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Saturday | Meet & greet day in Veliko Tarnovo. Hotel can be arranged if required, at Client's expense. |                     |
| Sunday | We head out of Veliko Tarnovo and leave Tarmac at the edge of town. We head for Elena, then on to Bozhentsi (a Museum village) ending the day at Kotel and staying in a local family hotel. Between towns and villages it is nearly all off road. The places we stop during the days are easy to find on the internet and are covered in detail. | ||
| Monday | From Kotel we head up in to the mountains to Zheravna with it 's Traditional Timber frame houses. From here we head west along the top of the stara planina mountains stopping on the way at Buzludzha and Shipka Monuments and ending the day in Shipka At The Shipka IT Hotel, a really friendly family Hotel. | ||
| Tuesday | There is time in the morning to visit the golden domed church in shipka, and just on the edge of the village we will go and look at a thracian tomb. We then head west along the south side of the mountains, then north off-road up through the central balkan national park and over to Apriltsi. This mountain pass(may be closed due to snow at certain times of year )is the highest unpaved crossing in the region. We spend the night at a larger hotel, the Hotel Panorama This has, as the name suggests, beautiful panoramic views of the mountains you have just crossed. | ||
| Wednesday | Today is a day of low mountain forest logging tracks and trails. We will stop for a picnic on the way as there will be only a few small sleepy villages on our route. We end the day at a small village called Sennik. There we stay at a really great family run hotel with restaurant. This is not a tourist place but a very high standard hotel used by Bulgarians. | ||
| Thursday | After a morning drive through the Bulgarian countryside we stop early to make camp on Stamboliskiy Lake for a break from driving - a time to go swimming or do water sports such as wake-boarding. We can also organize kayaking, climbing or hiking for the afternoon if people are interested. This is a night of semi-wild camping as there is a bar and some very basic facilities.We can organize B+B for anyone that prefers not to camp (at extra cost). | ||
| Friday | A total contrast in countryside as we cross the Devetaki Plateau. At the cliffs along the edge of the Plateau we will visit the Devetaki caves. These have the largest entrance hall on the Balkan peninsula at over 30m high. Then moving along the edge of the Plateau there is the Krushuna waterfalls and we end the week at the Persina National Park on the Danube. The wetlands here are home to a large number of endangered wildlife species. We will again stay at a small local family hotel for the last night of the first week. | ||
| Saturday | For those only doing one week it is time to say goodbye, and to say Hello to anyone joining us. Fly/drives will join us here but tag-alongs can join us later in the day in Romania or on the Sunday morning. After saying our goodbyes and hellos we catch the ferry to Romania and drive north to Sinaia to stay at the splendid Sinaia Hotel. For anyone on the full two weeks Adventure or one week Fly/Drive this hotel is included in the price. For anyone doing tag-along we can book them rooms at extra cost as the one week Adventure starts on Sunday morning. | ||
| Sunday | The week starts with a short walk from the hotel to Peles Castle where people can do the full 2 hour tour or just have a stroll around the gardens. Then back to our vehicles, doing a bit of shopping on the way for a picnic lunch. We head off across the mountains towards Bran. After crossing the mountains by road we do the last section on forest trails, stopping for a picnic on the way. We finish the day in Bran with time to visit Bran castle before setting up camp at Vampire camping. For those who would rather stay at a hotel we can arrange this at extra cost. | ||
| Monday | From Bran we travel mostly off-road through the beautiful Romanian countryside, passing old Saxon villages with their fortified churches, stopping at the one at Viscri. We will also see traditional charcoal burners along the way. We end the day with a wild camp overlooking our guide's village, a village time has forgotten. | ||
| Tuesday | We drive down to our guide's village for a walk around a fast disappearing piece of history. There are no paved roads here and probably never will be. After this we drive down to the medieval town of Sighisoara. We will stay at the campsite in the center of town (they have rooms for those who don't want to camp - again, camping is included, rooms are not). The afternoon gives people plenty of time to relax and explore this medieval walled citadel, birthplace of Vlad Tepes. | ||
| Wednesday | The days get longer from now on. We head out of town again, stopping to buy things for picnic lunch as we head off towards the mountains. On the way we go through Saxon villages. We go through one called Movile. This is not the surprise. The big surprise is the burial mounds just beyond the village. I can find out nothing about them and the locals say that God built them. This is a fantastic place which few people ever see and no tour group can get to. Carrying on, we end the day with a river crossing by a hand-pulled pontoon (if the ferry man is there). We also wade a smaller river and end at the Albota Complex. This is so nice that people don't want to leave. | ||
| Thursday | Today is the famed Transfagarasan Highway, the road everyone wants to drive. When we drop down the south side we will drive the western edge of the lake (which is all off-road) and rejoin the road at the Dam for the final leg of the pass, ending at the base of Poienari Castle, the Home of Vlad Tepes (Dracula). Here we will set up camp in the shadow of the Castle, with time for those who want to climb up the 1,480 steps to the castle. There is also a hotel (at extra cost) here for those who don't want to camp. | ||
| Friday | Today we cross the mountains twice. First we go north in the direction of Sibiu, then off-road we head southwest through the mountains to the DN67C, the Trans-Alpina. This is the best Alpine crossing in Europe! We end the day at another nice family run hotel at the entrance to the Gorj-Valcea. | ||
| Saturday | The fly/drives return to Bulgaria with me and the Tag-alongs are free to explore the Gorge and rest before they head home. | ||
PricesAdventure Holiday with own vehicle A one week Adventure with 2 people sharing their own vehicle cost's €545 per person, or a two week Adventure with 2 people sharing cost's €1,090 per person. A minimum of 5 vehicles is need for the trip.* For children sharing a room with parents add €25 a day, and for adults with a extra room add €50 a day. Group or club discounts on bookings of 5 + vehicles Fly/Drive with hired Land Rover A one week Adventure cost's € 1,495 based on 2 people sharing 1 vehicle, or €2990 for 2 weeks(flights not included). Each of our Discoverys is fully off-road prepared and equipped, complete with camping equipment and recovery equipment. These vehicles can take 4 people. For children sharing a room with parents add €25 a day. For adults with a extra room add €50a day. Also included is the pickup and return to Sofia Airport. Other airports can be arranged but this will be at extra cost. Vehicles come with a full tank of fuel and must be returned with a full tank of fuel. As a rough guide, in Bulgaria you will use 20-30 litres a day; in Romania there is more road work and longer distances and will use 30-40 litres a day. Insurance; our Vehicles are fully road legal and have green cards, but have Third Party insurance only.So we require that all clients have their own Holiday insurance for themselves. For the Vehicles we need a €200 deposit for Accidental damage. We fix any problems in our own workshop and import the parts ourselves so repairs are cheap and we will never charge any more than the €200 deposit. you will not lose all the deposit for a small breakage, just what the repair costs. |
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