There was one other couple staying there, Margaret and Barry, retired lecturers from Huddersfield, who have been on the road with their camper van for 14 years! And we thought we were adventurous! They have an excellent website about their travels with all sorts of useful tips and information for long-term travellers. Their trips include a 12,000 mile round the world cycle ride! Read about them at www.magbaztravels.com
While we were at Sakar Hills John was able to give the caravan a good wash. It had become embarrassingly dirty after all our travels. Most campsites don't allow this, but Martin was happy to oblige with a hosepipe and brush, and John spent a couple of hours restoring our little home on wheels to gleaming whiteness.
Although we had been a bit dubious about going through Bulgaria it proved a lot pleasanter than expected. The local people we met were very friendly, the cost of living is cheap and there are an enormous number of archaeological sites worth seeing. So we think we would like to go back one day, and would certainly return to the Sakar Hills site if we could. But in the meantime, Greece was beckoning, so we headed for our next stop, Alexandroupoli.
At last, after 2538 miles and 37 days of meandering since leaving the Baltic, we finally saw the sea again on 17 September. The Aegean at its North East corner is not its best side, but nevertheless it was a joy to see. Alexandroupoli is the first major town you come to in Greece after crossing the border (which at the point we crossed was Bulgaria Greece and Turkey) and we headed for the "demotiki" campsite( it sounds much better in Greek than "municipal" does in English). This excellent site, Alexandroupolis Beach,has spacious pitches with a hardstanding area for the van and a large grassy area with plenty of room for the awning, the car, and space to sit and relax. The shower blocks are clean and have plenty of hot water. As the holiday season had finished the shop and restaurant were closed, but there were still enough people staying on the site to make it interesting.It's right on the beach and we were longing to swim in the clean, warm sea. However we couldn't enjoy a swim for almost a week as the heavens opened soon after we arrived, and then there were other things to do! Alexandroupoli is a very pleasant port,though not a holiday resort as such - in fact I doubt they get many British visitors.But there are plenty of inviting tavernas, restaurants and bars along the sea front, a good range of shops, and a huge weekly market by the harbour.
Off the coast just opposite us here is Samothraki, an island only 12 miles long but rising to over 5,000 ft. Every day we had a different view of it, depending on the weather. On a clear day it was impressive, on a dull day it disappeared completely. Our favourite was on the stormy days, when it wore the cloud like a low slung hat.
When we were leaving Prague, all those weeks ago, the motor mover on our caravan packed in. It was under warranty, but the nearest dealer was in Slovenia, which would have involved a huge detour. A very nice service mechanic at Reich talked me through how to remove and repair the mover (whilst we were on the cable car in the Tatras as it happens), but when I did this and reported back to him he had to confirm that it was b****d and would have to be replaced. A new motor would be dispatched and be with us in a couple of days, where should he send it? Well, being of no fixed abode, we decided to leave it until we were in a place where we could sit and wait. Now we were in Greece, in more favourable conditions, we could send for it. A phone call, an e-mail, and the replacement motor was despatched. A week later it had not turned up, and after many phone calls we found that it had got stuck in a Greek border guards/customs officer strike. Frustrating? Just a bit. We were left in Alex, ice cold (given the unseasonably cool weather), waiting for Godot.
We had a day out to the Evros Delta, a wetland reservation on the borders of Greece and Turkey, but failed to spot any birds of interest, in spite of miles of dirt road driving. The river Evros, incidentally, forms the border between the two countries and is known in classical literature as the Hebrus, down which Orpheus's head floated after the Maenads had torn him apart.(Lesley believes you are all au fait with Milton's "Lycidas", but I am not so sure). Of course the Evros Delta is not to be confused with the Ebro Delta, which we reached in Spain some time later. What we did see was an amazing ruin, in the middle of a field, of Roman baths built by the emperor Trajan (not with his own hands, presumably), in incredible condition in spite of its obvious neglect. This is something we were to find all over Greece. They obviously have so many ruins they can't afford to maintain any but the most important.
Athough Alexandroupoli was a lovely town, its attractions were beginning to grow thin and Lesley was getting too attached to the campsite cats and kittens, so we decided to move on, then slip back for the mover when it arrived. We therefore set off on 27 September to move further along the coast to Kavala.
