night with no loud music and were commenting how quiet it was at the campsite, just as we said that a huge pink bus full of Swedish travellers turned into the campsite. The bus left the next morning however that evening a convoy of Citroen 2cv cars arrived as they were taking part in a rally they were much quieter however than the bunch of Dutch boys we had next to us at Exit who had a generator and sound system pumping out trance music non stop lol
One day we ventured out to find a laundry which was 8km away from the campsite, after two hours we were still driving around (passing the same places on a few occasions) so opted to hand wash instead. Directions in Serbia are very hard as firstly our trusted sat nav doesn’t pick up roads (Cass still isn’t talking to him), secondly hardly any roads are sign posted and thirdly the writing is in Serbian Cyrillic (like Russian lettering).
One night we had a gorgeous dinner in a place called ‘Little Bay’ the interior of the restaurant resembled an opera seating gallery with royal boxes, staff dressed in 18th century costumes and a live pianist and violinist. This is much more up market than our usual travelling eateries; Bek ordered the recommended wine and thought she was going to have to perform CPR on Cass. Cass had got the currency conversion muddled and thought the wine was 167 euros a bottle! It was infact 16.70 euros which was the price of our two starters and two mains combined but was a treat from our usual 1.50 euro 2l bottle of beer. The meal didn’t contain any garlic so when we got back to the camper we each chopped a clove in half and downed them like a tablet with water. The mosquitoes were particularly viscous here as we have found them to be anywhere on the Danube, we were eating copious amounts of garlic with every meal (including breakfast) as a form of mozzie repellent along with the coils, candles, net, spray and it appeared every time we killed one a thousand took it’s place.
One day we were exploring Belgrade and were holding a map looking for The Republic Square, after 5 or so confused minutes we realised we were actually at the square! The fortress in Belgrade was nice and is situated on a hill over looking the Danube River, the local men were playing chess and one of the market stalls was selling a 500 billion note from the time of the largest hyperinflation in history in 1993. We also walked 7kms in sweltering temperature to Sava Temple which is the largest place of worship in Serbia and can hold up to 10,000 people; this was however being refurbished lol.