And the best nights sleep

Saturday 3rd June. Was it because I was tired from the previous day, or because of less noise or because of the glass of wine and 2 shots of palinka I was given last night but had a fab nights sleep.

Grey and wet to start with – had an “easy” day planned – so took it easy and waited for it to dry up before heading off on the bike. Was doing a there and back from the campsite to painted monastery no 3 – Putna Monastery – approx 22 miles each way – couple of wee hills – felt like more than 22 miles!!!

Villages and towns bigger this way and more traffic on the road. Despite places being bigger very few ATM’s – carrying cash is a must, certainly in the north of Romania – the bigger supermarkets and restaurants take card but all the campsites I’ve stayed at, the smaller restaurants and shops and any museum I’ve been in you need cash. Marginea was a reasonable sized town but the only ATM was out of action – luckily the one in Putna was working.

Still no cycle paths, which I’m not surprised at – most of the villages and towns don’t even have pavements and once you get off the main roads you are often on gravel tracks – some of the places I passed through today were getting nice monoblock pavements though and there was some small modern road side cafes.

Putna Monastery has very little of the exterior paintwork left but still a beautiful building. Very busy though so I escaped to see The Hermit’s (Daniel’s) cave and then walked up the short but steep hill to get the views of the Monastery from above.

Returned back to the campsite the way I came. Found some Romanian cider in the supermarket and had a cracking vegi pizza at a little restaurant – £5.40 for pizza and bottle of coke.