To Bulgaria by car
Hello to everyone who is going to Bulgaria on his car.
I’ll make a reservation right away that we went on our own to this country for the first time (before this time by bus), thanks to those who wrote reviews that were useful to us, although even this did not save us from all the surprises.
I will try not to forget the little things that make up the success of this, believe me, not so hopeless enterprise.
So, I'll start from afar. In 2008, we went on holiday in Bulgaria for the first time as a family. We liked almost everything: the country itself, the attitude of the Bulgarians, the sea, democratic prices, and even a very, very poor hotel without air conditioning was more or less acceptable. I was very tired by the bus ride: it took 31 hours to get there, but back, however, faster - exactly 24 hours (only 7 people returned to Ukraine - lucky! - half a bus for 2 families). And still the residue from it remained. Therefore, after 2.5 years, we began to think about the next vacation in Bulgaria, but we firmly decided to get there only by our car.
They began to plan summer vacations even in winter: for the first time they decided to act from start to finish on their own, without the participation of a travel agency. For several weeks, we read and re-read hundreds of reviews about different hotels in different resorts, compared conditions and prices... In the end, we settled on a small Lotus hotel in Sunny Beach - 1 minute from the sea, a large room with an equipped kitchenette, free Wi-Fi and parking for cars, breakfast included, dinners bought in the same place, at the hotel. The price was pleasantly pleased (in the Crimea, under the worst living conditions, it is an order of magnitude higher). Reviews about the hotel - more than that was the decisive factor. Booked in February. The owner of the hotel, Georg Panayotov, patiently answered all my questions by e-mail, advising me to change euros and dollars not at the resort, but on the way in one of the cities where the exchange rate is higher.
Booked a hotel directly for the first time in my life - it was a bit dumb, but as it turned out - not at all scary, safe and effective. The car was on loan, we were very worried about whether they would release it. They took a certificate of the bank's consent to travel abroad (and no one even once asked about this piece of paper). 2 weeks before the start of the trip, we applied to the Bulgarian embassy on our own, obtained visas without much difficulty, providing all the documents they requested (the list is on the embassy website, or at least the phone numbers are there for sure - you can find out) plus a printed booking sheet hotel (by the way, those who travel with the intention of renting accommodation in the private sector will then cancel their bookings - many hotels can do this for free more than 2 days before the expected date of settlement). Children under 18 years of age and pensioners are issued a visa free of charge. But if the first is enough to provide a copy of the birth certificate, then there are some troubles with pensioners with bank statements, etc.
So, having read the travel and bad notes of other tourists (for which many thanks to them), we began to get ready for the road. They didn't buy a map - they relied entirely on GPS - Natasha, as we call her (we previously downloaded the latest maps of Romania and Bulgaria).
We started from Kyiv on Thursday (the day of booking was specially chosen so that it would not be on the weekend), July 21 at 4.30. Just lucky: traffic cops were still sleeping, and many sections of the Odessa highway flew by at an average speed greater than the limiting speed of Lada. In less than 5 hours we reached Reni, and we were dragging along that lattice road, trying to remember decent curses, already at a speed of no more than 40 km / h, and even then - not always. We filled Reni with a full tank (I’ll tell you right away - it was enough for the whole journey to the hotel, plus about 100 km in Bulgaria already on our own business), we reached the Ukrainian-Moldovan border. There is a rather interesting system: go to that office, go there, pay 20 hryvnias there for ecology, go out here, go back there again, and now just stand here. There was no queue and we got through pretty quickly. I had an idea to buy Romanian lei, but they were not available at the local branch of the bank.
Well, we moved on. There were more cars on the Moldovan-Romanian border, we unknowingly stood behind the truck - honestly in line, they began to signal to us that the cars - separately and in priority, moved to the other tail. At customs, the Romanian woman asked if there were cigarettes. We had a block - for presents. She said that the car - no more than 2 packs, I already began to go out to resolve the issue, but she waved her hand - go.
