Our journey

We started our journey on Tuesday April 1st 2008 by Superfast Ferry from Rosyth. We arrived in Zeebrugge on Wednesday morning and after spending some time trying to actually get out of the port there we were on our way to Stuttgart the first of our scheduled stops now not having driven on the right hand side of the before we decided that we would only drive in daylight so after approx 8 hrs of driving we arrived at our first destination Stuttgart and after a very pleasant nights stay we set out early for our next step in our journey.

From Stuttgart we drove through the Austrian mountains veiwing some of the most spectacular scenery we have ever seen. Snow capped mountains lush green meadows just amazing.

We then carried on down through Italy and if I thought Austria was amazing Italy was double it.

I can see why people love it so much.

So after negoiating the Itallian road tolls we arrived in Venice our second scheduled stop.

This was the first time either of us had been to Venice and it was just magical, Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but still wonderful.

So we spent a night in one of the most romantic cities in Europe.

Next day we boarded a ferry from Venice to Igumenitsa in Greece which took approx 11 hours

after arriving in port and the quick disembarking from the ferry we made our way out of Igumenitsa and into the greek mountains, Again we were faced with some of the most spectacular scenery.

But certainly not to be rushed there was winding roads, tight hairpin bends and narrow roads in places. We had intended to drive straight into Sofia Bulgaria and spend the night there but it actually took us longer than expected to drive the mountains. And as it was getting dark we decided to have an unscheduled stop over in Thessalonika so we used the sat nav to find us a hotel and hey presto it did.

This was now Sunday morning and after a tiring few days we were finally on our last leg of the journey.

We left Thessalonika early that morning for our final stage in our adventure.

We had heard horror stories about the Border crossing so we weren't looking forward to it. But we had no problems at all apart from the guard being amazed that were was actually a dog in the car we were allowed to proceed. We had finally arrived in Bulgaria all we had to do now was find our way into Yambol where we had rented a flat. So as we proceeded down the road our destination got nearer and nearer the more excited we got. Then we hit the Sofia ring road and what a road. You certainly had to keep your wits about you thankfully Hubby did all the driving we eventually managed to get out of Sofia and onto the motorway heading for Yambol The road we were travelling on was very fast and we encountered some of the craziest drivers ever.

Time was catching up on us we had arranged to be in Yambol early afternoon it was nearly 6 oclock when we arrived. So after an exhausting 5 days we had finally done it.

All in all it took us 5 days 2 ferry trips 3 overnight hotel stays and 33 hrs driving but it was all certainly worth it.

Our directions were taken from www.viamichelin.com

We are now settled in a lovely little village in South East Bulgaria and living what we regard as our dream.