Today was a long day of driving. We planned on six hours, and it turned into 8. We knew that this trip was going to have a couple of days of long driving because we could not come up with a loop. The excursion into northern Romania was worth it though.
The early part of the trip went very well, and we were making better time than I thought we would. I was optimistic that the day would not be the slog we thought it would be and then we hit Bucharest. Bucharest is now our European city with the worst traffic having surpassed Antwerp. The ring road is a single lane with periodic strangely designed intersections that have no visible control system, no roundabout, no lights, basically a free for all, right of way goes to the biggest, fastest, and most aggressive vehicles. For a short while it is kind of entertaining, but the fun factor fades fast.
On top of that Greta Garmin for the third time on the trip decided to direct us to a road that does not yet exist. Whoever did the programing for Garmin 18 months ago when we bought our European card decided that freeways under construction could be used. Three times she has directed us to freeways that were under construction when she was programmed, and from the looks of things will still be under construction for several more years. As a result of the bad traffic, and the bad direction from Greta we had to put her in timeout, and break out Google maps on the phone. My guess is that Greta cost us an extra 90 minutes of very stressful driving in Bucharest. The result is that it took us about 2 1/2 hours to navigate 30 miles around Bucharest.
We did eventually escape Bucharest and ended the day at one of our favorite campsites of the trip, overlooking a beautiful gorge in a national park. Our neighbors are an Australian couple who also bought their van from Eurocampingcars in France. It is a small world.