Well, we went. In Galati, a GPS aunt sent us on a ferry. Several tourists wrote that it was possible to give euros for a ticket, they would give change in lei. For some reason, they refused to take euros from us, and then a lively guy of 17-18 years old showed up, who in terrible English introduced himself as an assistant to tourists, and offered to resolve the issue. There are no banks nearby, he offered to exchange euros for lei, announcing that for 20 euros he would give 25 lei (the crossing costs 21 lei). Of course, I did not know the exchange rate of the leu against the euro, but simple logic suggested that the gypsy currency could not be steeper than the dollar. Didn't agree. Then another one appeared - older, who offered 35 lei for 20 euros. Since the ferry was already almost full and we did not want to waste time waiting for the next one, we agreed. Then it turned out that for 1 euro they give 4 lei. It was a little unpleasant, but - it's their own fault - it was necessary at least to learn the course. Conclusion: it is advisable to have lei with you - at least 35 for sure. Having crossed the Danube, we spent half an hour taxiing between the cars standing somehow on the other side. The next problem was to buy a vignette. We knew that it should be, but did not know that you can buy it not only when entering the country, but also anywhere - if only it was at the time of departure. Like crazy, we stopped at every gas station - nowhere to be found. Due to the fact that they did not buy a vignette, they shook every time a police car appeared in the visibility zone. But everything worked out, and we still bought a vignette at the Partner gas station - orange - a landmark. For a week (no less) it costs 3 euros, but, again, they don’t take euros, and our 14 lei was exactly enough for a vignette - it was knocked out through the terminal using a registration certificate. On the way we were surprised by the names of two villages: Russkaya Slava and Cherkesskaya Slava, and only they were written in Romanian and Russian. We noted this, deciding that on the way back we might stop and find out more. We didn’t have any thoughts of going anywhere - we are not interested in Dracula and other evil spirits, therefore we tried to reach the border of a more understandable state for us - Bulgaria as quickly as possible.
Exactly at 21.30 we crossed the border, bought 2 Bulgarian vignettes for 7 days - 10 euros (it was necessary for 10 days, but these do not happen) and there, at the border post, fell asleep, because. we did not dare to go through the pass at night - we were going to do so, since the hotel was booked from tomorrow.
The next morning at 7:00 we set off. At first, there were cornfields, then villages began to sell a lot of watermelons, melons, tomatoes, etc. , but we didn’t have leva, and for not quite familiar dollars or euros, grandparents were not ready to sell their own grown crops. In one of the roadside cafes, we were served coffee and a liter can of sour milk from the farm for a euro. Not far from it, we saw a Ukrainian car, which was stopped by the Bulgarian police . In Varna, when we saw the familiar name of the bank, we turned into the courtyard, left the car there (with parking in the wrong place in the country strictly), changed the euro at the rate of 1.95 (on Saturday - the maximum is 1.91). They asked for a passport, and everything - no problem. They even wrote on the receipt how many banknotes of what denomination they issued.
Serpentine in the mountains rarely allows you to accelerate - 20-40 km / h - it's better to go after dark. We slowly reached Sunny Beach in 3 hours. We found the hotel, unloaded, got a room. Large room with air conditioning, kettle, dishes, refrigerator, TV, internet. We liked everything right away. The sea is very close - warm, clean. Sun loungers and umbrellas are paid, we lay down with our umbrella and rugs nearby - in the free zone. Rescuers work clearly - if the flag is green - do what you want, if the flag is yellow, they are not allowed to enter the sea with mattresses, and if the flag is red - no deeper than waist-deep. One guest from Russia tried to figure out why, when he paid such money, he was not allowed to swim as he wanted, so a policeman was invited to him - for explanatory work.
