Bulgarian Black Sea

After the coastal experiences in Romania we we're hopeful that it couldn't get worse in Bulgaria. Firstly we were pleasantly surprised by the easy border crossing. Some fellow travellers had warned us of several hour delays and dodgy taxes to be paid but it seems that EU membership has had some positive effects on the border. The border post is now a set of abandoned buildings with a sleepy border guard to wave you past! Someone was there to collect our road tax but not even a exchange both was available.

Near deserted Romania-Bulgaria border post

Our first coastal stops weren't promising and we quickly moved on as the temperature was rising into the 30's and we were in need of some actual swim-able beaches. Fortunately we'd been recommended a spot by Kim and James and so headed to Albena which in fact turned out to be a relatively famous Communist era beach resort. At first we had our doubts, but the concrete architecture wasn't too bad and peppered with relatively tasteful low rise buildings near to the beach. Being there really did feel like a bit of a holiday away from our holiday, everything was very cheap and there was a entertaining strip of market stalls with live cover bands of dubious taste synthesising away into the night, some even quite good!

Soaking up the Black Sea sun

After we'd managed to absorb as much sun and resort tack as we could handle we pressed on down the coast to some of the other beaches. Our trusty European map has campgrounds marked so that usually makes finding a place to park by the beach easier. Unfortunately however it seems that the camping trade has made way for the relentless surge of property development and we struggled to find a single stretch of beach that wasn't covered in towering apartment blocks or soon to be apartment blocks, usually right where the campground would have been.

Endless coastal development

Further south of the second biggest city of Varna we ended up at a beautiful beach and old town of Sozopol. The campground left much to be desired but the beach was great as was the township. Camping with the Bulgarians was interesting as they really do seem to have a different sense of personal space. As the weekend began we woke on Saturday to find tents and hammocks set up right up close and around our spot. We're unsure how they put up with the lack of facilities and poor hygiene, but lucky for us we had our trusty solar shower and a nearby beach bar with more pleasing facilities.

Sozopol's main beach with a 50 cent pint

Trying my hand at some wind surfing

Yes that's right, real Bulgarian caviar!

The real shock however was to come from our neighbouring English caravaning couple from Doncaster. Astoundingly they have the dubious honour of being the first people from the UK I've ever met that didn't know we speak English in New Zealand. Somehow they had driven all the way to Bulgaria with their caravan in tow, but were totally unaware that it was possible to drive to Greece and Turkey, dispite being less than 100km from the border of both. They had been ripped off all the way - imagine being charged over E300 pounds to drive across Serbia, and on another occasion, having been relieved of over 3000 euro and £4000 in cash out of their caravan and still not "believing in plastic". Certainly the least travel savvy people I've met and ever hope to meet!! I'm not sure what they expected to find in Bulgaria but I hope they managed to get back to Doncaster.

EH

Romanian Black Sea

Ever since I was a little girl it has been a dream of mine to stand on the shores of the Black Sea.

In the moments between "bedtime!" and actually falling to sleep I would sit up with the atlas and trace with my finger the outlines of distant countries, oceans and seas. And it was the Black Sea (along with the Yellow and the Red) that intrigued me the most - was it really Black??

So it was the fufillment of a childhood dream you could say to be standing knee deep in the Black Sea, south of Constanta on the Romanian coast.

Oh the thrill of an English language newspaper!

Our drive to get here had taken us through the grimy industrial suburbs of Bucharest and along the newly constructed motorway to Constanta, where the driving seemed to be as relaxed as any we had encountered in this country so far. We were originally aiming for the beach town of Mamaia, but on arrival, the absolute hordes of holidaymakers, coupled with a primitive camping and being charged a fee to drive in and out of town, together with the not so appealing hulk of an industrial plant perched right on northern end of the beach (not so romantic huh?) didn't inspire us so much. So instead we headed south towards the intriguingly named resorts of Neptune, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.

