Bulgaria – Sofia

Day 8

13-01-2011 Evening
Bulgaria – TIR Prking place before Sofiat
Total 2375 km
Temp +6

Just a littlle bit of explanation to the previous post - isn`t it more interesting and great to see all these animals living at the Zoo in the nature ? In their natural environment?

Of course! Camels and crocodiles and monkeys and many others for sure!

But honestly I don`t want to meet in their natural surroundings some other animals like anaconda, Ussuri tiger and polar bear. Of course - this list is not finished.

Tiger. Fortunately we were separared by bars and wall of glass.

In the meantime a little change was made in the plan. The first idea was to go to Bulgaria over Rumenia, anyway - a part of EU. No border and customs formalities and etc.
But the shortest road was said to go over Serbia. And supposed to be a decant highway. And my green car-insurance document (which nobody wanted to look at,) should be valid also in Serbia.

As Serbia does not belong to EU, it was the first offical border crossing.
First - border guards and passport checking and then the customs. Everything took very little time on both sides.The Serbian border-guards put a stamp in my new passport and their customs had a look inside the car from the side door and asked where I was going. I told them that to Bulgaria and their answer to me was - to go on. And I was in Serbia.

I had no wish to drive a long way in the dark the night was spent at a gas-station near Belgrad

The weather is the same. These are pictures before reaching Bulgaria.

Further eastwards it changed more mountainous. and somehow familiar road-signs - in kirillitsa.

The border of Serbia-Bulgaria. Almost a kilometre long queue of lorries.most of them having the turkeyish number-plate. Consequently it should be the right road. Almost no small cars in sight.
So the big cars were just passed by until the border came into sight.

And the the returning to EU was as easy as the leaving had been. Just a look at the passport but no stamp.

The custom asked only about sigarettes and as I had none my answer was negative.
The money - at the border one euro was 1,9 BGN. Tomorrow the general prices are seen.