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Gordon and Miranda on Tour
Before we got to Bulgaria we obviously had to drive out of Romania. This involved going South from Bran through lots of pretty mountain country which is obviously a big ski area in the winter so comparatively well-developed and touristy. Still lots of horses and carts about though, and while the roads were at least in better condition, this was the main road to Bucharest and was still only 2 lanes!
We got to Bucharest and had the ring road to contend with - of course we went the wrong way, but the mental Romanian driving techniques seem to have rubbed off on Gordon as instead of going all round the houses to get back on the right road, he does a U turn at the lights on a really busy intersection, gets stuck halfway over but just waits on the tram lines in the middle of the road for the traffic to clear, while I shrink down in my seat praying there's no police about! The Romanians seemed pretty unconcerned about it though, nobody even hooted, so it probably happens all the time!
Then we got to Giurgiu, the last town in Romania before the border crossing into Bulgaria. This is apparently one of only 2 crossings that's open just now, and is the only one with a bridge over the Danube, the other one is a ferry that goes as and when it pleases so we'd thought this would be the easiest. The map showed the road just going straight through the town accross the border, but could we find the right way? After several attempts and getting nowhere except crosser we found a sign for Port. In French Porte means door so perhaps that could be it. So we end up showing our passports to a rather bewildered clerk at a shipping dock on the Danube! Eventually we asked at a garage and found that the Romanian word for border is Vama which had been signed some miles back before the town. I'd seen the sign but assumed it was just another small town - they had neglected to make any reference to Bulgaria on it! Never mind we got there eventually and had no issues with those scary Bulgarians at Passport control, despite all the stories of people having to remove the entire contents of their vans to be searched!
First impressions of Bulgaria were that it was much more developed than Romania -I suppose they weren't ruled by a brutal dictator for decades so probably makes a lot of difference. The roads were good, the towns and villages were generally well maintained with pavements etc. We went through one particularly nice town called Veliko Tarnova which used to be the capital a long time ago. We'd have liked to have stayed there but no campsite could be found and it was all really narrow streets so would have been very difficult to park the van anywhere we'd have been comfortable leaving it. That was the ongoing problem with Bulgaria - they just aren't set up for camping. There would be a tent sign on our map but try as we might we just couldn't find the actual campsite. Plan B was then to get on the ring road round Sofia and find a hotel with a big carpark for the van - no hotels off the ring road that we could see. Last chance was to find the airport as there's always hotels there aren't there? Could see the airport on the map, could even see the runway, but could not find the road into it anywhere - maybe they don't like tourists to go to it?
Anyway, by this time we'd been on the road for 13 hours so when we saw another camper van parked up beside a gas station we thought that looked as good as we were going to get. It belonged to a very friendly german chap who was very pleased to see us and regaled us with lots of stories about all the appalling experiences he'd either had personally or heard about from others i.e. being gassed and robbed, or held up at gun point etc. He was also deaf as a post so I found the whole conversation a bit wearing but fortunately as he smoked Gordon got to enjoy the brunt of his company as the punishment for having to have a fag outside while I hid in the van. Anyway, we rested there for a few hours till 6 in the morning - not our most comfortable night I have to say - when we decided to get out of Sofia before rush hour and before the reputedly corrupt police were up and about.
We did stop at one place in Bulgaria as I wanted to have some memory of the place other than just roads, so we went to Rila Monastery in the mountains south of Sofia. It was absolutely beautiful and we got there so early it was lovely and quiet. Of course there are loads of campsites there but those were the only ones we saw on our drive through the country. After that it was a straight drive to Greece and we crossed the border about lunchtime. Again no issues, in fact it was one of the friendliest ones we've had. The Bulgarian customs guy actually said to Gordon that he'd only wanted to see in the van because it looked so nice!
We know we didn't really to Bulgaria justice and next time we'll go armed (not literally) with a bit more information on where to stay ! But for now Greece beckons !
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