Greece and Bulgaria: from the Aegean to the Black Sea

Psakoudia, Greece
Our drive to Greece was meant to take at least four hours, and we were not excited by this prospect, especially since we had to cross the border. However, we had routed ourselves so that we would hit the border early in the morning, and sure enough, we were there at 8:30am, and there were no lines. As soon as we crossed the border, the landscape began to change again, and the hills soon grew into mountains! It was gorgeous, and we were happy that we had a good day of driving and watching life go by. Once we made it to our small town, we struggled a little to find our rental, and had to ask someone on the main road who pointed a short distance away – 50 meters down the lane! Our host, John, had told us that Psakoudia was small, and if he was not at home, we could ask around town to find out where he was! Here is his website if you are interested in a fun Greece holiday: http://www.jpavloudis.gr. Psakoudia is located in northern Greece, south of Thessaloniki, and is on the middle peninsula of three mountainous peninsulas that have a popular following due to the sand beaches!

The rental we had was perfect – a small kitchen counter with a two burner/small stove set-up, a small fridge, and a real coffee maker! We also had a/c, a good sized balcony with a laundry rack for drying beach clothes, and shaded parking. The other great benefit was being able to use the weights in his gym! The rental was situated right behind a bakery, where, every morning, we got to smell what they were making that day. We sampled quite a few things during the week – veggie pies, chocolates, and we were always impressed. We were happy to have an ocean view, and enjoyed the short two block walk to the beach. Town was small and cute, and had a number of wonderful cafes and restaurants, and some bars where we heard there was some weekend dancing on tables!

We used the week as serious R&R. What do real people do on vacation? Well, we surmised we did what they do --- go for walks, lay out in the sun, go swimming, sleep in, stay up late, drink local wine, read a few good novels, eat out quite a bit ... which is exactly what we did. While we had our own kitchen, we decided that since we would be in Greece, home of magnificent food, we would be eating out one meal a day. Since we were traveling on the euro, food was certainly more costly than what we had been paying in Romania and Bulgaria, although the costs were manageable. For the price, we had great quality – a plate of amazing grilled calamari would set you back about $9.50 USD. During the week, we sampled plenty of amazing foods – chicken souvlaki, moussaka, pastistio, grilled calamari, Greek pastries, gyros, tzatiki, eggplants salads – and left feeling like we could have kept eating there. There were also plenty of fresh fruit stands that were located close to town, and we were able to pick our own fresh produce for salads! We also tried fresh figs for the first time ---- not dried as we have always eaten them – is an amazing experience. Lastly, the cool thing about being in the Mediterranean was the amazing variety of Greek yogurts you can get in the grocery store…. And many of them are even the low fat variety.

One day we went to take a drive around the peninsula, and we were blown away by the fantastic scenery! The further south you drove, the prettier the beaches become – there were many places to pull off on the west side of the island with stunningly blue/turquoise waters that just sparkled. Wow, we can’t say how gorgeous it was! The numbers of people and cars trickled down to barely any the further south we went, and soon we were going up and down the mountains. It was not what we expected – with stunning craggy rocks and trees – our ears even popped with the change in altitude! We came out of the mountains and hit the prettiest of all beaches, a huge sandy bay with practically no people on it, and we stopped. We barely had our towels on the sand before diving into the water! It was all sandy bottomed, with barely any sea weeds, and a gloriously cool temperature! At the end of our week, we were really sad to keep going - everything about Greece is amazing and we would have loved to stay. It also signalled the "end" of our European trip, as we had reached the farthest southern point, and it was time to head north. Neither of wanted to leave, probably a first for us in a few months!