A truly inspiring beach town

At first we thought that given the names of these towns someone was having a bit of fun, but on closer inspection I'm not quite sure who's sense of fun they consulted. Strips of sand cluttered up to the eyeballs with low rise concrete blocks, pumping techno and shops overflowing with gaudy inflatable beach toys and semi-pornographic beach towels galore. Up until the revolution of '89 Neptune was the exclusive resort of the Communist party, and still today incredibly popular with local Romanians and holidaying Russians alike, I'm not sure if anything has changed. Given the size of the traffic jams and sun worshipping crowds, this coast is still a real draw for many, if not for us.

Being typical Kiwis, we opted for the furtherest, quietest stretch of sand...

The locals on the other hand prefer to press the flesh

The relief of being back home!

And as to the big question, is the Black Sea really black?
Well, not really black, but not exactly blue either.


SJ

Transylvania WHORRR HORRR HORRR HARRR!

Despite the traffic we managed to steer Wickse across the Hungarian border through the chaotic driving to Sighişoara and into the heart of Transylvania. The plains we passed through were dotted with the most impressive fields of sunflowers and very green picturesque rolling hills. It wasn't too far but slow going with the roads mostly being single lane making for more madcap overtaking manoeuvres from the locals. We opted to stay behind something big even if it took us longer.

Fields of sunflowers in the Romanian countryside

It is here in Sighişoara that Vladimir 'the Impaler' Dracula was born. Judging by the view we had on arrival it seemed more than appropriate with the skies very red and spooky!

Sun setting over Dracula's medieval village of Sighişoara

In actual fact however Vlad didn't drink blood by night and sleep by day, but he was quite a ruthless ruler who did torture people and enjoyed watching his victims being impaled with a stake through their spine. Not very nice, but as it goes with Chinese whispers, by the time Bram Stoker got around to telling the story of Dracula's undead, it all started here.

Spooky nightlife in these parts!

Vlad was born just on the right

Great little town despite being firmly on the tourist trail, well on the trail of backpacking Americans anyway and abounding with plenty of undead souvenirs. They hadn't managed to Disney-fy the town just yet but judging by all of the construction underway I'm sure that will happen soon enough.

Great view from the top!

We traversed through Transylvania's rolling hillsides towards Brasov, where we dropped by to spend an afternoon before heading off to Bran. Brasov really surprised us and despite the cheesy Hollywood sign displaying BRASOV on the hillside (just in case we'd forgotten where we were, duh) it really turned out to be pretty flashy.

Guess where we are?

We had to pinch ourselves to remember where we were, Romania as we'd imagined it was not, looking more like a smartly presented Scandinavian township. Chic cafes lined the side streets and the buildings were all brightly coloured in coordinating hues.

Romania or Sweden?

One giveaway however was the ever present private security guards hovering about on the edge of the wonderfully renovated city centre. It seems that the city felt it needed someone independent of the police to watch over their precious tourists, and their euros too of course!

A short drive south of Brasov was Bran where we'd come to see 'Dracula's' castle.

Could this be Dracula's castle?

Well that's what we'd heard it was, but after cross examining the guide books we were disappointed to find out that no undead had walked the streets and that Vlad Dracula had only spent a few nights here during one of his campaigns against the southern counties. We should have realised when we read that it was 'strangely' popular. It seems the local marketing board had managed to place a few Vampire rumours about the place, realising that the blood sucking undead sold better than the reality of a restored residence of Princess Marie of England (daughter of Victoria) who had been married off to a minor Romanian king.

Courtyard of Marie's residence

It was once a working castle guarding the pass through the mountains into Transylvania, but all those traces had mostly been removed. Queen Marie renovated the residence from a border castle to a rather bohemian chateau in the early 1900's and it's this story that is told here. It was a good insight into her life here and shows how it was decorated by her in a mix of Near Eastern and Western styles, One can imagine that it would have been quite a change of pace from the English court in London but it seems that she adapted well and enjoyed a rather salubrious existence, vampires or no.

