Cyprus to England Part 5

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SATURDAY 9 OCTOBER - Part 5

Mileage 30446 - 387 miles yesterday - 1054 overall

Alarm set for 0645 hours.

Pat had cereal and I had boiled eggs and for breakfast and it was buffet style.

I checked out of the hotel and they had missed the drinks at the bar last night, so I had a further 10 YTL to pay.

7°C on the car. We left the hotel at 0758 hours.

We found our way to the Turkey/Bulgaria border in no time and went through fairly quickly, showing our Passports.

At the Bulgarian side we again showed our passports and they took a quick look into the car, but no big deal.

We had to purchase a Vignette (Road Tax) which cost €10 for 7 days. You display this in your car window to make you legal to drive on the motorways.

We were into Bulgaria by 0910 hours.

We spotted a storks nest on a street light, not long into Bulgaria, and also noted that there were churchs as opposed to mosque’s. We also noticed two police cars, …trying to catch people without a vignette??

We changed drivers to me at 0930 and Pat at 1100.

Horse and carts were a familiar sight along the roads, which weren’t good. Most roads went through the towns and signposting wasn’t brilliant. I think we got lost in every town in Bulgaria.

In one place I saw a lady rummaging through a large waste bin!

At 1100 we were heading towards a town called Stara Zagora.

In the distance we saw snow on the mountains and managed to get lost in Kazanlak.

I took over driving again and we went past a fairytale view of some gold domes on a church in a place called Shipka. Very pretty and very Disneyesque.

We then drove past snow and the temperature on the car went to 2°C.

A lovely nice new road up the mountain and an old one on the way down.

We stopped and took a comfort break, Pat took over driving again at 1320 hours.

At 1400 we were nearing Valiko Tarnovo.

Off to the left in the fields I spotted two deer as we were driving along.

At 1435 we were through Valiko Tarnovo.

We were now heading for Pyce (pronounced Rousse).

We took a wrong turn but eventually found our way.

Just as we reached the area around Pyce (Rousse) the road closed and sent us on a diversion, which was only single carriageway.

At the border things seemed very poor still.

At Pyce there were signs for Bucharest.

We stopped for petrol at a garage with Visa signs, got €50 worth but no cards worked, paid in cash, receipt says 90.03 BGN. Had some coffee from a vending machine €1, which the lady changed the right money for, and didn’t charge Pat to use the facilities, even though the sign indicated a 50c charge.

At the border passports are checked and there is effectively no fee apart from the fee to use the Bridge over the Danube which is the border. The bridge was built between 1952 - 54, single carriageway each way and badly in need of repair, major potholes all over the place. The fee is €6 and you get a really big receipt for your payment! We crossed at 1456 hours.

At Romanian customs we showed passports and straight through with no problem.

At a garage just over the border we purchased another vignette which was 12.82 RON, €3, but of course the garage charges €5. This is only a piece of paper, but they needed car documents before they would register the payment. A nice guy let me back in the queue, after I went back to the car to get the document. The time was 1622 hours.

It was raining again and we drove on towards Bucharest, looking for an hotel. We followed the ring road in the direction we would be taking the next day. On the way out and around the city we found Sunset Hotel, which looked alright.

Went in and the receptionist spoke good English, his son lives in Cardiff and it was approximately €60 for the night.

We registered got our bags from the car and were in the room by 1800. Big rooms.

We had a quick drink, a local beer called Ursus and a coke light.

We went straight to dinner which was really noisy as there was a party going on. Not sure what they were celebrating, but we became familiar with the Romanian equivalent of the birdie song, and several other local favourites which the ladies all knew the dance steps to.

At dinner we met a British guy from Liverpool, Neal, currently living in Edinburgh who grew up in the same area as Pat was born, Aintree. He was in Romania for three weeks doing contract work as a computer engineer.

Another coke light, a glass of wine, two bottles of water, with Chicken a la greque, Beef soup, Pork Chop and Chicken skewers. We paid €18.

We were back up to the room by 2045 hours.

A hard days driving on awful roads had kept our overall speed down.

Well, that was Saturday, and two more countries added to the list of those visited in my life.

We texted our friend Tim to advise him of our progress as we were due to be staying with him in England.

Overnight there was noise from the party and shouting outside the Hotel, but we had a reasonable nights sleep.

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Photos

Shipka
Beautiful church