Blogs from Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria, Europe - page 2

10th August Very peaceful nights sleep in the hotel in Xanthi. 4 of us made breakfast before 10 and were still eating when it closed at 10.30. Then we drove into and through Kavala and found a lovely beach - no wind today so the sea is unbelievably flat. Hot though - 30 something so the sea is refreshingly cool. Filled up with petrol before getting to the beach and the guy filling the tank graduated from Southampton the same year as Christopher. Nice beach, lovely warm sea, massive jellyfish :) just the one. Hopefully got some good pictures with the underwater camera. Should have brought the GoPro though as that takes good pictures underwater I believe. Next stop a bite to eat in a cool Taverna? We got back in the car and travelled a ... read more

27thJuly 2014 Today we are going to see the bears at the Dancing Bear Sanctuary near to Belitsa. Got up at a reasonable time and while the kids slept Catherine and I headed down to the local supermarket where we picked up a few fresh supplies – including a very interesting bread with cheese in it…. Looked a bit like Lardy bread… The kids woke in turns and struggled out of bed – showers for everyone – 2 bathrooms is great Paul. Both working fine. Then we headed out of Bansko on the Razlog road and stopped at Lidl for a few supplies. The local beer is 40p a litre – and when it’s cold it’s not bad. Picked up ham, after sun, cakes all sorts of stuff. We’ll be leaving some stuff behind in the ... read more

Our final day in Greece didn’t get off to the greatest of starts as the power went out as we were preparing for the day and we showered in semi darkness.However, not even this could stop us enjoying the first shower with the showerhead on the wall we had had for what seemed like an eternity. While we were having breakfast the power came back on via a generator the hotel had and perhaps these occurrences even in what we thought was a country a bit more advanced electrically than Albania, where we had a number of power outages, are not that rare either. The heat from yesterday had gone and the sky had that darkening overcast look we have seen before, and we expect rain at some point will come today as the BBA V2 ... read more

Total Distance Cycled: 672km We seemed to had a window to cycle on Saturday. It was warm and overcast, but no rain, so we went for it. Other than climbing out of the hole we had in Kavala (on the coast, but totally surrounded by hills), the ride was pretty good and we did have the aid of the wind for most of the day (that makes three in a row now :-)). This was certainly our second best bike day of the trip so far. Just like the other day from Komotini to Xanthi, we spent most of the day riding along the hills of Northern Greece, but just high enough that we get a good view of the countryside below, but with little traffic so we could actually enjoy the ride. Serres was our ... read more

One of Chris Alger's wily investments had seen him purchase a one bedroom apartment in the Bulgarian ski resort of Bansko. So what better way to enjoy this than to cram six of us into the apartment for a 6 day skiing holiday - and as we drew straws for the beds, Chris ended up sharing a futon in the lounge of the apartment that he actually owned! Getting there had been the usual "no-queuing" affair that is always a regular feature with Alger Jnr at the helm. This time we were cutting it so fine to get to the airport that I had to stand in the doors of the airport bus stopping them from shutting to allow Steve to park the car and us to make our flight!! Arriving in Bulgaria the first battle ... read more