15th Ksamil to Drymades via Butrint National Park.

Butrint National Park

Butrint; remains of a roman townhouse and evidence of the rising water table that made them abandon the city

Drymades beach resort

We had been up most of the night using the bathroom so it was touch and go whether we would have to stay in the dump another night but being true fighters ( lol) we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed to Butrint National Park.
The national park houses an acropolis of ancient ruins and is the largest in Albania, the museum was interesting and contained a large amount of relics which had been excavated, some of the large excavated statues had chunks missing, many of these were excavated in the 1930’s so we guessed the shovels used (as photos in the museum also showed) had taken chunks off the excavated pieces.
From Butrint we headed to Drymades beach the drive was extremely hilly which we weren’t expecting so we stopped off for an early dinner before reaching Drymades so we could give Torty a rest. We had spoken about starving ourselves for the day but seeing as we both felt better we thought we would have a lite dinner. The coastal restaurant overlooked a bay and was in a lovely setting, we asked for a menu but the manager said there was no menu (often seems to be the case in Albania) and it was a fish restaurant, we asked how much the fish was and he said 10euros so we said okay. 10 euros is quite expensive for fish by our travelling standards but the location was so nice so we thought we would treat ourselves. When the waiter asked if we wanted potatoes and salad we said yes, the waiter then proceeded to bring out olives, bread, feta, chinese cabbage as well as huge bowl of salad. Cass said maybe the manager misunderstood us but then the waiter brought out chips and a huge fish each. We couldn’t believe the amount of food on the table...so long to starving ourselves! The food was delicious but we got a shock when it came to bill time as every item had been individually charged and even the feta alone was the price of a dinner in our usual restaurants. We handed over 40 euros which seemed a lot but then we thought of the food we had eaten and the location and where we had eaten it and really it was a bargain. Cass joked that Bek had had her birthday dinner three months early.
After driving 3 km’s down a one way dirt track we arrived at Drymades beach, we couldn’t find our proposed campsite and most places were shut. After gazing in each direction Bek entered a brand new complex, the manager told her it would be 40 euros a night (says 50e on the internet) but she haggled over the price and struck a deal at 30 euros a night with breakfast .
The complex had only opened in july so everything was brand new and there were very few others staying. Once we had checked in we went for a walk along the beach and then went for a swim in the sea.

14th Gjirokaster to Ksamil via Blue eye springs

Earthquake? No unauthorised building lol

Blue Eye Spring

Inside the 14th century Citadel

An American spy plane?
When it landed in 1957, the communist regime claimed that the plane was spying on Albania and was forced down, though now it seems that the unlucky pilot simply got lost in bad weather and had to make an emergency landing.

We planned to have breakfast in the hotels restaurant but at 9am they were still shut (Albanians tent to be late risers) so we ventured into Gjiorkaster town instead. When we arrived in the town the place was heaving with people, cars were weaving in and out of traffic and horns were beeping in every direction-the place was crazy. We found parking although the guy charged us 8e for the day which seemed extortionate but with no prices displayed we didn’t know if we were being conned or not, and unfortunately he had the entire parking market tied up...welcome to the Albanian mafia.
The hunt for breakfast was on, many places were open but none were serving food so we had to settle for a liquid breakfast (minus the raki).
We had a walk around Gjirokaster, visited the castle and ate lunch ready for our journey to Blue eye springs. Blue eye springs used to be a favourite holiday spot among the communist elite and we could see the attraction, the spring pumps out 8.3 m3 of water per second, the water is crystal clear with various colours of vegetation and rocks. We had a walk around the spring and had a drink next to the springs which was extremely peaceful and relaxing. Bek wanted to go for a swim though Cass talked her out of putting her bikini on before we saw the spring as Albanians aren’t known for their care of the environment. When we got to the springs dge Bek put her foot in the 10oc water and said “I have swum in the English sea in winter but there is no way I am going in there!”
Later that day we arrived in Ksamil which we thought was going to be a nice seaside resort and where we planned to check into a hotel by the beach (thank god we didn’t book it in advance). Ksamil turned out to be a big dump of a town, numerous buildings had collapsed and many that hadn’t looked like the leaning Tower Of Pisa although people were still living inside. We thought there must have been an earthquake in the town but we used the internet and found out that the government tore down 200 buildings which were illegally erected and then expected the owners to clean the mess away, needless to say that the ruins will still be there in 200 years! We checked into a hotel anyway as we weren’t near to another town and the next day (the plan of laying by the beach for a few days was soon dismissed) we were heading south to a national park where there was no accommodation. At night we went for dinner and had mussels as we had driven past some mussel farms during the day .The food was lovely but we were both unwell afterwards, Bek says it’s put her off mussels for life.

