23rd June 2012

Debs:  The idea was to be up and on the road by 7am and although Yanis, the proprietor, kept offering us breakfast we assured him that we had to get an early start. When we made our appearance at 8.30 he couldn’t stop laughing.. Yes we had overslept but our main problem was that we had been running on the wrong time all week. As you may remember we had commented on an earlier blog that the boat from Italy across to Greece had arrived an hour early, the truth was that there is a 1 hr time difference between the two countries - they weren‘t early on the day, because we should have altered our watches we were an hour late all week! However we finally got away at 9.30(without breakfast) and headed for Bulgaria via Thessalonika and the top end of Greece, this area is mainly industrial and sadly a bit harsh on the eyes after such a relaxing week.

We approached the Greek border crossing with trepidation, not sure what to expect, so it came as a bit of a surprise when the first check point guard winked at us both and waved us on through. Then when we got to the Bulgarian check point they also waved us on. I said “Don’t you want to see our passports?” The chap just laughed and said “No, you are on a nice bike”. We then stopped at the cabin selling the ‘vignette’ for the motorways, he just asked us where we were going and also just waved us on. Hope it always goes this easy!

Bulgaria was a bit of a disappointment, pretty grubby and run down, and everything seems so grey and industrial. 

Not quite 'Angel of the North' but definitely eye-catching!

We had a fairly uneventful ride until we reached Sofia, where I noticed a huge black cloud hanging above us and the lightening flashed as we rode into the city.

There was one particular thing that Steve loved about Bulgaria, the traffic light systems have a 'count down' display above the lights showing how much longer the red or green light will last for, so you can get into gear ready for the off.. wonderful!

Having stopped for petrol, Dolly (sat-nav) tried very hard to direct us back on the main drag by sending us into the middle of a rundown, high-rise tenement estate with a pot-holed dirt road… We made a quick about turn and Dolly became redundant for the next 5 minutes as I took over, but to give her credit she came to her senses and took us to the Easy Hotel (as in Easyjet) which was also in a rather run down area, but had the strong attraction of an underground car park for the bike, we are talking Sofia here folks.

Steve:   An early night was planned for an early start, but when we checked Dolly against the Via Michelin route they really didn’t agree - Michelin quoted 4.5 hours and Dolly 8.5 hours! Further investigation revealed that Tomtom state they don’t have full coverage of Bulgaria, Serbia or Montenegro, only the main roads, and so would only be good for getting out of the city and about the next 24 miles, but Debs stepped up to the task and went into full Girl Guide mode, writing out her various reference points for the day ahead - Hence off to sleep at 11pm.

Hmmm, tomorrow’s going to be here way too soon..