Our journey between the capital cities of Romania to Bulgaria wasn’t the usual mindless motor down an autobahn. The route took us along narrow roads and through villages ,with bikes, pot holes and horses and carts to negotiate along the way. All was going brilliantly as we slavishly followed the satnav, until we turned a bend and came to a couple of ramshackle huts, a STOP sign, and the wide, watery expanse of the Danube river. 

It turns out that the best route between Bucharest and Sofia includes the Turnu Magurele Ferry, avoiding a four hour detour. T’internet said that the next ferry was in 90 minutes- but what does t’internet know? In the end we sat in the van overlooking the beautiful Danube riverside for 4 hours, just about the same time as the road-only detour. Luckily we were able to cobble together a salad, pop on the kettle and had a relatively relaxing time, just us in the teal-mobile and a load of Romanian truckers. The benefits of #vanlife!

Eventually we made it across the river, and even better we got through Bulgarian border control with our photocopied V5C document. Me and Mr G were so shifty and awkward handing across the papers, it was like we were in ‘We’re the Millers’ – I’m not sure we’d be suited to a career in smuggling.

As we were driving, we tracked DHL and our original V5C from Leeds to Leipzig and beyond. Will it beat us to Sofia?