13th Lake Ohrid to Gjirokaster via Barmash pass

Some more quality roads, thank god we werent driving on it when it slid!

Cass thought that Albanians spoke Australian (it really means for sale)

Barmash Pass

Highway 1 Albanian style

Bed shop delivery man

In the morning we checked out of the campsite while the locals were sat in the restaurant having their breakfast of Raki, expresso and cigarettes (oh to be a local in my next life).
The drive to Gjirokaster took us over the Barmash pass which is 1759m high, we took the drive easy and stopped for lunch and coffee in various scenic spots. The drivers in Albania are crazy and they don’t even think twice about overtaking on mountainous blind bends where there are no barriers and sheer cliff drops, lets just say we had a few curt words here and there!
It’s also not uncommon to see roads where landslides have occurred and carried the road with it.
There are no campsites in Gjirokaster so we stayed in a hotel next to a lake just out of town, Bek was excited about the prospect of wallowing in a bath and as soon as we had eaten dinner in the hotel she went to run a bath. The water from the bathroom tap came out green and stank of stagnant water so that idea was soon forgotten.

12th September Lake Ohrid

The lake and some of the 60,000 bunkers

We woke up to sun and a bright blue sky ,Lake Ohrid is 34km long so we felt like we had woken up next to the sea. In the morning we tackled a 5kg pumpkin we had purchased from a roadside vendor the day before, this was a hard task with blunt knives and we narrowly avoided injury but it was worth it as the soup we made was delicious.
At one point we went to test the temperature of the clear water as we were contemplating going for a swim, we put our feet in and were sat relaxing on a step admiring the scenery when a snake came heading towards us. Bek who has a phobia of snakes saw it before Cass and jumped up yelling in a panic, Cass thought Bek had been bitten and in true Aussie style was watching the snake to identify it... that was before Bek grabbed her away lol and no we didn’t go swimming after that and the step we were on turned out to be on top of their nest! Apart from the snake incident the day was very relaxing. The campsite is also home to a trout farm (at least the fish isn’t caught from dynamite fishing which they practise in Albania and far north Australia) and at night we had dinner in the restaurant, we declined the endangered lake Ohrid Koran trout and instead opted for the run of the mill trout, the food was nicely washed down with a bottle of local wine.

11th September Sandanski (Bulgaria) to Lake Ohrid (Albania) via Greece

Some of the 60,000 cement bunkers that the nutso's...I mean communist boofheads put all over the countryside ready for war.

Lake Ohrid

We were woken at 7am by the drunken couple arguing again and at 7.30am we were on our way to Albania. Going through the Bulgarian border into Greece was a breeze and the roads were a joy with very few potholes, the only hiccup for the 400km journey was after stopping in Thessalonki to replenish our supply of Euros we got onto the motorway in the wrong direction lol We crossed into Albania at 3pm which again was hassle free, they didn’t even ask to see any vehicle documents and we wished every border crossing could be the same.
Previously we had read on internet forums etc how Albania has such terrible roads so we were bracing ourselves for the worst but we were pleasantly surprised and they were no worse than Serbia , Romania and Bulgaria.
When we arrived at Lake Ohrid campsite it started to rain, so much for sunning ourselves lake side lol instead we watched a few films and read.

