Bulgaria

At long last I get to catch up on the trip to Preveza from Lake Bled.
We had an overnight stop in Serbia in a luxurious rest stop. The waiter was helpful, showing us where to park close to the kitchen, which was manned all night and by CCTV. He also gave us an insight into Serbian views of the UK, the TV apparently makes it out to be dangerous with guns and knives everywhere.

We headed into Bulgaria with some excitement at a new country and was looking forward to a mountain stop and a bit of hiking.

Quickly we came to realise that there is one word to describe Bulgaria, “derelict”. It’s a really sad country. We could not believe how many empty and abandoned properties there are. I looked it up and in the towns there are 25% of houses and buildings abandoned; in the rural areas it’s 42% and in Sofia the capital is nearly 50%. Economics, politics and depopulation are the main factors behind it. The roads are also atrocious. We came this way on recommendation that the road was better than Albania and North Macedonia. I don’t know which route they took but it certainly wasn’t our experience. The roads make the UK’s look good!!

The campsite was great, took about 60 and there were 6 of us. The site was in the grounds of what must have been a huge house, now derelict. Brand new reception/laundry/washroom facility, good pitches with EHU and water, and 3 swimming pools all feed by the natural thermal spring waters. The temperature in the pool was 34 deg and the jacuzzi was too hot to get into.

As the hiking trails had been closed due to snow and ice we had a day by the pool and opted to walk and visit the Rita Monastery on the way to Greece, with the proviso that if we saw something inviting we may stay a little longer.

The monastery was interesting and very colourful but no more than an hour and the walking was not that great. We were not impressed with Bulgaria, and unless we have missed something or somewhere, it’s not high on our repeat list.
We did enjoy what we saw and came away feeling it was a very sad country, and felt for the people there.

Gary was in non stop mode by now so we had a long day and arrived at the Ioannia Campsite we had stayed at before when we broke down last year on the way back. We didn’t even go to a pitch we were so late, instead parked in the car park. Woke early, headed for Ikea and the supermarket to get supplies and then onto Preveza and Aktio boatyard.もっと詳しく