Bulgaria - Part 2
Nessebar
So sadly we had to leave Greece, and to make matters worse we had to leave early! At 7am we were ready to leave and said goodbye to John, who gave us a great place to stay in Greece for the week. He even sent us on our way with olive oil from his olive trees. Yum! So off we drove, we had decided to follow the highway across Greece to almost the Turkey border before heading north up to Bulgaria. It took us about 5 hours of pretty easy and fast driving to reach the border. The highway took us along the coast and the views were spectacular. We needed to stop for gas and unlike the United States or other parts of Europe, we had to pull off the highway for gas - there are no oases there! We pulled off and followed the signs to this BP look-alike station and filled up with the most expensive we have hit in Europe so far – about $75 USD to fill the tank! Christy also found the worst bathroom since Vietnam --- a filthy squat toilet! We had no issues at the BG border, and were stamped through with no wait. Then we drove off into … utter mayhem. It was a small dusty town that we popped out into --- and there was nothing there but dusty roads, horses and carriages and wacked out looking signs in Bulgarian indicating roads to Istanbul, but nowhere else. Luckily, Jane the GPS had somewhat of a clue, and sent us in one direction. Great --- we thought --- until she had us going up a highway that was literally a rubbish street where locals threw out all their garbage. We tried a different way, and we were on some small side road that we kept expecting would pop us out onto a bigger road… this never happened for TWO hours. It was easily the worst driving we have ever done. It was a small country lane road, filled with potholes that took us through forests, hills and pastureland. More spectacularly, it took us through complete ghost towns! These towns gave the impression that they were abandoned around the time of the fall of communism. All of the brick homes and commercial buildings were empty without windows. There were no inhabitants except for one solo car parked by a house in one of the three ghost towns that we drove through. It seemed like the beginning of a horror movie - creepy. Luckily, we finally made it Nessebar, Bulgaria --- after 9 hours of driving!

Our stay in Nessebar was more like a vacation. Nessebar is a UNESCO village, due to its unique architectural and historical treasures in the old town peninsula extending out into the Black Sea. There are many old churches built of timber and stone that have survived countless hundreds of years. The village, which has been partially taken over by merchants selling everything and anything to the cruiseboat tourists, is still a gem, with small squat houses made of a dark timber and whitewashed walls. It was delightful walking around the island, there were a ton of cafes and restaurants, all perched on the steep cliffs overlooking the sea. What a great spot! There were quite a few fisherman willing to take you out on their boats, too, some of them had young chaps out with megaphones to attract you to their business. We would not step foot on their boats though --- in addition to the condition of their boats, the sea had huge rolling waves and was quite rough! There was also a small “beach” on one corner of the island, a tiny small bay that an enterprising local had set some umbrellas up to make a few dollars. There were quite a few people packed in, and a few more on the other side of the jetty, where the water was really rough. There we saw Standing Naked Tan Man, who was away from the locals, who were getting being bashed by waves, but standing with a woman while tanning himself, alternating between his back and front side, completely in the nude. He timed it so that he would face the sun every few minutes, but used his hands as to not get his nether regions … um… burnt. New town (on the “mainland”) was also quite nice, and full of shops, cafes and restaurants, and was teeming with tourists! There was also a section of town that fronted the larger "box" hotels with a long thin beach packed with thatched shade umbrellas and plastic loungers. We saw how expensive it was to park yourself on a beach there – for two chairs and a cruddy small umbrella it would set you back $15 USD! We had a great few days there, except for our wacky hotel, the Italia Hotel, which was run by this guy who kept using a fake Italian accent; every sentence ended in "mama mia." The beds were round and it was like something out of a 70's movie, he was also a sexist jerk, and while his wife looked exhausted, he hammed it up with guests at the pool all afternoon and night!

Rogachevo
We stayed in Harmony Hills Village in Rogachevo, which is a small speck of a town about 15 km away from Balchik, a pretty town on the coast, but that had pricier lodging. We paid $105 USD for three nights in Rogachevo for a lovely studio with a balcony and small kitchenette, and an amazing pool, the biggest we have seen in Europe! As it turned out, the property was composed of individual owners, but was run by a management company who did a fine job in managing the massive development. The complex was busy, but not crazy, and there were a lot of British apartment owners around – the English language was amazing to hear! The funniest thing about this place was that there was a free “animotion” duo that had activities for kids all day (pool games, pin the tail on the donkey, table tennis etc.), and three times a day they had the kids dancing at the pool to a few songs, including Shakira’s “Waka Waka.” It was hilarious! We’ve never seen such a large group of kids speaking different languages having fun together! We intended to do a little bit of driving while we were there to see Balchik and other spots, but the setting was so nice, and the company was terrific, so we did not move for three days! We felt badly that we never did make it down to the English “house bar” near the complex for karaoke the night before our early departure to Romania --- our big drive (which took us 9 hours incidentally….). We have learned the hard way never to go out the night before you have a long drive!

We had a great time seeing the coasts and hoped we would have a good time heading back up through the mountains next!

Next Up: Romania and the Slovak Republic!