10th September Rila to Sandanski

Rila Monastery among the Rila Mountains

Painted frescoes

We woke early as we were heading to one of Bulgaria’s most popular tourist attractions Rila Monastery and we wanted to beat the crowds, thankfully it wasn’t too crowded as it was off season. The monastery is set among a large courtyard with 300 monks cells and was originally built in 927. Lonely planet were correct this time when they say the murals are Bulgaria’s finest, the nativity church contains 1,200 murals all brightly coloured , we spent an hour or so just sitting and taking in the various painted scenes. From here we headed to Macedonia we went through passport control and Cass was stamped out of Bulgaria (no need for Bek as EU) we then arrived at the Macedonian border control where we asked to purchase vehicle insurance as ours didn’t cover Macedonia. Bek left Cass with the camper and went to arrange the insurance, Bek was in the insurance office for about 30 minutes while the insurance man made various phone calls (seems they aren’t used to campervans) he then said the insurance would be 120 euros for two weeks. We initially decided to bite the bullet to save hassle even though we only planned to be in Macedonia for 4 days, when we went to pay the insurance with a credit card they said they didn’t accept cards and told Bek to get a taxi to the nearest ATM 8KM away and return. We felt we were open to a robbery by doing this and had a change of heart with paying 120e for 4 days so we decided to drive through Greece and enter Albania. This meant we had to drive back through the Bulgarian passport control who looked at us a bit oddly at first and asked if there was a problem in entering Macedonia, when we explained they were understanding and gave Cass another stamp in her passport.
That night we had dinner in another ‘ Happy’ restaurant which was near the Greek border, we slept in the restaurants car park (another night with a baby wipe wash) near to a very loud drunk couple who spent much of the night arguing and drinking Raki before passing out in their car.

9th September Plovdiv to Rila (via Belitsa Bear Park)

It seemed Bek had been talking about seeing wild bears since leaving the UK so when Dave mentioned about a bear sanctuary near Rila Monastery it was obviously added to our list of places to visit...and not just in the hope of shutting Bek up lol The drive to the sanctuary took us through several mountains with lovely scenic views however one of the roads was so badly damaged we had to go into 1st gear to tackle the huge potholes and at times our bottoms felt like they were leaping off our seats . The road was stained with oil patches as the potholes had damaged the underside of vehicles previously driving by. We kept hearing crashing and clanking noises from the back of the camper and were hoping it was only going to be a broken mug as opposed to a broken axle. However we made it through the road unscathed (apart from a sore bottom) and said there’s no way we could get a worse road; we spoke too soon however as not long after we turned off the main road to drive to the bear sanctuary and were faced with an even worse one. The road to the bear sanctuary would have been perfect for someone with a 4x4 who was after a challenging drive but not us with a 2L engine in a laden down camper. At one point we had to slam the gear knob into 1st gear to scale a hill but the camper started rolling backwards and the wheels started skidding, after a few screeches and skipped heartbeats we finally made it to the top. Neither of us were impressed as there was no signage or information on the sanctuary’s website as to how poor the 11km of road would be (we kept saying it cant be this bad the whole way). We had to remind ourselves that we were in Bulgaria and also if people knew how poor the road was then the number of visitors to the sanctuary would be greatly reduced. Anyhow we survived once again unscathed and arrived at The Dancing Bears Park Belitsa which is the largest bear protection centre of its kind in Europe. All the bears had been kept previously as dancing bears by the gypsies many had old burn injuries to their feet as they were made to step on hot coals to make them dance, also many had disfigured noses where rings were tied. The park covers 120,000 square metres and the enclosures mimic the bears natural habitat, it was pleasing to see they now had a much better life than when they were carted around the countryside by the Romanian gypsies.
Later that night we slept in a restaurants car park which advertised as a campsite, we were surrounded by the Pirin and Rila mountains and the restaurant had a large trout farm although there was no shower which we were looking forward to after a sweaty day. Bek went to the bathroom and while sat on the toilet a scorpion entered, being typical English she kept saying how it could have been deadly (cue cass’s rolling eyes as everything is deadly to David Attenborough junior!). We have since googled the Pirin scorpion and no it isn’t deadly it just gives a nasty bite so that pleased Bek... and Cass as she wouldn’t have heard the end of it if it turned out to be deadly lol

