Thursday, 15 November 2012

Into Romania

Thursday 16th November


Took a while to get out of Budapest, they don't seem to go in for many road signs & also it's hard to find turns against the traffic as the main routes are often a few lanes wide. We had to drive almost back into the centre to get out again. The rest of the route was very flat, across vast fields of Black soil being ploughed by tractors. It was a very good road the No.40 or E60 with lots of stretches of dual carriageway with many Romanian trucks. Spent the final Hungarian money in a Lidl, we miss the ease of being able to use Euro's in so many countries.

Romania
There was a long line of trucks approaching the border but no queue for us. We had to show our passports & were pulled over for some sort of inspection, they seemed to look at our lovely new winter tyres, then waved us on. You have to buy a Vignette to use Romanian roads and we opted for a month one as it's little more than the weekly one. Of course as there's no ATM at the border & we don't have the 31.76 RON we had to pay in Euro's at the vendors exorbitant commission rate, so what should have cost about 7 Euros cost us 10. It's now all done electronically so we have since found out we could have done it on line here http://www.roviniete.ro/en

Diesel is just over £1.00 litre the cheapest so far & we soon found an ATM outside a hypermarket. It was one of the sneaky ones though that tries to convert your withdrawal into Sterling, much better for us to choose the withdrawal in local currency & let our bank convert. Heading East it was getting dark & no chance of a camp site  We looked at Truck Stops & happened to drop in on a very modern one with no charge for overnight stops, just a small fee for toilets or showers & free WiFi. No obligation to eat in the restaurant but we went in to check it out. Very good filling selection with friendly service & a beer was only 50p. Gills smoked bean soup was a surprise as it was served inside a whole round loaf of crusty bread. 

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