Hello everyone
Well the Transfăgărăşan Pass was high and twisty and the
road condition was thankfully fair – except where the road had crumbled at the
edges with little warning!
From there we headed to Bran to visit the castle – a small
but pretty castle made infamous with its associations to Dracula (incredibly
tenuous, but it attracts the tourists). We stayed on the town’s only campsite –
Vampire Camping! Neighbouring Peles Castle was a much more palatial affair, set
in lush greenery high up on a hill.
We’d discussed whether to visit Bucharest as the only place we
wanted to see was the immense Palace of Parliament. In the end, we camped at
the city camp 12km out of town and drove into the centre and past the Palace.
Bucharest is charmless and decrepit, whereas the Palace is an immense building of
apparent excess with 15 floors (5 underground) covering an area of 82 acres
with approx. 10% still unfinished.
Our route out of Romania continued on the odd theme – we entered
what looked like a lorry park, paid 3€ to cross the River Danube via a somewhat
rickety-looking bridge and entered Bulgaria, where again our passports were
heavily scrutinized. We bought our road tax vignette and drove on.
Bulgaria felt more familiar. We drove south-east through
miles of agricultural land (mainly corn and sunflowers) and visited the Stone
Forest just outside Varna. This forest is thought to have been formed by chalky
deposits and consists of tree stump-like stone structures – it also has its own
mini-Stonehenge-type ‘Circle of Wishes’.
We’ve been wild-camping on the beach just outside Sozopol on
the Black Sea coast for 3 days, and have enjoyed some beach R&R. We’ll head
off tomorrow towards Turkey and Istanbul.
Will post again next week - love to all
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