8th September Plovdiv

In the morning we were sat having breakfast when Bek turned to Cass and said “guess who’s just arrived “ Cass guessed it in one and turned around to see the German couple with the bright orange plywood caravan. We spent the day exploring Plovdiv which is Bulgaria’s second largest city although it has a laid back feel and is more like a large town. The lanes in the old town are cobbled and full of antique shops which Bek enjoyed exploring but was shocked by the high prices. Throughout the old town there are a dozen traditional homes which can be visited, we went to several as well as the ethnographic museum which was very interesting. The Roman Amplitheatre was impressive and gave a great view of the city although it seems a shame the building is not more protected as many people clamber on the ruins, the entrance path alone means walking on 2,000 year old steps.
At night we had dinner at “happy” restaurant which is a chain of restaurants all over Bulgaria and very popular, Cass had sushi for the first time in months so was happy.

7th September Asenovgrad to Plovdiv

The Asenovograd fortress (well what is left of it anyway!)

We started the day with a trip to the Bachkovo monastery which is Bulgaria’s second largest and dates from the 11th century, many of the frescos were impressive but after leaving we read the guidebook and realised we had missed a church within the monastery. We then visited Asenovgrad fortress which also dates from the 11th century, before we entered the staff asked if we had better footwear to put on as the fortress walls could be slippery and there were no barriers to protect a slip .The fortress sits on the top of a mountain and we were surrounded by sheer drops in every direction so it would have been a big fall, needless to say we took things easy and clung to the inner rocks literally for dear life. From here we drove to Plovdiv and then spent an hour and a half driving around trying to find the campsite which true Bulgarian style was lacking signage! Once again the campsite was populated by prostitutes and their clients and you could rent the bungalows per hour lol

6th September Veliko Tarnovo to Asenovgrad

Cobblestones anyone?

My fav german shepherd ever!

We were sad to say bye to the farms dogs but it was time to move on, we spent much of the afternoon driving before we finally reached the campsite which was once again hidden from the road and not sign posted.

Wednesday 1st – 6th September Vielko Tarnovo (Trinity Rocks Farm)

Right on the rivers edge

Our trusty taxi driver...ummm accountant...ummm builder???

