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Published: July 22nd 2008
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Hi everyone we are pleased to report that Bert, our 30 year old Bedford camper van has now made it past Istanbul :-)
Since our last post in Greece, we did a big push east, and including one last day on the med, we rolled into Istanbul to look for a camping ground. The Turkish driving skills were similar to the Greeks, except a lot more angry and aggressive. In particular, Sandra had both a driver and a passenger honking, shouting, gesturing and eventually throwing an empty water bottle at us, all for driving in the fast lane at only 20 km above the speed limit (but apparently still too slow).
Looking for somewhere to stay was a pretty interesting experience as all 3 of Istanbul's camping grounds have now closed down! We ended up staying at one of these which was still kind of taking campers but which had subsequently been converted into a go-kart track and indoor soccer facilities. Thankfully we weren't too badly off in our camper van compared to our neighbours - a French family in a tent put up on the concrete.
We had a great time in Istanbul and really enjoyed the
change of culture, especially hearing the call to prayer coming from the mosques at all hours of the day and night. We toured the central city sights, taking in tiled mosques (especially the blue mosque - photos attached), and the Byzantium church of St Sophia as well as Roman mosaics and the old city water supply cistern built to survive a prolonged siege. We also had a nice walk outside the tourist areas along the river bank in some busy Sunday afternoon crowds sampling river fish kebabs while avoiding the locals swinging their fishing lines into the Bosphours.
After a couple of days in Istanbul we started on the return run back to London, and headed for the Bulgarian border. This turned out to be a fairly stressful experience as after we stopped to visit the duty free shop inside the Turkish side of the border, Bert decided that he would have a flat battery. None of the locals we asked were carrying jumper leads so we ended up finding a use for tour groups - push starting Bert :-)
We then got stuck in a rather long and stationary queue and were in danger of overheating the
engine as we wanted to make sure the battery was charged up. Eventually we had to turn the engine off as nothing was moving, and then decided to push him forward as the queue slowly moved towards the exit to Turkey to save the battery and cool the engine down - this must have looked interesting to those in the queue behind us but thankfully we were hidden from the Bulgarians seeing us pushing our van towards their country. Thankfully the queue started moving steadily so we started up, but had to turn the heater on to dump some heat off the idling engine. When we eventually reached the Bulgarian side of the border we must have looked very hot, sweaty and stressed as we were the only vehicle we saw being searched by customs.....
After the border crossing things have looked up for us as we found the price of petrol in Bulgaria had dropped by a third and the price of food and accommodation had been cut in half. Our first stop in Bulgaria was Plodiv, an important Roman town in it's time. It has a really well preserved theatre (probably because they won't let any tourist
into it and keep it locked up for performances) that you could see through the fence. The old city also has some well preserved examples of 19th century Bulgarian architecture and some other old and graffitied Greek ruins where the local kids go to drink.
Bulgarian camping is not the experience you have in western Europe, as most campgrounds consist of a small plot for tents and a number of run down bungalows/cabins which are almost as cheap as the tent plots, but have a private bathroom and beds. We have now converted to the bungalow lifestyle although some of them are quite grotty and certainly remind you that you are in Eastern Europe. This is preferable to the tenting as there are no toilet/shower blocks and you have to run and get a key to an empty bungalow to use the bathroom.
Next on our tour was Sofia, the capital which surprisingly has very little in it of interest. We have attached some photos of the large local church which seems to be the main draw card but otherwise there was not much going on in town.
We did however really enjoy our day trip out
of Sofia to the Monastery at Rila. This place was nestled in the hills, with the accommodation floors forming a courtyard which enclosed a heavily decorated Byzantium church. The murals on the outside of this were particularly interesting, giving illustrated examples of what the devil and his demons could do to you if you weren't careful.
Our last stop in Bulgaria was Veliko Tarnovo, the medieval capital of the independent Bulgarian state. This place provided a good stopping point before hitting the border into Romania, but unfortunately the local castle ruins were not that flash (photos attached).
We are presently in Romania, where we will spend the next few days or a week checking out Bucharest, Transylvania and other areas in Romania on the way towards Hungry. This time around the border crossing went extremely smoothly with no long waits and no flat battery in the van :-) Thankfully the heat of the med has dropped back and we are much more comfortable these days, not having warm drinking water turning up in the van (or the backpack) by midday.
More from us next time once we have had a chance to visit Dracula's stomping grounds.
S&S
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