Tomtom set for Szeged in east of Hungary where I hope to find a Suzuki dealer to do my 16000 mile service. Tomtom set to avoid toll roads (motorways) and the first thing it does is take me to a brand new motorway which has the entrance signs saying vinyetta required! There right at the entrance is a new motorway police station with cars and motorbikes all coming and going. So I put my faith in Tomtom and proceeded along the new motorway just waiting for the cameras with number plate recognition. Anyway I think Tomtom was right we never went through a vinyetta recognition turnstile and therefore this motorway was still exempt.
After short distance back onto normal roads, and on to Szeged. Found the location where the Suzuki dealership should be and nothing. Owner of petrol station opposite said they closed down about 2 years ago!
Checked where next dealership is and it is in Romania at Timisoara so set off for there.
Into Romania and straight away you can detect you are in a poorer country. However they do look after their stork population. I went through this one village and they had three nesting storks on telegraph posts. They have special metal tops to some posts to encourage the birds to nest. The picture below has a nest with young.
My Tomtom does not have detailed street mapping for Romania and so I set up my IPhone which has a satnav system called Igo which does have detailed maps of Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus, but the sound is only available in Russian, but since you cannot hear it on the bike this is of little consequence. This then took me to the supposed location of the Suzuki dealership. Nothing there at all! As I was parked up thinking what do do next a van pulled up and asked me whether I was with the "Black Angels" motorbike tour. He was a local organiser of motorbike trips and he had lost a number of his party. I asked him where the Suzuki dealership had moved to and he checked with his friend and came back with an address on the edge of town. Plugged this into my Igo and off we went again. Arrived at said address and again nothing that looked like a Suzuki dealership. Decided to give up on Timisoara and head for next likely place on my way through Romania. Set off and after about 2 miles there at the side of the road was a big Suzuki sign. Went over and sure enough this was the dealership required, so found a local hotel, and am now waiting to see if they can service my bike tomorrow.
Hotel nice, food cheap, beer good !
What a boring existence !!
More later,
TOR
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Just spent an hour catching up on your blog. Arrived home yesterday from the Bosnia trip. Rode down through Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and hung a right into Bosnia. Visited Mostar - very moving with the shells of burnt-out buildings and bullet-holed houses. Came back via Hungary and Czech. We managed 3000 miles in 10 days so I don't want to see a motorcycle for a day or two!!
ReplyDeleteI see that you were near Nancy - there's an interesting concentration camp from WW11 called Natzwieler (I think) close to Nancy - not on the same scale as Auschwitz and mainly used for French and the gypsy population.
Keep safe and I'll look forward to our fishing days again.
Paul