120 Saturday Day 30th July 2011
We discussed our route over breakfast and decided that we would really like to ride the Transfaragaan route across the mountains in Romania and it would be best if we took the southernmost border crossing from Russia into Ukraine then followed the Black Sea coast towards Odessa and then out into Southern Romania so that we could hit the Transfaragaan going South to North. The plan then is to exit Romania into Hungary then into Austria. At this stage we will have arrived in the Europe that we have ridden so many times before so our best option is to head for home. This means that we may now be home by the last week in August nearly five months after setting off on 2nd April – that seems like a million years ago !!
Plan hatched we set about having a look around Samara. I discovered that Frunze Street, where our hotel is situated, is also home to Stalin’s Bunker which was built for him in secret (but never used) during the German advance on Moscow during World War Two – Samara having been chosen as the placing of the new capital if Moscow had fallen. Sadly it is only open to tour groups, not individuals, so we couldn’t visit.
However, Samara also sits on the mighty River Volga and it has some wonderful riverside beaches which today were packed with sunbathers who were braving the scorching heat of the day. We walked along the promenade and stopped for a cold beer but the heat was just a little too much and we headed back to the hotel taking a few snaps of the city buildings along the way.
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| Beach front - Volga River |
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| River Boat on the Volga |
Some of the buildings & street scenes in Samara :
We armed ourselves with some cold beer and fruit and locked ourselves away in our air conditioned room and took some time to catch up with our blogs, our finances, emails and also to book hotels ahead for the next few days – a night in Saratov and a couple of nights in Volgograd (once called Stalingrad) where I am looking forward to seeing the largest non religious statue in the world depicting Mother Russia. The Statue towers some 279 feet and stands near the hill Mamayev Kurgan and commemorates the Battle of Stalingrad. More information on Wikipedia Click Here
Hi Mark, Hi Martin,
ReplyDeleteas usual, great write up and pictures. By the time I travel through those areas, I will have the feeling that I had been there already. Fantastic information - Thanx!
Travel safe,
Thomas