Pristol

In the morning, we followed the canyon road into the village of Baile Herculane. On the way, we passed some public mineral spas that were crowded already as lots of people slept in their cars right next to them and were awake even in these early hours.
Baile Herculane is a holiday place and kind of surprised us. There are lots of old buildings of Roman architecture, but most of them are sadly in decay. Instead, some huge ugly hotels were built where people stayed.
After 10km, we had to go on a very busy main road. Luckily, the wind was on our side and we could go fast. In Orsova, we had a coffee and breakfast break at a gas station where we met a Greek cyclist.
We now cycled along the Danube which forms the border between Serbia and Romania at this section. The valley is beautiful as it's relatively narrow and very green on both sides. Unfortunately, it's no fun cycling as the traffic is bad with lots of trucks.
When we could finally turn off the main road after 70km, we were happy and stopped for a cold drink in the first village. The men were nice, invited us to a coffee and showed us proudly the 6 puppies in their backyard. One of them spoke German and we had an interesting discussion about old and current times in that village. They also complained about reckless Romanian drivers and people leaving their rubbish behind, 2 things we don't appreciate either.
We continued for another 40km or so through a pretty deserted region. In Prislov, we stopped to check out our sleeping options. Herbert also picked plums from the tree next to the road. A car stopped and the driver signaled him to follow him as he has more and better plums in his garden. Some minutes later, Herbert came back with a bag full of juicy plums. Then another car stopped and the driver, Sorin, asked if he could help us. We asked if he knew a place to sleep - either a guesthouse or campspot - and he offered us to sleep at hat s friend's place just one block away. So we went to Constantin's house who had a spare guestroom which is really rare in Romania. The 2 guys showed us the bathroom before leaving for the next 3 hours to do grocery shopping in the next bigger city.
Meanwhile, we had a shower and cooked dinner. We tried a Polenta dish for a change as Polenta has the best calories to weight ratio. It was actually pretty yummy!
When Sorin and Constantin came back, we had some beers and lots of discussions. Sorin also took us for a short drive to the Danube to watch the sunset at border triangle of Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria.Read more