Leaving Sofia (Careful comrade, as we say in Bulgaria "Speed Kills")

The big 40,000 (As we say in Bulgaria "I told you so")

Welcome to Greece (The birthplace of all that is good in the modern word - democracy, philosophy, geometry & kebabs)

Leaving Sophia presented the usual city navigation problems. Although to the south there is a huge ridge of mountains and we knew that we were to head generally west along the foot of them, finding the road was not that easy. Eventually we were on our way speeding along on a nice piece of asphalt. Overtaking is easy as even though we are heaped with gear. BMW have tuned the engine to give power in all the right places. As we overtook the lorry, it became clear that we had not seen the town limit signs because of the bulk of the vehicle we were passing. Out stepped PC Bulgar with one of those jolly lollies that they like to use in these parts.

"Documents!" Oh, sh... Just what we were trying to avoid. I casually climbed off what is the wrong side of the bike for me to put a bit of time between the policeman and me. Quick as a flash Helen asked if he wanted passports and slowly extracted same while I shuffled pieces of paper to hide the out of date carte verde. We had been advised at the hostel that the Bulgarian constabulary would probably not be able to read our normal British insurance doc and so we could probably get away with it. I next offered the international registration document which he clearly struggled with. He called over his mate from the other side of the road and judging by tone and body language, the conversation seemed to go as follows, "'Ere, can you remember what the Sarge said we were supposed to do with English tourists?" "Gawd, I can't remember. We'd better let him move on just in case. "

Suffice to say we avoided a fair amount of grief. I don't feel too much guilt about not having insurance, although it is a worry. The premium we were charged for two days would equate to 2,000 dollars a year which I consider a little steep.

Shortly after, the 40,000 miles came up on the clock and so we gave the bike a breather and had a photo call.

The road in the valley up to the Rila monastery wound on and up as we caught glimpses of snow capped mountains. We became increasingly worried. There appeared to be no traffic on this road to, reputedly, one of Bulgaria's number one attractions. .... Then we saw the car park of tour buses and school parties. Somehow, it seems strange that monks who choose to live in the solitude of a lonely valley then open their doors to camera snapping tourists. I suppose we all have to make a living! The monastery itself was filled with frescoes and the like, but the most amazing feature was a set of intricately carved crosses. Blown up photos were provided to let one appreciate the detail of the fine carving. Looking at the map Bansko was directly south and we hoped there may be an off-road route over the mountains to the next valley, we were informed that the only way was by foot and chickened out.

A rather distressing sight on the transfer from Rila to Bancko was the accident involving a horse cart and flat bed wagon. Clearly the cart had pulled out from a field at the side of the road as the wagon rounded a blind bend at high speed. It seemed to have attempted to steer round the horse but gone into a sideways drift and side swiped the horse. The poor beast lay dead in a bloody mass by the side of the road with its owner bowed over it. Clearly the poor chap had lost a huge part of his life and probably his most valuable asset. It is clear that although these horses are solely for work use, there must be a tremendous bond between the owners and the ponies. Quite a crowd had gathered and although this presented a photojournalist award situation, we chose to ride on and not interfere with the poor mans grief.

Bansko it at the foot of a range of mountains, which were already snow-capped awaiting the next layer for the skiing season to arrive. The centre was quite picturesque, half- timbered houses and cobbled streets. We retired with a bottle of the local and some chocolate hoping for nice light in the morning to capture what was most beautiful view up into the mountains.

Reclining in our deluxe room, we took the opportunity to watch Germany come back to get a one all draw in their play off match. Good luck to Ukraine in the return match.

The morning was misty.

We filled up with petrol to soak up the last of our Bulgar money and headed straight (ish) for the border. The huge capacity of the bike tank has made this a most convenient way of managing our financial affairs. In normal circumstances, one is always trying to get out just the right amount to hit zero on the exit from a country to avoid the double whammy of changing cash again and again. The down side of our strategy is that we never have any money for a cup of coffee and have to high tail to the border.

In this case, we suffered a little in the lack of coffee department as we chose a squiggly route and so took quite some time. The riding was superb and I didn't notice the shortage too much, but I'm sure Hippy counted the minutes. The road twisted as it hugged the hillside the surface was perfect and the bike swept easily along, for mile after enjoyable mile. Until.......the EU funding ran out, all remnants of a surface forgotten long ago, the off-road abilities on the bike would be put to the test as the rough gravel track descended through hair-pin bends into the valley. The last few miles to the border and tarmac reappeared and rider, passenger and bike all safe.

There was an air of efficiency at the border as we crosses back into the EU. Equipped with no map we were relying on the force to guide us to Thessolonika. We were relieved to be faced with clear signposts in both Greek and standard script. Personally I was marginally disappointed that my efforts the evening before to learn place names in Greek were wasted.

The good quality main roads seemed very dull in the monotony that only fast motorways can create. Efficient but sleep inducingly dull. With no map we decided to head straight to the promenade in Thessy and then find our bearings and find a Hotel. We had acquired a fairly awful American publication equivalent to Lonely Planet in Sophia in exchange for our now redundant Eastern Europe book and we soon tracked down what it considered to be a cheap hotel. (not by our reckoning, but maybe we'd been in the East too long).

Our passage throgh Thessaloniki had been quite a change for us. Sure, the drivers were madder than a mad thing, but that's just cities. No, what it was was the number and variety of bikes and the lack of helmets and the sea front posing on scooters and the babes clagged in layers of makeup and.......... We felt comfortable parking the bike in the street in the knowledge that there were far better steeds to catch the eye of potential thieves.