20230522 Getting bike boxed and more tourist in Bucharest, Romania

In the morning I biked the short 600m to the Giant Romania bike store, where I hoped to get a box to put my bike in for the flight home. I arrived before the store opened. When the store manager (Mario) arrived on his bicycle he was immediately very friendly and helpful. He asked about my flight departure for timing. Then said they would box up my bike (and give me extra tape in case the airport security opens it), I could come on Tuesday when they opened, and they would take me and the boxed bike to the airport bus transfer station. The bus transfer is the only real way to get a bike box to the airport and it only costs about $1C. Taxis or Bolt don’t have large vehicles that will take a bike box. We chatted a bit and agreed about Romania’s relatively poor level of cycling infrastructure and number of cyclists. There is some cross country mountain biking but very little road or gravel. I will get a group photo tomorrow with Mario, his workmate and the bike box.

Then I did another day of Bucharest site seeing.

Located in Revolution Square, the Statue of Iuliu Maniu is shown as a broken man with an unbreakable spirit.
Iuliu Maniu was the prime minister of Romania on three occasions between 1928 and 1933. Because he was an opponent of Soviet influence in Romania, after the Second World War, in 1947, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor by the Communist Regime. As it was expected according to his age and to the prison conditions, he died in prison six years later.

Tomorrow I fly home with great memories from this very interesting 2,000 km cycling journey along the Eurovelo 6 Danube River Route, from Budapest, through Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania to Constanta on the Black Sea.

Cheers…Greg

#gregbikingwithoutborders, #cyclepathoakville, #eurovelo, #bikepacking