The hotel has only about 20 rooms, always full; Romanians, British, Norwegians, Russians rested with us. The staff is very attentive and friendly. Breakfast is included in the price of the hotel. Tea, coffee, croutons, cakes, cucumbers, tomatoes, cold cuts of meat and cheese, watermelon, melon, fruits, sour milk, sausages, eggs - not much, but decently, they were never hungry. Dinners bought in addition at the hotel: 6 euros per person. Every evening from 18.30 to 21.00 in the restaurant we had the opportunity to choose one dish from every 4 salads, 3 soups, 10 main courses and 2 desserts - portions there - wow! Variety was guaranteed and the price was fixed, which was very acceptable for us. For lunch, we collected instant vermicelli, sausages, and bacon from home. And now - about the delights of traveling by car. We went to the nearby village of Kableshkovo (on Thursdays there is a market day), bought homemade tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons and melons, peppers, etc. - there is something to cook salads. A couple of days later we went again, in a different direction, collected several 6-liter flasks of spring water, again bought vegetables, almonds - at 5 leva / kg from grandfathers selling on the road... On the outskirts of the city there is a Jeannette hypermarket - we go there a couple once hit the road, buying juices, mussels in shells (3.25 leva / kg! ), liter buckets of chocolate-nut cream for 5 leva, all sorts of different seasonings, etc. A little further along the same road - near the village. Ravda is a LIDL store, where we collected phosphate-free laundry detergents, fabric rinses, tomato paste, sea salt of various grindings (29 stotinki / kg). In general, they brought home a lot of goodies of excellent quality and at excellent prices. And in the Mladost supermarket there were still those queues! And the prices are higher.
We drove around the nearby towns and villages, saw the real Bulgaria - it is not much different from our country - many poor villagers, rickety dilapidated houses, broken roads... We visited a century-old church in one of the villages, were surprised that the service was not held there on Sunday, but grandmothers were sitting inside, for whom this is a place and an opportunity to communicate. In Nessebar, we also visited a church and an exhibition of ancient icons, some of which are 400 or more years old, and the exhibits are not even behind glass. We walked along the ancient streets of this ancient town, sat in a cafe... We took the tour on our last visit, so this time we did without it.
But the most important thing for which we went was the sea. It didn't disappoint. We simply had no time to sunbathe - we were "sour" in the water all the time - so great!
During the midday sun, they lay in the room, watched TV (4 channels in a completely understandable language, a dozen more in a relatively understandable language), Wi-Fi was very helpful - they took a laptop.
The evening promenade in Sunny Beach is a mini-Las Vegas. A lot of people, a huge amount of entertainment, etc. True, we weren’t enough for a long time - so just go for a walk before going to bed. By the way, on the first evening we got lost - it took quite a long time to get to our hotel - we initially went the wrong way.
In general, we liked everything, we talked with the restaurant waiter Teodor, who told us a lot about the peculiarities of the life of the Bulgarians, with the receptionists Yana, Angelo and Giovanni. We talked to the owner several times and he is a very nice person.
When it was time to leave, it was sad to leave this wonderful country… Yes, what we did in advance – we bought 50 lei in the center (not far from the Kuban Hotel) – for a vignette and a ferry. We refueled a full tank at the Bulgarian Lukoil, and it was enough to the eyeballs to Reni.
If we entered Bulgaria through Durankulak (last time we crossed the border at this point, I put it in the GPS), and we left through Bashka Voda - where Natasha led (out of surprise, they forgot to change the remaining levs at the border - but nothing - in next year we are going to Bulgaria again - looking ahead, I will say that we have already booked a villa in Kavarna - before the pass, so that we can get there by midnight - without spending the night on the road). The road through Romania passed without surprises, we stopped for a few minutes in Cherkezskaya Glory - the locals speak Russian with an admixture of Ukrainian words: hut, zhinka, etc. They do not really know the history of their appearance on these lands. Perhaps this happened under Peter. Russian is taught in the schools of these villages. There was not much time, we were in a hurry to get to Galati, because. didn't know if the ferry was open all night. Lucky - got on the last ferry (open until 22.00). In Galati itself, they decided to find places associated with the burial of Mazepa (the grave was there before Ceausescu ordered his remains to be simply thrown away). There are 2 Mazepa microdistricts in the city, but practically no one knows anything about the park in honor of the hetman. We remembered that we read on the net - Bassarabia Strada (Bessarabskaya Street), they showed us the direction, we drove, we drove... And when we were almost desperate to find it, we just drove to the Mazepa park. It was dark, I can’t say anything about the park itself, but the memorial plaque and the bust are illuminated. After that we went to the border. By the way, only the Ukrainian customs officers asked to open the trunk, and the queue directly to the Ukrainian side was the slowest to dissipate.
We refueled in Reni and drove until 4 o'clock. We stopped at a well-lit place, took a nap for 2.5 hours and moved on...
This was our trip to Bulgaria by car. If you have any questions, please contact.
