A different side to the black sea
Paloma our trusty motorhome is on the cliff edge overlooking the Bulgarian Black Sea, only a few km on from the Romaina boarder in Kapez, Krapets, (N 43.621700 E 28.572290).
A night of R and R, sat looking at the sea, a small slice of heaven, was just what we needed.
As we counted down the last few kilometres to the border, passports, driving licences and v5 at the ready. As we reached it we found ourselves in a huge queue of coaches and lorries with cars whizzing past in the other lane, so I pulled Paloma across and we joined the car lane, going for the we’re dumb English tactic if anyone challenges us – good job too as the coaches and lorry queue was huge and not moving an inch.
At the border our passports were checked by the Romanian guys (the Other window was shut) a lady came out for the customary quick glance, still no body wants to look in the garage and we were waved in. Bentley was fast asleep under the table, but nobody seems to want his passport or if they do spot him they only look at the photo, no chip or scanning.
In Bulgaria we need a vignette for all the roads, so I jumped out and headed over there, a very grumpy man selling them takes one look at Paloma and scribbles down a number, I showed him Palomas V5 and weight to make sure he understood she wasn’t over the magic 3.5t which means you pay loads more, again he points to the scribbles we ask about paying in Lei ( to get rid of them) big sigh and again points to the number written down. – ahh the 8o isn’t euro it’s already in Lei.
At the cashpoint I shoved in my card and was offered the choice of 5, 10, 50, 100 or 400 Lev, I had no idea how much a Lev was but normally at a cashpoint the numbers range from £10 – £500 I opted for 400Lev, assuming that was going to like £500, and not having any cash it would do for a couple weeks but no its only £180, so why would only want 5 Lev….
Next was the huge learning curve of a whole new alphabet,thankfully the main road has signs in both, but I guess it might be a case of matching the picture to the one in the map for the next few days…
Having had a bit of a poo day yesterday, looking for somewhere to stop in our last Romaina spot, and failing, but I’m not sure a stop in the Romaina version of Blackpool on speed was really for us anyway, ( no disrespect to Blackpool but tiny streets with funfairs and circus in them with hundreds of people on the streets, not quite what we have imagined).
We checked out on camper connect the nearest stop across the boarder and it led us here, a small patch of ground in the sublimely peaceful village, next to a restaurant and overlooking the ocean. Ah how I’ve missed the sea, have grown up around it just the sound of crashing waves is enough to but a huge smile on my face.
As we pulled in I checked with the other motorhome on the site if they had stayed overnight. The answer came back as a positive we’ve stayed 3 ! A so a big thumbs up.
We popped into the restaurant to check out how prices compare, things were looking ok with a draught local beer at 2.40 Lev ( just over £1) a few beers later and we had decided that it was going to be a no cooking day so back we went for our evening meal. -must try harder but when eating is this cheap it’s hard to want to cook.
A day spent planning for our trip across the country, using my extra lo-Fi method of post it notes marking out intresting place, so that we can almost just play dot to dot.
The sun shine was a lovely thing, clear blue skies to watch the coming and goings of the fisherman just down the road.
Better still the chef at the restaurant, brought us fresh apricots from his garden and checked we were ok, what a great introduction to this country!
Paul.