their summer playground. As a
consequence, the traffic has been
nose to tail for fifty kilometres. Thank
goodness for Moto Gelato, said I to
myself, as I wove through the traffic
on rutted melting roads with serious
holes.
There is no point, on this road, to
overtake vehicles at speed; it is also
singularly dangerous. And, in any
case, there are junctions with and
without traffic lights, queues of trucks
and accidents. I limit overtaking
to when the traffic stops or stalls;
my life is worth more than twenty
seconds gained when overtaking at
speed.
The journey then, is four hours
instead of Google's projected one
point five. No matter, I finally arrive
at the designated hotel, a grey
unprepossessing cube of thirty, three
by three metre rooms.
Reception was one of the
bedrooms with no bed; a seemingly
scatter-brained teenage girl in charge
could not work out my booking.
A young man, presumed to be
her manager, arrived after being
summoned by phone.
It took him just ten minutes to tell
me that the online booking I had
made just thirty minutes earlier had
been for the week ahead; there were
no rooms in the Inn today. I did not
mind; far worse happens. Also, I was
sitting in the shade of their building,
sipping water, taken from the bottle
strapped to the bike. The water was
hot, but sufficiently liquid on the
tongue.
The booking.com app on my phone
treated me kindly once more. The
hotels in the seaside holiday heaven
of Zatoka village were booked to 92%
but a bed was found a few kilometres
on.
Saddle up and on the way and
I passed a hotel in which I stayed
seven years ago after I could take the
lavatories in the camping ground no
more. It was here that I met Walter,
a young German IT manager and
his girlfriend – a fine couple. It was
here that the rain fell so heavily that
the main street was flooded to half a
metre and impassable within a few
minutes.
But today, nothing but sunshine.
And as the road ran out and turned
into sand, there was the gleaming
white walled Hotel Alba, sitting right
on the beach with a cool breeze
incoming.
In the evening by bus and by taxi
as the area has yet to be accurately
Google mapped I am to meet, now
that they have arrived by car from
Kyiv, my business partner, her
daughter, her daughter’s friend
and her mother. I have known both
families for fifteen years or more and
we are relaxed and comfortable in
each other’s company. The cuisine
at this smart hotel is international
and locally renowned, so naturally I
choose a cheeseburger and chips.
It was a delight to meet them all on
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