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Alexandroúpolis, Thrace, Greece Monday, September 22, 2008
It was raining next morning when we left Vampire Camping. In fact this is only the second time we've had to pack up in the rain, which isn't bad! We continued south towards Bucharest. We'd been advised against entering this evil city of crime, sin and 200,000 stray dogs by the Vampire Campsite owner, so our plans were to camp overnight just north of the city at the only campsite in the Bucharest area, then take the ring road to the south. The campsite, Casa Alba, was one of the strangest ones we have stayed in so far. It's a little village of wooden chalets in a forest by the airport, with room for tents under the trees but no pitches as such. However caravans can park in the central square under a giant oak tree. The wind and rain overnight meant that we were bombarded with acorns all night long. They make a rather loud and serious-sounding noise hitting a fibreglass caravan roof. As the Alan Rogers campsite guide had warned, there were a number of dodgy-looking youths hanging around the site, and the toilet block had several hospital beds in it, which added a mysterious and rather sinister note. The inevitable stray dogs barked all night, adding to the general cacophony of rain and falling acorns.
Next morning we asked for directions to the ring road and were told that as it was Sunday there would be no traffic in Bucharest and we should go through the centre. This we did, seeing the huge communist -inspired central government buildings and finally the Palatul Parliamentuliu, the palace Ceausescu built for himself and currently the world's second largest building after the Pentagon. (incidentally the sudden deterioration in the weather continued. It was only 9 degrees C in Bucharest, as if it had suddenly gone from summer to winter!)
We found our way out of the city southwards more by luck than anything. We have since met two couples who ended up paying a taxi driver to lead them out! The road south to the border town of Giurgiu (we never did find out how to pronounce it), was reasonably good by Romanian standards, although still passing through poor villages lined with people selling their wares. At Giurgiu, which is a port on the Danube and the main border crossing to Bulgaria, we looked in vain for a signpost to Bulgaria or even to Russe (the Bulgarian town over the river.) Eventually we found a little side road which led through wasteland to a huge border control on the Romanian side. Here we had to part with 10 Euros for the toll bridge (this replaces the old "disinfection" tax which had to be paid at the border), then drove on through more wasteland and over a rickety old bridge to Bulgaria.
Bulgaria greeted us with apartment blocks which were even more decrepit than those in Romania, which we found hard to believe. However after the first 10 miles or so, mainly road works, we were on a beautifully engineered smooth highway through very pleasant rolling countryside.
We were heading for a campsite called Trinity Rocks, near Veliko Tarnovo, which is owned by an English couple and has an excellent website. What we found when we got there was not quite as the website described. Unfortunately none of the campsite guides cover Bulgaria, so while we were in Vampire Camping John had made use of their internet facilities to do some research, and had come up with 2 suitable sites, both owned by ex-pat Brits. Trinity Rocks struck us as a work in progress, rather ramshackle but with the potential to be very nice. It seemed to be an old pig farm with a number of outbuildings in various stages of refurbishment, and a flat grassy area by a river for camping. The owner jury-rigged an electric hook-up for us, which gave John an electric shock, but there was a shower and toilet and washing-up area, and as it was just for an overnight stop it was adequate.(N.B. This was in 2008 - apparently the work in progress is now completed and the result looks very good.)
After lunch we drove into the nearest town, Veliko Tarnovo, an interesting old place with houses spilling down the steep banks of the river which snakes its way through a gorge at this point. In the 12th century Veliko was the capital of Bulgaria, and has a huge ruined citadel dating from that period (although there are also traces of occupation by Thracians, Romans and Byzantines.) We spent an hour or so clambering around in the ruins and only saw a fraction of it. Unfortunately the weather was still cool and drizzly, so we headed back for the campsite and sausage and mash.
We left Trinity Rocks next morning and had a nightmare journey over the Shipka Pass. It was a good road, and in fine weather the views would have been amazing, but low cloud meant visibility was almost zero, which is a bit worrying when negotiating hairpin bends with a constant stream of heavy lorries coming in the opposite direction! We finally emerged onto the plain and found a petrol station where we had a much-needed coffee. Things were fine for a while but the final hour or so of the journey was another nightmare as the road surface deteriorated drastically. We drove through a largish town called Simeonovgrad which was entirely cobbled - and badly-maintained cobbles at that. We were afraid the caravan would shake to pieces! Luckily the campsite that awaited us was excellent - Sakar Hills, near the village of Biser. It's been built from scratch by an English couple, Martin and Shirley, to English standards. They and their son, Matt, were extremely pleasant and helpful and we decided to stay an extra day to unwind. The weather was warm once again and, best of all, there were four delightful kittens who entertained us with their antics.