Trip to Constanța.
It is time to move to the eighth country of my trip around the world. It is actually not clear how to do it but as usual, if you want to achieve a goal, starting doing it is often a good move. I prefer not to walk with my heavy luggage to the station so I take a local bus. I notice that in the bus there is something written in Hebraic and it doesn’t look as something built in the bus due to original factory. Unfortunately only thing I know about Hebraic is that it should be read it from right to left. I think it was some customisation done by the bus driver like also the many peluche puppets sitting on the bus dashboard. The weather is unfortunately still quite bad and every thing around is painted in grey colour. Bus to Shabla, my first destination leaves in about half an hour.

I have time to eat something and have a coffee. Yesterday I had breakfast in the hotel but it wasn’t that good so I’ve chosen not to repeat the experience. Mini van to Shabla starts on time and it follows a internal road far from the coast and therefore landscape outside is very boring. We stop for a long time in a village called Kavala but after it other stops are quite fast. Before Shabla we go through a quite big wind farm. Once I’m in Shabla bus station, a very tiny one, there is a taxi waiting and since I see the taxi driver talking with the bus driver I guess that maybe taxi driver was informed about my presence. Well, who cares, good for me. I agree the fee to go to Mangalia. 20 Euro for 40 kilometres is not bad even if I’m sure a local would obtain a better price but I’m not in the position to deal. Border crossing is easy even if both Countries are not in Schengen area. No stop at all on Bulgarian side, just a short one on Romanian side.

I say to myself that this is the last border in this trip I’m crossing without passport that is meanwhile safely arrived in Bucarest with Russian and Chinese visa on it. It looks Romanians like strange names for villages. First of all I’ve noticed two towns named after dates such as 2 Mai and 23 August. In my life I’ve seen many streets with this kind of names but is the first time I see same methodology used for towns. From the calendar one we move to another category: Greek Mythology. The serie of sea resort villages right after the border have names such as Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Olimp. Well Olimp should have been the area with all the Gods’ named villages within. Isn’t it? In Mangalia I’m lucky because the bus to Constanța is already there, ready to leave in 10 minutes and I’m lucky once more because the few Romania Lei I had in the wallet from a previous trip are enough to buy the ticket (9.5 Lei) and something to eat. Along the road I keep seeing villages with many hotels and restaurants much more frequently than in Bulgaria. I realise that Bulgaria and Romania have more or less same coast length but Romania is much bigger and with a bigger population so this holiday villages have a much bigger market to serve. The bus is clean and comfortable and leads me to Constanța in about 45 minutes.
This post continues to
next page