1 Motorhome, 2 Lads, 1 massive trip: 12th October

Sunday 12th October

I thought for a second that arriving in Greece meant I was quite far from home and far from the normality of the UK, but after a quick impromptu glance at a world atlas I realised I haven’t even scratched the surface of this Earth - I’m still only an inch and a half from home. I can assure you it feels a lot further than that.

From Varna, on the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria, we made visits to Velicko Turnovo (pictured left and below), Kazanluk and finally Plovdiv over the space of 5 days. The roads have been long and in most parts quite shockingly poor quality, many with pot holes so big you could get lost in. You’re charged 5 Euros for the “Road Maintenance Fund” upon crossing the border into Bulgaria, and my brother tells me it was the same when he visited 2 years ago, but we came to the conclusion that none of the money charged has ever made it close to the roads - or if it has then it’s being spent on signs that keep telling you they’re charging you for the privilege of experiencing such delightful strips of tarmac. On one occasion we went over a bump in the road large enough to take both of us out of our seats (and most of our belongings out of their cupboards), but not big enough to notice evidently.

Our last few days in Bulgaria were pleasant but uneventful, and we were keen to get to Greece not only because we’d spent a week in Bulgaria which meant our “Road Maintenance Fund” payment had expired, but we’d also heard that the sun was out across the border, which we hadn’t seen that properly since Southern France. We were getting withdrawal symptoms.

The Greek border crossing was muted in the evening, hardly a soul about, and we were an obvious nuisance to the lone worker who - can you believe it? - had to end his personal phone conversation to check our passports. What a terrible inconvenience we caused, how dare we? “If it wouldn’t be so much bother, here are our passports, Sir. We’d like to cross the border please, if we’re not being too much of a pain” was what we should have said, but of course we just smiled at the gormless face which stared back angrily until it grunted us through the gates. He clearly didn’t want to be there, or us either for that matter, so we promised him we’d never bother him again, apologised and moved on.

We’d just spent a good 5 hours driving south from Plovdiv, getting lost in a small town called Velingrad in the process. We were tired and it was late, so we parked in the first place we could find which happened to be a Lidl’s car park. We were only a few miles into Greece so we hadn’t missed much by driving at night - we’d wake up to it the next morning. The town we were parked in (which we later learnt was called Promachonas) was sleepy the next morning, and only a small selection of cars joined us in the supermarket. We didn’t hang around long, and made the journey down the E79 motorway to our first Greek coastal town of Salonika (Thessalonika). We’ve decided to use the toll motorways in Greece (our aim to avoid them throughout the whole 6 months has failed, boo!) because we only have 7 days until our ferry leaves Igoumenitsa to Brindisi on the East Coast of Italy, so we don’t have time to be getting lost on smaller roads, or getting stuck in 10ft deep pot holes which seem to be the norm in Eastern Europe. It’s a shame we can’t take it easier on the single carriageways, but after 3 months of them, driving on the motorways will make a nice change for a little while.

Salonika is a busy city, a very busy city indeed. We were stuck in traffic for what seemed like hours but was probably only around 20 minutes in reality, before we found a parking spot on the side of one of the main roads in town. We weren’t planning on staying the night, only a day visit, so we could afford to park the Motorhome on an angle and half way up a curb. It was a little abandoned, but that’s the price you have to pay if you want to see the big cities sometimes! The town centre itself seemed just as popular with people as the roads are with vehicles, and it was only 2pm on a Friday afternoon. The markets were doing brisk trade, the bars were full and the thousands of students were doing as students do best and sat around doing next to nothing.

The widely regarded symbol of the city, the White Tower (pictured), stands on the docks and looks impressive in the sunshine. It was once used to guard the east end of the city’s walls (many of which still remain) and it was even used as a prison, which is how it got it’s name as one of the inmates white washed the tower in return for his freedom. Unfortunately, like most historical buildings these days, the tower is now an overly priced tourist attraction, thus totally ruining the image of the structure.

We took the E75 South, towards Athens, ending up in a small village just shy of Agria and about 15 kilometres from Volos. This is our second night in Campsite Hellas (not just popular for it’s very original name) and costs 18.50 Euros a night with electricity and wireless internet. I decided to take my laptop down to the Campsites private beach - yes it has one - and write this blog. There really is something quite enchanting about sitting alone on a beach at night time. It captures the imagination. It’s calming. It was a warm evening, and the only sounds were the gentle waves crashing onto the pebbles, it was most enjoyable. As I sat there I thought that life doesn’t get much sweeter than this, and then it started to rain - further proof that I'm not as far away from Britain as I first thought!