the fortress and the town

fortress

The houses perched on Veilko Tarnovos cliffs

Within the fortress walls

the Main gate of the fortress

Slate covered streets

Tortoise on the farm

When we arrived at the campsite we told Cliff the friendly English owner that we would be staying for two nights; however these two nights turned into six . For the first few nights we were the only guests on the farm although an expat guy named Dave was living on the farm as he was helping Cliffe prepare for the Trinity Farm festival.
Colin a true Scotsman (he even had that tattooed on his arm) was also living on the farm, he was supposed to be carrying out odd jobs in return for free accommodation and food although his practical skills were non existent and Dave said he was taking years off his life every time he picked up a power tool. Colin appeared to be constantly stoned although the only thing he smoked was 60 cigarettes a day, he was probably in shock as a week before he had arrived home to his wife say she didn’t want to be with him anymore and had purchased a plane ticket for him to fly to the UK from their home in Melbourne, Colin thought they had the perfect marriage so maybe that explained his vagueness. (just to clarify he told us all this within 5 minutes of us pulling up to the farmhouse!)
Initially we thought Colin had been on the farm for weeks especially when he made comments like “Dave hates it when I talk about his Gypsy ex girlfriend”, he certainly kept us entertained lol
The farm had a communal lounge and kitchen where we often sat nattering with Cliff, Colin and Dave, they had a list of chores to be carried out in time for the festival and each night we asked them how they were getting on, they said okay but very few things seemed to be getting ticked off it. Cliff was very laid back and also disorganised and on the morning of the festival commencing he was busy digging a trench.
We decided to stay for the festival as we were enjoying staying on the farm and it looked like an interesting line up to Bek and Cass thought the snippets on you-tube sounded okay. It rained on the Saturday of the festival which was a shame as it had been lovely and sunny all week! a lot of ex-pats living in Bulgaria turned up for the festival as well as many of the uni students from Veliko Tarnovo, during the day children from a local orphanage came to listen to the music and enjoy various entertainment.
We both really liked VT, the town had a lot of character as well as a good amount of hustle and bustle due to the large student population. One of the streets is named Ul Gurko and it twists its away along a gorge which is picturesque. Several of the shops off this street were selling designer clothing which seemed out of place for VT but Dave told us the Mafia use these for money laundering. The fortress was also interesting and as usual we were shocked by the lack of health and safety measures, one sign said to ring the local museum in the event of an injury, we said we wouldn’t beat about the bush and would ring straight for an ambulance. There was a church within the fortress which was very unique as all the inner walls were painted in dark colours with modern eerie scenes, again they charged for cameras so we didn’t take any photos.

Tuesday 31st August Kazanlak to Veliko Tarnovo

High visibility driving

Drynaovo Monastery

The region of Kazanlak is called the valley of The Thracian Kings, there are 1500 burial mounds (many can be seen as hills from the road) although only a few have been excavated. We were tempted to hire a bull dozer and kit our ourselves out with a metal detector but figured we were already behind with our schedule so wouldn’t have time lol We visited the 5th Century Kosmatka tomb which was very interesting and contained some of the original burial artefacts.
One of the roads we were due to take from Kosmatka was closed and the detour signs made little sense, we ended up passing a group of workmen 6 times which was quite funny as we were the only vehicle on the road and obviously stood out like a sore thumb. On the 6th time one of the men flagged us down and gave us directions to the Shipka pass which is supposed to be one the best drives in Bulgaria. We reached the top of the pass but the fog was so bad it had reduced visibility to 10 metres so we had to pull over and wait for several hours for it to clear. The fog cleared somewhat but our view of the valley of the roses and the burial mounds remained obscured which was a shame.
Just before we reached the town of Veliko Tarnovo we passed the Dryanovo Monastery which was built surrounded by sheer cliffs in 12th Century and the Bacho Koro Cave (which has evidence of life from 40,000BC) so we pulled in and visited them, Bek was astounded that people had been standing on the stalagmites that had taken millions of years to form and pointed at them in exasperation just as Cass was about to step on them lol
Later that day we arrived at a lovely campsite which was situated on a farm next to a river and owned by an English guy. We were the only guests there but the owner informed us there was going to be a festival on at the weekend.

Monday 30th August Sofia to Kazanlak (via Koprivshitsa)

Koprivshitsa

Needless to say we made a quick exit from the worst campsite ever and made our way to Kazanlak, on the way we stopped off at a mountain village called Koprivshitsa . Koprivshitsa is a traditional quaint village with cobbled stone pedestrian streets. Many of the properties had huge carved wooden gates like in the Maramures region of Romania and several of the more traditional affluent houses had been made into museums so we had a look around a few which was quite interesting. The next stop was another revolution town from 1878 when the ottomans were finally defeated, Klisura had as many monuments as people lol, we went looking for a campsite as the town was marked on our trusty map with a red triangle, but once again we were foiled! So that night we slept in a trucker’s car park and had dinner in their restaurant the food was surprisingly tasty and the portions were typical trucker size, Bek said we should eat in more trucker restaurants in future!

