Day 158: Burgas to Malkin Tarnovo

Back in Europe

We’re in Europe at last. It felt quite dramatic to set foot on Bulgarian soil and know we can now ride all the way to the English Channel.

We only get to stay one day in Bulgaria as we head south into Turkey, and it looked like we had chosen a drizzly day as we waited on the boat for customs to say they were ready for us. However, the rain stopped and we didn’t see it again all day.

Heading through Customs in Burgas

The first order of business was to find a Bulgarian courtesy flag to fly on our bikes. Normally we can wait a few days to find this - but with only one day in the country, we had to get on with this quickly. The only city we were going to see was Burgas, the port we were landing in, so we headed the wrong way back into the town and started searching.

With a fair bit of hand waving and miming we were sent from shop to shop until we were directed to a souvenir shop who had just the thing.

Now with flags to fly, the second order of business was coffee. It seems crossing the line into Europe signals the start of cafés that sell coffee and nice pastries. Georgia did in Tbilisi, but elsewhere we were less successful, here they seem to be taking more cues from Italy and Germany. They are even in the EU. Clever them.

Roadside veggies and mile upon mile of rolling agricultural fields

The road was good, gradually climbing towards the hills of the border. We started with agricultural land - first wheat and potatoes, then vineyards and fruit trees, before we headed into dense oak forests. Some of the forest looked dense and ancient and we saw signs there were some pretty ancient inhabitants.

Boar still wander the forests

Eventually we arrived at our destination, a large hotel that looked like it had just been refurbished and was almost completely empty. Yet again, we were the only diners in a restaurant built for 200 or so people.

Our hotel - the “Goat Horn Motel”

A restaurant to ourselves

Tomorrow, Turkey.