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London - Istanbul. Is Bulgaria best avoided? London - Istanbul. Is Bulgaria best avoided?
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  #1  
Old 31 Oct 2010
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Bulgaria is now EU ... so if you come via EU countries there are minimal border facilites until the Turkish border. You should face the same border issues at the Turkish border whether you come from Greece or Bulgaria.

Greece is in Schengen (Bulgaria is not) so a trip via Italy and Igoumenitsa allows you to take a completely border free ride and use the very impressive (and as yet no tolls) Via Egnatia ... a 7 billion euro motorway from Igoumenitsa all the way to the Turkish border (they have finished the motorway but not the toll booths yet).

In the last 18 months I have crossed borders from Turkey to Greece, Macedonia to Bulgaria, Bulgaria to Romania, and not had any problems at any of them.

There will always be queues of trucks at any Turkish border with the EU ... which means either Greece or Bulgaria. So you will need to just skirt around the mile long queue of trucks and get your car to the front. If you dont, and decided to sit in line behind the trucks, then bring a cut lunch or 3
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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Originally Posted by colebatch View Post
Bulgaria is now EU ... so if you come via EU countries there are minimal border facilites until the Turkish border.

I echo Colebatch at 100%.

This summer I and my girlfriend passed thru Bulgaria twice while going and returning from the Caucasus republics (we went there by motorcycle).
It took us about 2 minutes to enter the Country each time (we are Italian citizen, so we hold EU passports).

We rode the route that passes through Serbia, but I don't think that the border formatilies are much different from Greece...
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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Inland from the Black sea Bulgaria has some of the least visit parts of all of the region. The only thing is that even though Bulgaria is part of the EU the roads aren't so crash hot. Once you're off the main roads (near the capital Sofia, or near the boarders) then there are a lot of potholes and the signage if unreliable and illegible because of the cyrillic alphabet.

We enjoyed Bulgaria, Sofia for it's ecelectic mix of people with very bizarre fashion to the small villages where no one spoke a word of English, French or Norwegian (those are our languages). Not since Asia did we feel like we had no idea where we were or where we were going. We got hopelessly lost a couple of times but it was all good fun. Just mind the bears. Aparently there are still bears in Bulgaria, not that we saw any.

Arguably with the exception of the Rila Monastery (simply amazing) the most touristy areas are Sofia and the Black sea coast. Avoiding these and you're sure to have an authentic experience.

Enjoy!
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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Hi I am from Romania and I can also say that crossing Bulgaria is not difficult nor dangerous if you use common sense and avoid doing things that could get you in trouble.

Last time I was there I did encountered quite a lot of Police hunting for speeding (but I was driving a well used road by foreigners).
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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The Cyrillic alphabet is neither unreliable nor illegible. You just need to get used to substituting certain letters for others--Our S becomes their C, our R becomes their P, etc. Crucial words become instantly recognizable (bank, hotel), and signs for cities or attractions become less bizarre once you get over the "I can't understand anything" hurdle.

Nice country, full of interest and contradiction and difficulty--just like mine, the USA.

Mark

Edit to add: oh yeh, lots of radar speed traps. Go slow.
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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+1 for Bulgaria
Just want to put in another good word for Bulgaria. My wife and I rode from the UK down to Istanbul as part of our RTW in May this year. We didn't have the slightest hint of a problem and found the Bulgarians to be really friendly. Certainly nothing to give a second thought to.

We missed out on Serbia as didn't have a green card and didn't really fancy paying 150 Euros each for insurance and ended up going down through Albania which we some had advised against but again, had an absolutley brilliant time and found the people to be incredibly friendly.

The only problems within Europe we've heard about from other travellers (if at all) we've bumped into since have been regarding Serbia.

Either way, Bulgaria's a great country and you've nothing to worry about.
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Old 4 Nov 2010
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Originally Posted by markharf View Post
The Cyrillic alphabet is neither unreliable nor illegible. You just need to get used to substituting certain letters for others--Our S becomes their C, our R becomes their P, etc. Crucial words become instantly recognizable (bank, hotel), and signs for cities or attractions become less bizarre once you get over the "I can't understand anything" hurdle.

Right, this is also my experience!

Once you get used to replace some letters, every word is much easier to understand.
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