Istanbul to Sofia

We got out of Istanbul quickly and headed up to the Bulgarian border by car - the train tracks are still being built for that part of the journey. We had set off earlyish, to avoid getting stuck in traffic out of Istanbul on this 5 day bank holiday weekend. Leaving Istanbul always reminds us just how huge the city is. Just as you think it is finishing, there is another outbreak of high rise buildings. Then you reach some green countryside and seaside towns full of second homes of people living in Istanbul. The border isn't far beyond. Although we'd beat the traffic out, quite a lot of people had beaten us to the border. We picked a series of the slowest moving queues for passport checks and customs. 4 hours into the queuing there was a diplomatic channel, but we didn't feel cheeky enough to push our way through the other queues of cars and asking someone to open it up, so we took another hour in the baking hot queues. I'm not that comfortable about claiming “VIP” treatment, when I consider everyone to be very important. The random payment for disinfection of our car was waived because of our diplomatic plates. What privilege! When I referred back to the queues later, Reuben said “they weren't bad though - we played lots of games”. Monopoly deal and battleships got us through it. 12 hours after we set off, Naomi was beginning to ask if she could sit on my lap, but she knew that she couldn't.

In Bulgaria, we enjoyed driving through plains with green fields, with occasional yellow fields of sunflowers and purple fields of flowers. There were mountains in the background which looked like cardboard cut outs, until we watched a storm come over them and rain fall on them.

We arrived in Sofia rather later than expected, so our time seeing it was mostly as we drove through although Reuben and Tim parked the car that the Embassy and explored on foot on the way back. Reuben and Miriam were very excited by Sofia, taking photos of historic buildings, monuments, a beautiful church with golden domes, some underground ruins, and an illuminated fountain. They are working on a  “secret” presentation of our trip on the iPad - which has given them an extra way of engaging in the journey. At the hotel, they hooted with laughter in the bathroom and I tried to imagine what could possibly be that funny in there, as they rushed out and led me in to show me a “sink in the shape of a toilet”. The first time they had seen a bidet, and it was the most hilarious thing they'd seen in a long time.

Sorry for the lack of photos on the blog - I thought it would be simple, but I've not blogged from an iPad before.