Arrrrrrgh, look out I vont to trink your blood!

EH

Bucharest

Okay, so I admit we only paid a fleeting visit to Bucharest, but I can safely say that's enough for us. I'm sure there are plenty of lovely non Communist sights to see and it has apparently some great museums. But after a couple of days vamp(ir)ing around the lolling countryside of Transylvania, and with the beaches of the (much anticpated) Black Sea beckoning, a somewhat ratty, hot and oppressive city was not the top of our priorities. Especially after the night before!

I see they really get into outdoor advertising over here

After a very long and slow drive from Bran, we reached Bucharest quite late. We were quite eager to push on through to the coast, but with another 3.5 hours of driving ahead to a relatively unknown destination, parking up in an ACSI (Dutch camping association) approved campsite on the outskirts of Bucharest sounded like the better option. If only! Lord knows how ASCI managed to pass this one. A lot of money must have changed hands is all I can imagine. The "camping" as it was, was little more than a small carpark between a series of seriously ugly chalets, painted all manner of distasteful colours. (Of course, as culturally insensitive as we are, we forget that "camping" to many Eastern European nations we've visited means staying in chalets, not tents and most definitely not campervans!). The most humourous part of the whole situation was that they wanted to charge us significantly more to sleep in the van in the carpark than to hire a chalet! After repeatedly pointing out the illogicality of this, and a bike ride down the road to pay a visit to the very moody and increasingly irate manager, we defiantly hired a chalet, paid the money, then promptly ruffled up the bedclothes and nicked the hopsitality soap before retiring to Wickse for a night spent locked in with the security straps belted on (lest the manager or someone else dodgy decided to come visiting). And then the party started! The sounds of Eurovision pop-cum-techno blaring away until daybreak courtesey of the neighbouring disco. Nice.

Hmmm, that corn doesn't look too appetising

Nocturnal experiences aside, we decided an early morning rip through Bucharest en route to the coast may be in order. Lonely Planet describes Bucharest as a "fascinating working experiment of mixed eras...wide boulevards with century old villas, fashioned in the best Paris style, mingle with (scattered and hidden) 18th century monasteries, communist-built housing blocks and statement-making government headquarters". Hmmm, quite a melange then. Curiously enough, it goes on to include in its 'Top Five Bucharest' the centre on a Sunday. And I can only guess why!

Arcul de Triumpf. Looks quite familiar doesn't it?

Architecture aside, in order to appreciate the state of this city (and the entire country I guess) you need to understand a little about its more recent past... Nicolae Ceausescu came to power in 1965. It's fair to say his rule was both chaotic and meglomaniac, creating posts not only for his brothers, but for his wife and son as well. He gave birth to some really bizarre policies. Not only content with the 'systemisation of agriculture' which entailed the resettlement of villagers into concrete city apartment blocks, some of his more famous ones included instituting power cuts to save money, and exporting much needed national food supplies in order to eliminate foreign debt and look good in front of the world - which in turn resulted in rationing of even the most staple of food stuffs. If this wasn't enough - and if you were game enough to oppose him, there was even more instore - his experimental methods of torture - which included the cancer causing radiation of his political opponents. Nice. You can begin to appreciate then the pleasure of many of Romanians in watching Ceausescu and his wife being executed by firing squad on live TV when they finally caught him in 1989.

Nonetheless we were well enough intrigued to spend a stress free Sunday morning hour's drive around this very odd city. Here's some of our highlights...

Ceauşescu's pride and joy - Parliament Palace - the 2nd largest building in the world

Hmmm, a red fountain

They really do dye the water here in Bucharest

Look, there's a green one too!

