In Bulgaria - Summer 2008

Barry and Margaret Williamson

July 2008

We are writing this piece at Sakar Hills Camping in Biser, near Harmanli in Southeast Bulgaria, at the end of a 3-month 3,700-mile (5,920-km) motorhome tour of Turkey. We left Turkey at the end of June, via Edirne and a brief foray south into Greece for a couple of nights of camping in Alexandroupolis. Driving north again, we crossed into Bulgaria near Svilengrad and made straight for this excellent English-owned and managed campsite.

Here we stay for the few weeks of high summer, enjoying the dry heat of Southeast Bulgaria and avoiding the expense and crowds of much of Europe during this season when the world is turned over to holiday-makers. Here, work continues in the fields and in the farms. 

For logs of our 3-month journey in Turkey and other Turkish Delights, click: In Turkey

For images of our 3-month journey in Turkey, click: Turkey in Colour

Introduction

The map shows the mountainous region to the south of Sakar Hills Camping which itself lies between Harmanli and Lyubimets. The Greek border is in the bottom right of the map and Turkey is just off the top half of the map, east of Svilengrad. For more maps and profiles of this part of Bulgaria, click: maps and profiles.

We're gradually getting acclimatised to being in Southeast Bulgaria (culturally and linguistically as well as meteorologically) and starting to explore the region by bicycle, despite the dry heat of high summer. Reports of continual rain from northern England, Germany and France make us better able to bear our lot! The bad news is that it's raining through a hole in the roof of our Huddersfield house, but that's another story, being unfolded by our letting agent!

We were without the use of our bicycles for much of the recent 3 months and 3,700 motorhoming miles in Turkey, as we travelled continuously through the eastern half of the country, as far as the Georgian border. The front forks on Margaret's bike got severely bent and Paul Hewitt, who built the bikes in Leyland last summer, took some time to make another set of forks with all the required braze-ons and a matching colour. He finally sent them out to this campsite, here in Bulgaria (since we couldn't trust the post to Turkey) and at last Barry has been able to rebuild the bicycle.

So here we are, just starting to rediscover the fitness we gained in Greece last winter. Fitness is a strange fellow traveller, which can never be taken for granted. Sometimes it is with us; sometimes it slides away when we are not looking. Then, just riding the bicycles or walking the hills, we experience its slow return. Sometimes, we don't even notice that we have it until we walk or ride with someone who is without it. What is for sure is that we can't buy it or borrow it and we can't pass it on to someone else. As the years roll by, we are happy just to have it hanging around, ready to be used!

We are settled on an excellent campsite - Sakar Hills - owned and run by an English family, the Jeffes: Martin & Shirley and their son, Matt. The site is up to Caravan Club standards in a country where the very few existing campsites date from the Stalinist era, when people went to Gulags for a break. Only the German campsite guide book, the 'ADAC Campingführer', even mentions Bulgaria - and then with only 3 entries. The Jeffes are also personally very kind and helpful, opening a splendid gateway into the Bulgarian way of life and the lives of other expatriates.

We've found a friendly couple from Liverpool, John and Carol (the only expatriates living in nearby Biser village), while Mervyn, a tobacco and melon-growing farmer from Somerset, rents the campsite apartment. A lovely Geordie, Bob, also has a caravan here, helping on the site until he moves onto his own property in another village, high in the hills. Between these people and the villagers, there's quite a cast of characters to interact with in the (surprisingly plentiful) local cafes and restaurants. It would make a good series - Bulgaria's answer to the Archers: An Everyday Story of Bulgar Folk ... 

By the way, if you want a house in the country, with an acre or three plus outbuildings, for 15,000 euros (say 11,500 pounds, but rising as the pound falls) - this is the place! The prices and the quality of the housing are beyond our belief! And Bulgaria now has the infrastructure (materials and labour) for necessary 'improvements'. The usual unreformed and slightly corrupt bureaucracy and law enforcement prevail, but they do seem to be more easily confronted or bypassed than in France or Greece - two other countries in which we know something of the experience of expatriates. For example, cars can be re-registered in half a day - if you happen to know the local Police Chief - and planning permission can just mean having a good relationship with the village Mayor.

We have distant views of mountains to the south - the Rhodopes which form the border with Greece, a half-day bicycle ride away. A few miles to the east lies Turkey, while the Black Sea coast is over the empty horizon to the north-east. Romania is due north and Serbia due west. This is a splendid little corner tucked away almost out of this world. Bloody hot in the summer (as now), dry cold snow in the winter, perfect in between.

There is a wealth of history in these hills and valleys, with prehistoric, Thracian, Roman and pre-Ottoman remains, only now being uncovered with help from EU funds. Our most recent cycle ride – 51 dehydrating miles and 2,500 ft of climbing on quiet lanes – took in a Thracian tomb and a medieval fort, as well as the local watermelon co-operative! See the profile of this ride on the right.

High summer means a wealth of produce and we have our own fruit & vegetable mountain: melons, peaches, apricots, plums, figs, pears, sweet corn, courgettes, marrows, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic  … all freely given by the kindest of Bulgarian neighbours and English friends. During the not-so-distant Iron Curtain days, gardening here was a Life Saver, rather than a Life Style, and every home, however humble, still has a large piece of land in full production.

The local commercial crops include sunflowers (the Balkan alternative to olive trees, feeding the oil mills) and tobacco (feeding a cigarette factory in nearby Harmanli). The fields (and much else) are worked by gipsy labour, using horse, mule and donkey carts as transport. Storks nest all round us, the young now peering anxiously down at the ground over which they must soon learn to fly! We shall migrate with them, before the harsh winter sets in: they to the south, we to the west.

Turkey, in hindsight, was wonderful, all 3,700-miles of it. We've now finished writing it up, with maps and images, and heads full of ideas for a return visit (Insh Allah).  For now, we must get our heads down again and try to do justice to southeastern Bulgaria, with words and images. It will be challenging to write about our expatriate character-friends, though, complex and interesting as they are, in case we want to be welcomed back in the future!

(to be continued)