We got to Plovdiv fairly quickly and found the hotel with ease (some may call it luck). We stayed in Plovdiv for a few nights and found it to be a lovely city, certainly much nicer than Sofia from what we saw of it.
In Plovdiv there is an old Roman amphitheatre buried below street level, and at one end of it you can look down an excavated hole into the seats right in the middle of the pedestrian mall.
With our cashflow woes behind us finally, we could take our time and enjoy Bulgaria.

After Plovdiv we went to Veliko Tarnovo, a small town nestled amongst a gorge and has an old citadel that is relatively intact. Our hotel room had an uninterrupted view of it which was nice at night as it was all lit up.
We explored the citadel and we were greeted by some thunderbird type animated robots controlled by a guy on a keyboard. They were tellıng us about the history of the citadel, but one of the characters was an annoyıng little twit of a jester with an irritating high pitched voice, so we moved on.
Property prices there are extremely cheap, we could have purchased a 1000 sqM block of land with a house for around £2000, but the legal system hasn´t stabalised yet. We visited an eco-friendly wellbeing vıllage that was being built by a few brits, all very nice indeed.

After Veliko Tarnovo, we rode East towards Varna, a coastal city on the Black Sea coast. It was nice enough, but we didn't stay too long there before rıdıng South to our final destination ın Bulgaria. We were aiming for Maliko Tarovo, only 9KM from the border, but the weather was so nice that we decided to stay on the coast. We stopped at a few resort towns until we found one that had a hotel that was open (all the coastal resort towns become ghost towns out of season). We found one in Kiten and stayed the night.

The next day we rode off for the Turkish border. The road was really bad wıth sectıons of the road completely missıng, potholes that were vyıng for the Guiness World Record and lots of loose gravel on rather tight bends. This made for a rather tiring ride.

Going through the border checkpoint took us half an hour, but we timed it well, others had been waiting for well over an hour as the customs chap (the fınal stage in the process) was apparently asleep and was nowhere to be found.

The roads instantly improved and we had a quick ride to Istanbul wıth a few light showers and one complete downpour that only lasted a few minutes. We had already sussed out the location of the hotel so found it relatively easıly.

We have been in Istanbul for three days now, and have done some exploring. We vısıted the Grand Bazaar and the Spıce Bazaar and have sampled the local delights. We will be taking a river tour of the Bosphorus tomorrow.

Steve was pıckpocketed yesterday (very brave pickpocketers indeed). It was the usual distraction type team effort where one guy on a mobile phone was in front of Steve, this guy all of a sudden stopped in hıs tracks and pushed back ınto Steve giving the other idiot the opportunity to dip his hand into Steve's pocket. What they weren't countıng on was Steve knowing exactly what was going on and sprinting around the corner grabbing the pocket picker ın a vice grip, recovering the taken items, and also the thiefs mobile phone and jacket (that was used to hide the stolen items). The thief was very lucky that Steve didn't break his arm. That certainly would have happened if they did it to Lız. We gave the thiefs belongings to the police who were very appologetic that it happened, but they were impressed that Steve got his stuff back and some of the thiefs.

This incident took Liz's outlook on humanity back a bit, but Steve reminds her that we came out of it better off than the two wannabe master thieves.

We leave Istanbul in a few days, we're not sure where we will be for our anniversary, but it won't be too far from Istanbul. We wıll be heading South visiting Galıpolı and the Agean coastline toward Izmır, then accross the Med coast along the South of Turkey and up toward Ankara where we collect our Iranian visas. We'll update you all from there.

The weather has been great so far, a couple of days rain here in Istanbul, but atleast we aren't riding.

Untıl next time guys and gals.

We're so happy ın Montenegro. Lız and Steve dancıng the blues away.