View down Bucharest's own Champs Elysee, but they had to make their one 6m longer than the original

Nice to see a bit of Unilever in downtown

Ceauşescu didn't like churches so he built up around them to hide them

The former securitate building, destroyed during the revolution and now nicely renovated into a cafe

Down with Ceauşescu and his oppressive monsters! Demonstrating outside the former Communist Party HQ

SJ

Thoughts on Romania

It was with much anticipation, a little trepidation and a whole swarm of butterflies in the belly that we crossed the Hungarian border into Romania. As children, it's fair to say we both were quite in awe of the whole Count Dracula, Vampire thing. But as adults, we (well, specifically me) were quite taken by horror stories of a different kind - the travel ones. Before we left many people were more than keen to share their own doom and gloom stories of travelling in Romania, warning us and wondering aloud why we'd even want to go there, especially with the van. But funnily enough, this was all from people who'd never even been there! Our new English friends Kim and James had been through there last summer with their motorhome and had nothing but encouraging words to share. The only thing of any dodgy 'interest' they wanted to point out were the border formalities, which included being made to drive through a pool of disinfectant and being made to pay an 'ecology tax' - more thriller than horror don't you think?!

As it was, things had moved on very fast since Romania (and Bulgaria) joined the EU on January 1st this year. Gone was any sense of border as it was, and the only one at home was a single border guard - either Hungarian or Romanian, we couldn't even tell! There we were, left to our own devices without even a single quesion or (more importantly!) a stamp in the passport! To be honest, I was a bit put out actually.

Welcome to Romania! Our first sitings of the ubiquitous horse & cart

Now, the other thing that everyone had been bleating on about before we left was the state of the roads. But it must be said, that with a couple of exceptions, we found the roads perfectly adequate - better even than Poland and Slovakia - and a hundred times better than some of the roads in Ireland back in 1999. So on we drove through the absolutely beautiful rolling pasture land of Western Romaina - much of it reminding us of parts of the North Island in NZ (except for the horse and carts) - and onwards towards the much anticipated destination of Transylvania!!!

Western Romania or the North Island of NZ?

Now one thing we debated on as to the similarity with the North Island was the driving. It can get pretty bad in NZ, but it didn't take long for both of us to reach the conclusion that the driving here is a million times worse. Talk about 'death wish'? These guys must have been on the highway to hell! We must have seen at least four rather serious accidents on the first 3 hour drive to Sighişoara, all pretty fresh, yet it just seemed to continue all the way until we got to the coast. And When we say 'death wish' - check out this series of photos I snapped out the window...and concentrate on the distance to the oncoming traffic!!! (for NZ/UK readers, remember you drive on the right here).





Poverty is another thing that Romania is rather 'famous' for, and something we'd heard that travellers find quite difficult to stomach. While there certainly were areas that were certainly deprived (especially in the cities), and Romania is certainly one of the poorest nations in Europe, on the whole this wasn't as overwhelming as we'd expected. The land looks really abundant, with local produce for sale along the roadside and fields of sunflowers and newly harvested wheat stretching out as far as the eye could see. But I guess it depends how you define poverty. I've heard people wax on about the horse and cart thing - sure these people are using fairly ancient farming and transport techniques, but given their age (most of the villages seem to be home to the older generations while the youngies are off in the cities) and their experience and expertise do you really think such farmers would suddenly embrace state of the art tractors and combine harvesters? And plus the horses are some of the best looking ones I've ever seen. In my humble opinion I think they'd be quite happy to carry on as they've always known. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Depressing sights in the city

Hope it wasn't a car accident

But look at the gorgeousness of the countryside!!!

A way of life in these parts

No tractor needed here?!

Blue skies and hay stacks

Fields of gold

How do you like your honey?!

More horse & cart action

Something that was really quite sad to drive past though were the numerous Communist era chemical plants, all blackened out, dilapidated and deserted. They say they were so dangerous to local communities that until the early 90s, some two thirds of children in these areas showed signs of mental illness.

Driving and (former) industrial pollution aside, Romania was a real treat. Everyone was really friendly, the roads were totally fine, and the toilets (at least the ones we experienced) aren't bad either. We weren't overly impressed with Bucharest - but then who's really into a large sprawling former communist captial city 'enhanced' by totally oppressive meglomaniac anyway??