Sunday 29th August Sofia

Aleksander Nevski Church

Fountain in front of the Museum of Culture

We spent the day exploring Sofia which included walking around several markets, the second hand market had some interesting antiques but the prices were very steep. For lunch we ate a buffet in a nice organic vegetarian café which cost the equivalent of 3.5 euros each. Both of us ordered jasmine tea , Cass was busy picking bits of the jasmine out of her teeth and mouth it was only when Bek went to drink her tea that she realised Cass hadn’t removed her strainer from the mug lol. We also visited the huge Russian style Aleksander Nevski church. Like many attractions in Eastern Europe they charged for the use of a camera and as always we declined. Inside the church there were huge brass chandeliers as well as ornate marble structures.
At night we returned to our decrepit 1960’s communist style campsite where most of the buildings had been demolished and those that hadn’t were being used for prostitution. The prostitutes were outside the campsite on the highway and were picking men up on a rotation basis. The bathroom didn’t have a lock and it was generally foul, the tiles were broken, the place filthy, there was no shower head, the toilet didn’t flush and there were slugs and earwigs crawling on the floor.

Saturday 28th August Calafat (Romania) to Sofia via Belogradchik (Bulgaria)

Belogradchik

The ferry border crossing between Calafat and Vidin (in Bulgaria) has to be the most expensive we have ever encountered. They charged us 5 euros to drive into the port area, 11 euros to drive into the ferry area and 52 euros to catch the ferry 1.6km…a crossing we would certainly not recommend to anyone! They wouldn’t even accept card payment and we had spent all of our Romanian money but luckily we managed to just scrape the barrel by negotiating part payment with US dollars which they seemed displeased with. We also had problems at passport control as they hadn’t stamped Cass’s passport when we initially entered Romania (Bek didn’t require a stamp because of her EU passport). To top it off when we arrived in Bulgaria we had to purchase a car tax and also make some other payment , we don’t have a clue what it was for as they didn’t speak English and were now back to the impossible Cyrillic lettering! They wouldn’t accept card payment and we had spent all of our Euros on the ferry crossing so we had to drive to a bank and return to make the payments. After all the palaver (which included a three hour wait for the ferry) we were exhausted but finally arrived at Belogradchik which is an old Roman fortress wall from 3rd century BC with weird rocks formations.
We decided to free camp that night as there were no campsites nearby, we picked a good spot away from the road at the base of a large mountain. At 10.30pm we were just dozing off when we were woken by flashing blue lights and someone knocking on the door yelling “open up”. Yes you guessed it an angry Mr Plod was outside and told us to move on, we were told to drive to a petrol stations carpark where we could sleep for the night... What a welcome to Bulgaria !
We ended up sleeping the night surrounded by trucks in a lorry driver’s carpark 10km from Sofia.

Friday 27th August Brasov to Calafat

Arges Valley

Arges Valley

We checked out of the hotel and then headed for the border/ferry crossing to enter Bulgaria. The drive took us above the Arges Valley through some spectacular scenery, due to the mountainous twist and turns we had to drive slow which meant we spent most of the day driving. That night we slept in a lay by next to a main road, the van shook each time a truck passed us so we were rocked to sleep lol

Tuesday 24th-27th August Brasov to Poiana Brasov

Brasov by night

Brasov square

Brasov Hollywood sign

The room

Breakfast

Having slept for nearly three months in the campervan we were craving a proper bed so Bek checked us into a hotel for Cass’s birthday present. The hotel was a boutique hotel with only 9 rooms all of which were decorated differently. Our room had a balcony with a view of the mountains plus a large walk in bath which was set in the floor and took two hours to fill. We still maintained the traveller mentality at the breakfast buffet and stuffed our pockets full with fruit, sugar sachets and posh tea bags as well as eating enough for four people so we wouldn’t need lunch.
Brasov was a nice little town and we had to laugh at the faux-Hollywood Brasov sign which was displayed on the hills. We had grown tired of eating the same type of food while in Romania so for Cass’s birthday we went to a Mexican restaurant and the day before we had a Chinese meal on the square.This type of food wasn’t readily available elsewhere in Romania.