Tuesday 2nd July 2019
Time to move on again. Our target for today was Camping Madona in Falkovets, north-west Bulgaria.
With our two year tour coming into the last few weeks we decided to skip visiting the capital city, Sofia, and press on further, conscious of the distance we still have to cover back to the UK.
The journey involved easy driving on the motorway before we turned onto the 81 road which weaved its’ way over the mountain rising to 1600 metres at the highest point. The views were excellent at times but the road surface in places was very poor.
Towing Kilometers – Today: 312 Cumulative: 33,525
We are starting to notice more and more screws coming loose in the caravan when we tow and the bedroom mirror has a crack in the bottom right corner.
Madona Camping is in the grounds of the Madona Inn. There are no marked out pitches but the area is reasonably flat. There are two wetrooms provided for the campers and a nice shaded area in which to relax.
There is a bar/restaurant which serves very good food at very reasonable prices.
The intention was to stay only one night before venturing into Romania but once again we fell into the trap of socialising with people who drink 🙂 who suggested we should visit Belogradchik Fortress as we were in the area.
Wednesday 3rd July 2019
After setting off around lunchtime on a circular route that would take in the fortress and one of the local caves, we soon stopped to photograph an interesting looking eco-camping site.
On arrival at the fortress we paid our car park charge and went in search of tickets. This seemed harder than necessary particularly as the lady selling them ignored us and wandered off. I walked back outside and chatted with an American couple who were motorcycling in the area.
Kim arrived back with tickets in hand a few minutes later.
The fortress was built in three stages, the first in Roman times. Because of the layout of the rocks they only needed to build two sides of the fortress. The walls are 2.5 metres thick, and up to 12 metres high.
It was a hot day and climbing the many steps up to the entrance turned out to be quite a fitness test 🙂
Once inside the entrance more climbing was required to reach the viewing area where there are stunning views to be had over the Balkan Mountains.
The fortress is now used for cultural events and managed by the local historical museum authority.
The fortress box ticked we set off to visit the cave. Long story short, we arrived at a very lonely car park, facing a long walk to a cave that would be closing soon, and decided to give it a miss.
On arrival back at camp I went to use the facilities and came across this adorable little kitten 🙂
I took it back to the caravan to show Kim but it was terrified inside. I have since been told that most Bulgarians don’t allow their animals indoors.
Moving day tomorrow, into Romania.