Southwards into Bulgaria and onto Greece

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The crossing back into Bulgaria is our longest drive for a while and whilst we are not visiting Sofia its capital we will be staying there tonight. But Serbia has one more surprise, some more atrocious roads, seemingly better than some two weeks go when they were completely removed but even after an early start it takes us some time to get to the border. There has been some anxiety from Graeme in returning back into the EU with the dog and her mounting pile of paperwork, in reality we have everything we need but this is unchartered territory since we left the EU and whilst every crossing she has just been waived through all with an air of disinterest, his concern is just it takes just that one time where they deem it incorrect. But again we needn't of worried we get back in again with very little difficulty and collect yet another stamp in our passports, Poppy’s,well as yet to be looked at.

Tonight's stop is at Bobby's a Bulgarian motorhomer and his storage yard, we are the only ones in and we are locked in after 6pm but we are not alone The Royal family are right next door in their rather more salubrious surroundings, their guards keep an eye on them and us as well.

Our plan changed as we have moved into the winter months and we have decided to head south through Bulgaria and into Greece, hopefully grabbing a few more beach days. The morning takes us out of Sofia on a short drive to a hill top park area and a large grass plateau with hills and trees above us, great for us and Pop's. We have two idyllic days here just enjoying the peace and quiet, joined during the day by families using the park and children's playground. The second night we are joined by a Bulgarian motorhomer who tells us that this place is popular with Bulgarian motorhomer’s from Sofia and will probably fill up at the weekend as the weather is set to be fine.

Our decision is made to leave it to them and with some advice on some camping spots further on means we leave well rested and informed. Our next stop is to visit the seven Rila Lakes which are a group of glacial Lakes in surprisingly, the Rila mountain range. The drive up is via another twisting road to the ski station and chair lift which transports you to the lakes at a height of between 2,100 and 2,500 m above sea level. Poppy has to stay behind for this venture as the ski lift is as basic as you can get and takes us some 20 mins to get to the start of the walks. To visit all the Lakes is an 4 1/2 hr walk and too long to leave Poppy so we head off on one of the signposted routes, of course not in English but hope it will take us somewhere. We are well rewarded for our efforts and get great vistas into the beautiful surrounding countryside, it will be our overwhelming impression of the country is the space. There clearly is a lot more to experience and some day we will return to give it more time, but autumn colours are ceasing and winter is on its way.

The following morning we again take to the hills to visit Rila Monestery as we approach, people are spilling out from this sacred sight, its a Sunday so to day we drive past and head to the top of valley on an almost single track with fallen leafs hiding the edge of the road. At the top is a parking meadow, a tip from our Bulgarian tells us we can park here and we do for some walking and have a meal in the local restaurant, for me ‘nervous meatballs’ I turned down the ‘crapey man'. Rila Monestery is a beautiful and most significant Monestery in Bulgaria named after the first Hermit of Bulgaria called St Ivan of Rila and now Patron Saint of Bulgaria. Born in Skrino, at the foot of the Osogovo mountain, John Rilski came from humble origins. A shepherd in his early days until becoming a monk in the monastery of Saint Demetrius on the slopes of the Ruen mountain, seeking a life of isolation and prayer, he left the monastery, moving from one place to another until settling himself on the Rila mountains. Despite the life of seclusion he led, he soon became known as "the wonder worker" by the locals with many seeking his advice and intercession. Numerous disciples desiring to share the same heremitical vocation soon followed, which move soon led to the construction of the famous Rila Monastery. Our parking spot for the evening is it's car park after all the crowds have left and the following morning allows us to enjoy this extraordinary building virtually to ourselves.

Our final stop is surprisingly at some thermal water ponds, very much used by the locals but also can hold we read up to 50 motorhomes on the site. We arrive with just two other neighbour's and we take a dip and enjoy the first bath, albeit muddy, for a few month's! It's been a short visit of a week but will leave us with some lovely memories.

We cross into Greece and make our way the short distance down to the coast where we find Stavros a busy coastal town with a lively harbour where we park for the night. Surprisingly even with an alarming amount of stray dogs and the accompanying barking we both sleep well. In the morning we buy two fish, straight from the fisherman (although I think we overpaid?!?) which we are told will be good BBQ'd so that day we head back up to a green beach area and decide we'll stay another day we have a water tap and a drop toilet close by so are well served. The van gets a well deserved wash down and we enjoy the fresh fish which as they said were great on the BBQ. We move further along this coast, which we imagine is used by Greeks by the number of second homes with just a few being lived in full-time. The weather is warm and so is the sea and with another coastal park up we swim, do a bit of beach cleaning and enjoy being still.

We had to pick a date for the insurance to start in Turkey so 22nd of November it is, so we slow the pace down as we have 12 nights here. There isn't the history here as in other parts of the country but Kavala proves not only to be a useful stop to see yet another vet to get Poppy her worming tablets done prior to arriving in Turkey but it's old historical centre is charming. It's greatest stake to fame is that Muhammad Ali of Egypt was born here. He was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from a French occupation under Napoleon. Following Napoleon's withdrawal, Muhammad Ali rose to power through a series of political manoeuvres, and in 1805 he was named Wali (viceroy) of Egypt and gained the rank of Pasha, he Is considered the creator of modern Egypt. His Ottoman house in Kavala, now a museum show how life was during the 14th century. The centre also has the beautiful "Imaret" which stands on top of the cities old wall and demands a beautiful view over the town. Imaret is one of a few names used to identify the public soup kitchens built throughout the Ottoman Empire from the 14th to the 19th centuries. These public kitchens were often part of a larger complex known as a Külliye, which could include hospices, mosques, caravanserais and colleges. Now it is not surprisingly a 5 star hotel and my attempt to secure a High Tea fails as the email never leaves my Outbox.

We have one more stop to make in Greece and that is to The Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli Forest National Park and home to The Black Vulture. One of the largest birds of prey which can only be found here now in the Balkans, there are currently 35 pairs of these magnificent birds here full time. We rise early to take the minibus into the park with one of visitor centre workers, on the way in she tells us that yesterday she saw many many birds, ominous!?! As we enter the hide the view through the opening windows is well, empty. In front is a hill where we know from the literature they supplement the birds feeding with carcases from the neighbouring farms which is helping the success story of these birds and all the other birds of prey that come here too, Black Kites, Egyptian Buzzard, Common Buzzard and sometimes White tailed Eagles. Our eyes and hers are peering to the horizon and all of a sudden they are there circling on the thermals not close but via the telescope we have seen them and return to the office happy.

We pack some lunch and head off on foot to climb Gibernet, the sign tells us it's a 3 1/2 hour walk, we take some lunch and head off into the beautiful pine and oak tree woods, the walk easy to start has a real sting as the last hours walking is all up a steep hill but as we ascend the views get better and better. The couple who have been walking in front of us are on their return and tell us we have 15 mins more to the top and we ask how is it, OK they say but we didn't see any bird's. We arrive at the top tired but happy and sit to take in the stunning views and enjoy our lunch. But we are interrupted as directly in front of us are The Vultures about 8 in total taking to the sky rising high on those thermals and one just flies right above our heads he/she is doing nothing out of the ordinary for them but for us this ends a quite extraordinary day at Dadia.

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