To Istanbul Turkey

Travelled:344km from Bulgaria to Istanbul Turkey

Stay:Istanbul- paid parking for motorhomes at a soccer facility with all facilities incl. washing machine for 60TRY/€9  41.004200,28.956400 

We said good bye to the Black Sea and made our way back to R#9 and followed it to the Turkish border. 

We were unsure how long the process would take us, having heard of possible long delays as tomorrow starts a week long major holiday (just our luck). We were pleasantly surprised to have no cars at the Bulgarian check point. 

After looking at our passports and inside Bluey we were in our way to Turkey...and as we turned the corner there were only 2 cars.Yay. The process was a little different here. We approached the passport  window first and showed them Mark’s pre purchased visa (60USD for Australian passport holder evisa.gov.tr). French passport holders don’t require a visa. Then we went to the next window and showed them Bluey’s registration papers and insurance certificate. Once that was done a customs officer had a quick look in Bluey then there was one last barrier where all papers and passports were checked again and we were off! We didn’t envy the other side with a long queue. There was even a food van driving along the line! 

The road to Istanbul was good quality and practically devoid of traffic. 

We stopped several times to enquire about their vignette/road tax sticker but had no luck. We decided to travel on the motorway as it saved at least an hour and hoped we could sort it out in Istanbul once we got a sim card and internet (need to find a Post Office to buy the sticker). 

About 20km out from the centre we were astounded by the vast development of appartements as far as the eye could see.

 Statistics say that there are 15million living here! Given this figure we were grateful that there was hardly any traffic and if it wasn’t for us missing a turn off we would have arrived at our destination without too much trouble. 

Our gps took us under and around the aquaduct just barely fitting through the streets.

By 3pm we had parked up and immediately put a wash on. Then ventured off into the old quarter to find a bank to get some Turkish Lira(1TRY/€6.50), to get a SIM card (Turkcell 12GB 150TRY/€22) and to get a map of the city(free from a hotel lobby). Once that was accomplished we ventured up to the Grand Bazaar, although it’s closed Sundays, and just took in the atmosphere of this part of the city. There were plenty of people about even though most of the shops were closed. Then it was back to Bluey and hoping that the night won’t be too noisy...only time will tell. 

We walked past a couple of mosques





Shopping outside of the Grand Bazaar..



Different fashion

Ruins left on the side walk

The university entrance

Different baklava


Lots of Turkish delights.

Fancy looking restaurants

Lots of buffet style meals

Black Sea Bulgaria

Travelled:329km Romania into Bulgaria

Stay: Bulgaria south of Burgas on the Black Sea, free bush camp N42.4450 E27.6057

Visited: Aladzha Monastery, Petrified Forest

Unfortunately our bit of paradise turned sour last night with music blaring all night until 4am! We could even hear it with our earplugs in. It is known that the Romanians like to party hard during their holidays...so with little sleep we made our way back to the main road to continue our journey south to Bulgaria. Even though it was only 8am the traffic was already getting hectic with people making their way to the beach and parking anywhere they could. 

After stopping at Lidl to spend the rest of our RON we arrived about 9am at the border. There was a bit of a queue and while we waited Mark ate a ham sandwich for breakfast as we had been told by some other motorhomers that the Bulgarian customs officers had wanted to confiscate all of their pork products. 

Within half an hour we had passed the Romanian border and made our way to the Bulgarian side and were surprised that it was not manned! So...we could keep our pork! 

We stopped to buy a vignette (road tax sticker), the minimum was €8/7days. (Bluey’s getting a bit of an assortment on his front windscreen). Then we were off into Bluey’s 30th European country! Amazing how they add up and he’s been to a few more than once. Just for instance this is the 12th country so far this trip and we plan on 6 more different ones. 

Anyway, due to the fact that our main objective it to get to Istanbul we only plan to travel down the east coast of Bulgaria. Unfortunately for us in August this means very busy beach resorts which isn’t our thing. But we did attempt a couple of stops. The first one was Aladzha Monastery which was built into the side of a cliff. The hermit monks were inhabitant of the caves during the 13th-14th C until the Ottomans invaded. After paying 5BGN ea (€2.50) we walked through the remains and then we had a look in the museum.

 Our next destination took us past the Golden Sands beach resort area and then inland from Varna (what we drove through seemed quite nice for a large city).

 The petrified forest which was a cluster of tree like stone columns in all different sizes, spread over a barren landscape. Some believe that they are fossilised remnants of an ancient forest, while others think they were formed by compressed chalk? 

Then it was back to the E87 driving past the popular Sunny Beach resort, 

Nesebur which is set on a rocky peninsula 

Lots of aqua parks 

Unfinished developments 

Plenty of watermelons and pumpkins for sale

And fields of sad looking sunflowers 

and into the big port city of Burgas. Along the way we called into a campsite to empty the toilet and then got fuel and water from the service station. From here we veered off the main drag and along R#99 for about 11km to a recently added park4night spot on the beach. We had to take a small bumpy track with overgrown trees that scraped along Bluey’s side and chose one a many other tracks that lead to plenty of spots along the shore. There were many campers and a few motorhomes including the German who had put the p4n entry in. We made sure to say thanks and had a chat. Then had a stroll along the black sandy beach. The only draw back was that the area is not very clean. In both Romania and Bulgaria (generally cleaner) they drop their rubbish everywhere! Someone just let off some fireworks... let’s hope we get a quieter nights sleep.

Forgot to mention Bluey’s other milestone today which was reaching 80,000km on the odometer!