Bulgaria Trip

A friend and myself are heading to Varna, Bulgaria in July. So far we have
done very little planning, mainly sorting bikes and drinking beer than
sorting any proper route.
We have 3 weeks in total for the trip, possibly 7 days each way with a week
in Varna.
Rosyth - Zeebrugge seems to be the crossing of choice, so with that in mind
can anyone recommend any must see points or utterly fabulous routes that we
should try to cover.
Also, do these new waterproof sat nav cases work ok, or would a dedicated
bike nav be the way to go ?

 

Friend has something called an Otterbox that she puts her Sony Ericcson
X1 Xperia, she swears by it

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Lozzo

Leaving it set to vibrate, presumably?

 

I'd blast down the autobahn towards Munich, 500 odd miles easy in a day
with an early start, and then base myself near the Bavarian/Austrian border
for a couple of days. A couple of day trips in the Alps then move to
another base a bit closer. Julian Alps in Slovenia, Lake Bled or Northern
Croatia. Plitvik National Park is fab. Over to the Black Sea for your
seaside week. Similar in reverse, maybe stop off in the Eiffel Mountains
near the Nurburgring for a couple of days on the way back to Zeebrugge.

 

You lucky buggers.

I went to Slovenia with a few others last year. It took us about 2 days
to get there which is about half the distance of your trip. I'd guess
it's a comfortable 4 to 5 day route. Hammer it out in four days each
way and then use the saved six days to go to Istanbul...

If you need a hotel in Germany about 600km from Zeebrugge then I can
recommend this one:
http://www.loewen-randersacker.de/

Reasonable rates and good food.

I think the dedicated bike sat navs work best because they're designed
for gloved fingers and are easier to operate when moving.

Plus something like a Garmin Zumo 400 can be picked up cheaply on ebay
(mine cost about 80 quid and I then got maps on a memory card for around
50 to give me a europe wide GPS).

<mode=grudge>
I wouldn't buy anything from Pentagon GPS though- they sold me a disk
upgrade which they claimed would allow me to put European maps on a UK
only GPS device. it didn't work and they refused to acknowledge this- I
eventually gave up calling them about it. I won't buy anything from
them again.
</mode=grudge>
Hmm maybe the GPS really cost me 80+50+45...

 

Bad man

 

wrote:

The TomTom Rider 2 is specifically designed not to be operated when
moving. Really irritating, but nothing a bit of insulation tape or nail
varnish can't fix.

 

Dry weather ever since I received mine, sorry

 

Bear in mind that there are two basic routes: via HU / RO / BG or via
Serbia. The first is all EU, the second isnt. If I were doing that, I'd
aim for Budapest (or Balaton, if you dont mind the miles) at the end of
day 2, then take thing gentle from there on. Balaton is a small detour,
but could well be worth it, if only for the laugh. I'd then head for
Sofia although the roads get progressively slower - past Budapest, things
tail off, and past Staro Zagora (halfway across BG) things get even
worse. Also allow for border hassle once you gone past the AT/HU one. I
see Goggle maps says go almost to Constansa and turn south, but then
you'd miss much of BG (not that missing either would be a great loss,
IMHO).

 

Cheers, I'll have a look, although Im less than keen on my Xperia X1.

 

Thanks for the info, sounds great to us

 

Thanks for the reply, I'm getting more excited the more routes I consider.

 

Thanks for the info, plenty more to think about

 

On Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:39:26 +0000, rda wrote:

I forgot to say: a quick call to your ins co may or may not rule out
Serbia as a cost effective option. I'd also check the level of cover
(over and above EU legal min) they'll offer for RO and BG.