Wow, what a difference crossing the Adriatic can make.
Steve's mother warned him about 'those Montenegrans', 'they can be a bit funny' she said. We found Montenegro a beautiful place with lovely welcoming people who are fiercley proud of their newly separated country.
Leaving the ferry from Italy at Bar, we rode through the first mountain range and stopped after only a short ride at Virpazar, a little walled town surounded by water with an overlooking castle. We met some really nice people there who were very interested in our trip (some thought we were mad, how did they know that??) and they were very happy that we were visiting their lovely new country.
The next day we had a longer ride through a gorge where the road was cleft into the sheer cliffs (photos of this will be uploaded soon on Snapfish). The road had plenty of tunnels that had no lights, snaking bends and water that would have taken many years to filter through the rock sprinkling down on us as we gingerly rode through them. The scenery along this road was absolutely breathtaking and awe inspiring, a very humbling experience for us both. We found ourselves at what can only be described as the worlds best kept secret, Kolasin, a snow resort high in valleys of several majestic snowcapped mountains. The snow was still on the mountain tops, but it was too late to see the snow in the valley. We stayed at a lovely resort and spa of a standard that would put the likes of Falls Creek well to shame. The service was second to none, and even the General Manager took time out to chat to us. he was very envious of our travels, and thrilled that we were staying at his resort.
The next part of the journey took us to Serbia and the politeness and friendliness continued.
We stopped at Uzice which is a very industrial town, and stayed at a hotel that is a relic of the old Russian era, full of chrome and not very well looked after. We slept in our sleeping bags that night - that should give you some indication of the hotel! It was a three star - my a**e!
Next was Nis, our last stop in Serbia, a lovely place packed with history. We visited the tower of skulls there, a gruesome warning to Serbs by a rather nasty Turkish General. The story is that the Serbs lead by a local Duke stormed the Turkish trenches, and realising that the situation was hopeless, the Duke fired his flintlock pistol into the Turkish powder magazine blowing it, himself, several thousand of his troops and even more Turks to kingdom come. Although quite an impact, it didn't quell the Turkish might, and the General paid for the heads of the dead serbs, skinned them, stuffed the skins and sent them to Constantinople and built a tower out of the skulls to warn the Serbs not to try it again. Only 58 skulls remain as relatives claimed most of the skulls after the Ottoman occupation. The hotel we stayed at arranged a booking at a local restaurant serving tradition Serbian food. It was delicious and the waiter spoke good English - thank goodness as our Serbian is non-existent. We were also given some mementos for 'Women's Day'. They made us feel very welcome and the food certainly filled us up.
Into Bulgaria with little fuss (here's a hint, don't attempt any humour with border guards, they just don't get it), and on to a little town in the hills called Koprivshtica, an historic litte town where some of the impressive homes have been turned into museums. We shall be off tomorrow to Plovdiv, then working our way to the Black Sea coast, then South to Turkey (I'll keep my jokes to myself this time).
Oh, and by the way, the ATM machines work with our cards in Bulgaria YAY!!!!!!
Thanks for all the messages guys, it's nice to know you are reading our bloggs. We will take time to e-mail you all as soon as we can, probably in Turkey as we will be staying there for a bit.

Steve sayıng goodbye to Italy.

WARNING FOR CHILDREN - THERE MAY BE SOME BAD LANGUAGE IN THIS BLOG ENTRY!!!!

Well, Italy may have started off with beautiful scenery and awful drivers, but we can officially say Italy blows and sucks big time. Italians are rude, impatient and unhelpful. They drive as if the next location is there last and they must get there at all costs - running red lights, creating three or four lanes on a two lane road, changing lanes without indicating/looking (alright, that one is probably universal for bikers) and using horns insistently. While riding into Latina, Steve was nearly knocked off the bike by a driver who changed lanes without looking or indicating. Steve did a great job controlling the bike but ended up on the other side of the road. Luckily, there was no traffic either way and he could try to compose himself. It could have been a really bad accident.

Although it has been great to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Pompei, our time in Italy has been marred by the above and lack of any ATM accepting our card. We were fine throughout France but once into Italy, we came a cropper. At least petrol and hotels were accepting the card but cash is still required. We have spent numerous hours and miles walking the streets of towns in Italy trying to find ATMs to accept the card (gave up), getting a bank to do a cash advance or even getting a Western Union transfer. We have also spent numerous hours on the phone to the bank in the UK as we were told our card would work worldwide. They also told us any bank can do cash advances. We think they need to do their homework more thoroughly as it is very different on the ground. It has also been hard to find helpful Italians with our cash dilemma. Thank goodness we leave Italy Friday 2 March for Bar in Montenegro.

It has been difficult as were not expecting problems in a modern, developed country. However, by the smells and run down buildings, we could be in Thailand. Not being able to access funds when you have a nice bank balance has also been incredibly frustrating, stressful and headache creating! While this has been going on, Vodafone also cut our phones off so we had to use hotels phones (expensive) to try to find out why, and to also contact our bank. At least the phones are back on (after about a week and then complaining and advising we would close the account).

So as you can see, Italy has not been great for us. There have been some good points: some very good food at local restaurants, cafe owners interested in our trip but neither of us speaking each other's language, the sights of old Italy and the weather has been generally lovely.

If you are keeping an eye on the route, as mentioned in the earlier blog, we came into Italy along the Med coast from France into San Remo, then onto Pisa, Latina, Salerno and finally Bari. We will not re-visit Venice or go upto the colder climes of Austria and Hungary. From the ferry to Bar in Montenegro, we will travel through into Serbia and onto Bulgaria and then Turkey.

So here is to a much better time in Eastern Europe! At least in these countries we know it might be a bit difficult and are looking forward to the adventures as they happen.