E hatisitsoe: 08.08.2017
Surprisingly slept well on the large grounds of the small rest area. Now I am already near Bulgaria. The campsite that I had chosen for my first overnight stay there is canceled because it is only 70 km away from my location.
Everything is set to Sofia. Going to Burgas on the Black Sea, it would be much shorter to drive across the country. However, I don't trust the roads that are off the beaten path. So main routes are in order.
The northern part of Greece already has a different vegetation, the mountains are no longer bare but lower bushes and trees make them green and a few trees are already bigger. The area here is beautiful.
The big surprise at the border customs, the Greek only looks at my ID card and checks if it is real, continues. The Bulgarian waves me out of the lane, well this could be interesting. He is not interested in my ID nor the vehicle documents. He only wants to look inside the caravan. He does so without any further requests, continues. The whole process took 5 minutes. Record and respect, gentlemen. The trucks, on the other hand, had it worse. Long, long queues on both sides of the border.
The E 79, leading to Sofia, is only partially built as a highway, the largest part is a simple country road, but it goes through a beautiful valley. I don't want to go to Sofia today, I want to find a place to stay by noon to recover from yesterday. That's why I'm looking for a place near Dupnitsa again on Camping Info. A small town where I don't interpret my navigation system correctly and promptly find myself in the old town in a narrow dead-end street. That was too much for my mirror, it fell off and I drove over it. Bullshit. Even worse was getting out of this mousetrap. When I had caused a long enough traffic jam in the entrance street, a few business people took pity on me and moved their cars. Then it went passably. Now off to Sofia, there must still be a hotel somewhere. On the southern bypass of Sofia, a sign with a bed. It should be 400m. It was at least 800 and then another 300, then the name of the hotel. 'Hotel Decent'........, yes, that's what I thought too. But no, a cute little quirky house, clean nice hosts and a kitchen that made me chicken with a huge salad right away. I am well taken care of here, I will stay one more day and visit Sofia tomorrow.